PayPal is one of the world's largest online payment platforms, processing over $1.5 trillion in payment volume annually across 430+ million active accounts in 200+ markets. The platform provides checkout buttons, PayPal Payments Standard and Pro, Braintree gateway services, Venmo integration, and Buy Now Pay Later options. PayPal serves as both a consumer payment method and a merchant payment processing infrastructure, supporting one-time purchases, recurring subscriptions, marketplace payouts, and international money transfers with currency conversion.
PayPal outages typically involve checkout flow failures where the PayPal button loads but transactions cannot complete, API gateway errors for merchant integrations, and authentication service issues preventing user logins. Payment processing backend degradation can cause transactions to hang in pending status for extended periods. Braintree services, while part of PayPal, can experience independent outages. International payment routing issues affect specific country corridors without impacting domestic transactions.
When PayPal goes down, e-commerce checkout flows break for merchants accepting PayPal, directly resulting in lost sales and abandoned carts. Consumers cannot send or receive money, and pending transactions may be delayed. Businesses relying on PayPal for subscription billing see renewal failures. Marketplace platforms using PayPal or Braintree for payout disbursement cannot pay sellers. The financial impact of a PayPal outage is measured in millions of dollars of lost transaction volume per hour.
Use this page to check PayPal availability. PayPal outages can affect consumer logins, merchant checkout flows, or API integrations independently. Check paypal-status.com for official component-level status. If PayPal buttons load but transactions fail, it is likely a payment processing backend issue rather than a complete outage.
Pending payments can result from PayPal processing delays during outages, security review holds, unverified accounts, or e-check payment processing which takes 3-5 business days. During platform incidents, transactions may enter pending status and complete once service fully recovers. Check PayPal's status page for any acknowledged processing delays.
If PayPal is the only checkout option, customers cannot complete purchases during an outage. Shopping cart abandonment rates spike immediately. Best practice is offering multiple payment methods including direct credit card processing through Stripe or another gateway. This ensures checkout continuity regardless of any single payment provider's availability.
Yes, PayPal outages affect access to funds and transaction processing, not the funds themselves. Your PayPal balance remains secure during platform disruptions. Transactions initiated before the outage may be delayed but will not be lost. PayPal's financial systems maintain data integrity through redundant database architectures.
Monitor PayPal's API endpoints and checkout flow with PinusX Uptime Monitor for free. Get instant Slack and email alerts within 60 seconds of any disruption. Early detection allows you to display alternate checkout options to customers or show a maintenance message rather than letting transactions fail silently.
Monitor PayPal uptime with PinusX. Get instant alerts when services go down.