Your First Paid Form in 10 Minutes

This walks through the fastest real path from installing ChargeForms to a form that actually charges a card — useful as a first project regardless of what your final form ends up looking like, since it touches every piece (fields, payment setup, testing) you'll reuse later.

1. Install and activate (2 min)

If you haven't already, follow Getting Started to install and activate the plugin. This step alone takes under two minutes on a typical WordPress install.

2. Create the form (2 min)

From ChargeForms → Add New, start from a blank form or the "Simple Order Form" template if it's available in your version. Add:

• A Single Line Text field for the customer's name
• An Email field
• A Payment Item field — this is what actually defines what's being charged and how much

Keep it to these three fields for now. You can always add more once the payment flow itself is working.

3. Connect Stripe in test mode (3 min)

Go to ChargeForms → Global Settings → Payment Settings and add your Stripe test mode publishable and secret keys — found in the Stripe Dashboard under Developers → API keys, with the "Test mode" toggle on. Using test keys here means no real card is ever charged while you're building. See Stripe Test Mode if you want the full detail on this step.

4. Configure the Payment Item field (2 min)

Open the Payment Item field's settings and set a fixed price (e.g., $10.00) to keep this first form simple — conditional or calculated pricing is worth exploring once the basic flow works. Save the form.

5. Test it end-to-end (1 min)

Embed the form on a page (or use the built-in preview), fill it out, and pay with a Stripe test card number like 4242 4242 4242 4242, any future expiry date, and any 3-digit CVC. Submit, and confirm:

• The submission appears under ChargeForms → Entries
• The payment shows as a test transaction in your Stripe Dashboard (Test mode)
• Your confirmation email notification fires (if configured)

What's next

Once this works, the natural next steps are adding conditional logic so the form adapts based on what's selected, or a webhook to send the submission data somewhere else automatically. When you're ready to accept real payments, switch the Payment Settings keys from test to live mode — nothing else about the form needs to change.