WooCommerce

Split payments on WooCommerce: the extension that lets customers pay together

“Payer à plusieurs” (Pay together) is added alongside your existing payment methods. The customer shares a link, everyone pays their share, and the order is released automatically once the total is reached. You get paid once, into your Stripe account.

Updated September 12, 2026 · 7-minute read

WooCommerce knows how to take payment for an order from one customer. It doesn't know how to take it from four. For a holiday cottage booked with friends, a batch of concert tickets or a joint gift, one person has to pay for everything up front — or the group has to sort it out elsewhere and come back, if it ever does.

The Copay extension fills exactly that gap, without changing anything else in your store: it's one more payment gateway in WooCommerce > Settings > Payments, next to the ones you already have.

What the extension does

• Adds “Payer à plusieurs” (Pay together) to the checkout, both classic and block-based (WooCommerce's two checkout page engines).
• Creates the pool with the total calculated by WooCommerce — taxes, shipping and discounts included. No parallel recalculation, so not a cent of difference between the order and the amount collected.
• Puts the order on hold and reserves the stock during collection: the group won't find the product sold out in the meantime.
• Releases the order automatically when the pool succeeds, and moves it to the usual processing status.
• Cancels the order and restocks the items if the pool doesn't succeed.
• Supports refunds from the usual button in the WooCommerce admin, full or partial, split pro rata between contributors. No new interface to learn.

Where the money goes

It's the question that settles it, so it comes first. The funds never pass through Copay. Contributions are collected as card authorizations — Stripe authorizations with manual capture — directly on your Stripe account, then captured in one go once the total is reached.

Two practical consequences: you keep your usual Stripe payout schedule, and at no point does your revenue sit in a third party's account. Also, no card data ever touches your server — card details are entered in Stripe's hosted fields, which keeps you out of the heavy scope of PCI compliance.

The limit to know before you decide

A pool can't last more than 7 days. This isn't Copay's choice: it's how long Stripe keeps funds on hold under a card authorization. We'd rather say so here than let you find out later.

Throughout the collection, the order's stock stays reserved — hence a default setting of 72 hours rather than the maximum allowed. Three days are enough for a motivated group, and tie up a third as much stock. The duration can be changed in the extension settings.

If you need a pool that stays open for several weeks — a baby registry, for example — this isn't the right tool, and the comparison with classic online kitties explains why.

What you need to get started

1. A store on WooCommerce 8.3 or later, running WordPress 6.5 or later and PHP 7.4 or later. In other words: an up-to-date store.
2. A Stripe account. The one you already have, if any — it gets linked to Copay, not replaced.
3. A Copay account, which you create yourself in a minute, with your Stripe account linked.

You install it like any other WordPress plugin, from the archive you download in your Copay dashboard once your account is created: Plugins > Add New Plugin > Upload Plugin. The “Connecter ma boutique à Copay” (Connect my store to Copay) button then links the store to your account and sets everything up, with nothing to copy and paste. The extension isn't listed in the WordPress plugin directory yet — that's in progress, and it makes no difference to how it works.

Questions WooCommerce merchants ask

Does it replace my current payment gateway?

No. Copay is added to your list of payment methods. Customers paying alone keep paying exactly as before; “Payer à plusieurs” (Pay together) only comes into play for those who choose it. You can even enable it for certain categories only.

What about my accounting?

One order, one payment. The split between participants happens before capture; what shows up in your Stripe and WooCommerce exports is a single transaction for the order amount. Nothing to reconcile line by line.

What does a participant who didn't place the order see?

A contribution page hosted by Copay, showing the order details, what's left to cover, and a card field. They don't need an account, neither on your store nor with Copay.

Can my store's theme break the display?

The payment method is displayed through WooCommerce's standard mechanisms, so it follows your theme. The thing to check is the block-based checkout, which is newer and more theme-dependent: that's exactly what a trial order in test mode shows you, on your own store.

What if my store doesn't run on WooCommerce?

The same service is available as an API integration for custom-built websites. The principle and the guarantees are the same — see the guide to group payments online.