Hello @ianatkins
In the previous (legacy) UI, alternative payment methods (APMs) were enabled by default. They were part of the PayPal configuration, but they were not exposed as separate WooCommerce payment gateways, which is why many merchants were not aware of them.
They would only be effectively disabled if they were explicitly added to the “disabled APM” list. If that never happened, they remained enabled in the background.
With the new UI (v4.x), these same APMs are now split into individual WooCommerce gateways with their own settings. During this migration, WooCommerce detects them as “newly enabled gateways” and sends email notifications like:
“Payment gateway ‘Przelewy24 (via PayPal)’ enabled”. So even though it looks like something new was activated, in reality:
- Nothing new was enabled by us
- The existing configuration was simply migrated
- The difference is that WooCommerce now treats them as separate gateways and triggers notifications accordingly
Previously, you wouldn’t receive any emails about this because APMs were handled internally within the PayPal integration and not as standalone gateways. So the key point is: this is a visibility and structure change, not a change in what was enabled.
Please refer to this article, which explains in detail the whole problem: https://developer.woocommerce.com/2026/04/06/payment-gateways-have-always-been-enabled-a-debrief/
Regarding Pay Later, it’s the different, true. It is enabled by default. Go to: WooCommerce > Settings > Payments > PayPal
Then look for a Pay Later Messaging section/tab. There, you can disable messaging entirely or fine-tune where it appears (homepage, product pages, cart, etc.). Remember to use a ‘Save’ button. https://woocommerce.com/document/woocommerce-paypal-payments/pay-later/
If this section is missing for any reason, let us know, but probably purging the cache should solve it.
Kind regards,
Krystian
Hi Krystian,
Thanks for the fast reply, fairly sure we had the other gateways in the ‘Disable Alternative Payment Methods’ setting on the prior version – but would need to create a test site from a backup to confirm.
Re ‘Pay Later’ – so disabling all ‘pay later’ messaging in fact just disables ‘pay later’ entirely, correct?
Thanks,
Ian.
Hello @ianatkins
Regarding the Alternative Payment Methods, I’d recommend setting up a staging site from a backup and checking this in the old UI → Standard Payments tab. From what I’ve seen, the list of disabled APMs is usually empty there. To properly verify this, you would likely need to go quite far back in versions, for example, version 3.0.3 still includes the legacy UI by default:
https://github.com/woocommerce/woocommerce-paypal-payments/releases/tag/3.0.3
As for Pay Later, disabling the messaging does not disable Pay Later as a payment method entirely. That section allows you to fine-tune everything related to Pay Later, such as:
- enabling/disabling banners
- controlling placement (product, cart, checkout)
- adjusting visibility settings
So you can disable the messaging while still keeping Pay Later available during checkout.
You can find more details here: https://woocommerce.com/document/woocommerce-paypal-payments/pay-later/
Kind Regards,
Krystian
