Setting up a compliant CBD store with WooCommerce

Selling CBD products online can be tricky. In this in-depth guide, I’ll walk you through everything you need to know about creating a WooCommerce CBD store, including compliance requirements, key plugins, CBD-friendly payment gateways and shipping carriers, and more.

Thinking about setting up a WooCommerce CBD store? The CBD market (including CBD oils, edibles, pet products, skincare, etc.) is one of the fastest-growing industries. Globally, it was valued at $9.14 billion in 2024 and is projected to grow to $22.05 billion by 2030.

But this immense profit potential comes with a catch: CBD businesses operate under stricter scrutiny than almost any other consumer product business.

Selling CBD products online isn’t a straightforward process. Between shifting laws, inconsistent state and countrywide rules, and payment processors that treat CBD like it’s radioactive, setting up a CBD store takes much more than just installing WooCommerce and uploading your first product.

Without the right setup, there’s a high probability that your store could get blocked by payment processors, flagged by ad platforms, shut down by your host, or worse, land you in hot water with your local authorities.

In this detailed guide, I’ll walk you through the steps to create a fully-functioning WooCommerce CBD store with controlled visibility and restricted access, so you can prove to payment processors and regulators that your business is 100% compliant from day one.

Disclaimer: This guide is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal, financial, or medical advice. Selling CBD products online is subject to federal, state, and local laws that may change over time. Before launching your store, consult with a qualified attorney and make certain that your business complies with all applicable regulations in your jurisdiction.

Plugins used in this guide

• WooCommerce Private Store: A powerful plugin that lets you hide your entire CBD storefront behind a password or login form so you can keep your product catalog invisible while you apply for merchant payment processing accounts, test your setup, and wait for approvals. Search engines, casual browsers, and ad platform crawlers won’t see your products; only the people you approve.
• WooCommerce Protected Categories: A simple-to-use plugin that lets you lock down specific sections of your store. Ideal for businesses that sell a mix of CBD and non-CBD products, serve different types of customers (for example, retail vs. wholesale), or deal with different restrictions across states.

Before we begin, let’s clear this up once and for all:

Can you sell CBD with WooCommerce?

Yes, you can sell CBD with WooCommerce, but it’s much more complicated than activating the plugin and adding products to your catalog.

WooCommerce itself doesn’t restrict what you sell. It’s an open-source plugin, so technically, you can list any type of product, including CBD oils, gummies, skincare, etc.

However, because CBD sits in a tightly regulated space, the real challenge is making certain that your store is 100% compliant with laws in the regions your business operates as well as the policies of your chosen third-party partners (think: web hosts, payment gateways, shipping carriers, etc.).

CBD laws around the world

CBD laws vary widely depending on where you set up shop. For instance, in the:

• United States: The 2018 Farm Bill legalized hemp-derived CBD that contains less than 0.3% THC at the federal level. Individual states can impose restrictions, especially on edibles and beverages, and some states still uphold near-total bans. The FDA prohibits companies from making therapeutic claims, so you’ll have to make sure to word product descriptions carefully.
• European Union: Most EU countries permit sales of CBD products as long as they contain less than 0.2–0.3% THC. However, there are vast differences in the labeling guidelines and the Novel Foods regulation across countries.
• Other regions: The rules differ dramatically depending on the region. For example, CBD is legal in Canada, but strictly regulated. Whereas, in Australia, most CBD products require a prescription.

WooCommerce CBD payment processors

There are heaps of WooCommerce-compatible payment processors, but only a handful of them actually allow businesses to use their platforms to accept payment for sales of CBD products.

Many mainstream gateways like Authorize.net, PayPal, Stripe, WooCommerce payments, etc, prohibit CBD sales using their platform. Even if you manage to stealthily set up an account to process CBD-related transactions, they are known to block and freeze accounts once they discover them.

Thankfully, Square and Viva Wallet, two popular WooCommerce-compatible payment processors, permit businesses to use their platforms to accept payment for sales of CBD products.

Square is the most widely used WooCommerce CBD payment processor in the U.S. They run a dedicated CBD program that permits both ingestible and topical CBD products, as long as your business meets their requirements. Plus, you can easily sync their platform with WooCommerce using the free Square for WooCommerce plugin.

Viva Wallet is another solid payment gateway that supports CBD transactions. However, it is only available in select European countries.

What do WooCommerce CBD payment processors require?

Even though Square in the U.S. and Viva Wallet work smoothly with WooCommerce for CBD payments, your businesses must pass their rigorous approval process.

It’s worth noting that approvals aren’t instant; you’ll need to submit your business details, product catalog, and compliance documents before going live. Make sure you account for this timeline early to avoid delays.

Expect to provide (at a minimum):

• Business registration documents that prove your company’s incorporation in an eligible country (think: LLC, corporation, etc.).
• Product information (think: certificates of analysis (COAs) and lab reports showing THC levels under allowed legal limits).
• Website compliance (think: clear terms, disclaimers, and no unverified medical claims).
• Bank account details for payouts.

Which WooCommerce plugins enable you to sell CBD products?

The biggest challenge budding CBD merchants face isn’t setting up the ecommerce storefront; it’s staying compliant while ironing out payment gateways, shipping partners, regulatory approval, business workflows, marketing, and all the other aspects.

Thankfully, plugins like WooCommerce Private Store and WooCommerce Protected Categories can help deal with some of the complexity of selling CBD online.

WooCommerce Private Store

Instead of making your CBD products visible to everyone from day one and hoping your payment processor, bank, or shipping carrier doesn’t spot compliance issues or prohibited claims and shut you down, WooCommerce Private Store lets you control who can see your store in the first place.

WooCommerce Private Store hides every part of your WooCommerce shop from public view. This includes the Shop page, product category archives, individual product detail pages, cart and checkout, etc. If anyone without the right permissions lands on your website, they won’t even know you sell CBD products until they enter the password.

This gives you the freedom to quietly build your CBD shop without exposing your catalog to competitors, regulators, or the general public.

During this time, you can:

Once everything is cleared and approved, you can remove the protection and make the polished, compliant version of your store accessible to everyone.

WooCommerce Protected Categories

Instead of hiding your entire store, WooCommerce Protected Categories lets you lock down specific product categories and control who can access them.

Here’s when to use WooCommerce Protected Categories:

Rather than building multiple stores or complicated workarounds, with WooCommerce Protected Categories, budding CBD merchants manage everything in one WooCommerce site while fine-tuning who sees what, complying with regulations, and providing a smoother customer journey.

How to set up a private WooCommerce CBD store

Here’s a step-by-step walkthrough of how to create a private WooCommerce CBD store so you can build, test, and submit a CBD shop that’s 100% compliant from the get-go. The entire process (excluding connecting to the payment processor) takes less than an hour and is pretty straightforward.

Step 1: Create a private WooCommerce CBD store

1. Sign up with a CBD-friendly hosting provider like Pressable, Convesio, WordPress.com, etc., and create a WooCommerce store (follow the steps outlined in lessons 2 to 5 for more details).
2. Add and activate WooCommerce Private Store on your site.
3. Then navigate to WooCommerce → Settings → Private Store, and start the setup wizard.
4. Enter your plugin’s license key and activate it.
   

   

5. On the “Unlocking the private store” page, decide how you’ll control access to your WooCommerce CBD store: password-only, logged-in user only, or both.
   

   

6. If you opted to enable password-based access, you can create passwords on the “Password Protection” page.
   

   

7. Specify when the password(s) should expire in the “Password valid for” field and denote which page users should land after they pass protection (the Shop page is typical).
8. On the “Store login form” page, you can customize the labels for the page title, message, password label, and login button on the form where users sign in.
   

   

9. Specify which logged-in user roles can access your private store. (Note: head to the “Users” section in your WordPress admin panel to add more roles if needed). This concludes the setup wizard.
   

   

Step 2: Add the login form to your store's front-end

1. To add the age verification login form, head back to your site’s admin panel and navigate to Pages → Add New Page.
   

   

2. Add the [store_login] shortcode, and press “Publish”.
3. Head to Appearance → Menus, and link the store login page to your site’s main menu.
4. Optional: Add and activate WooCommerce Protected Categories for further visibility control.
5. Connect your WooCommerce CBD store to Square, Viva, or your payment gateway of choice. Configure the API credentials and test out the entire purchase flow from the point of view of customers.

Start selling CBD products on WooCommerce today

Selling CBD online requires a more thoughtful setup than a “traditional” WooCommerce store. Just like with medical items such as selling contact lenses online, you can’t just add products to your catalog, connect to a payment gateway, and start selling.

With CBD, compliance and visibility control come first. Skipping those important steps risks wasted applications, frozen funds, or a store that gets suspended before the first sale.

Here’s a recap of the steps to launch a legitimate CBD business that respects the law, protects consumers, and avoids unnecessary risk:

1. Sign up with a CBD-friendly hosting company and set up a private store with WooCommerce Private Store to keep your shop invisible from search engines, ad networks, or random browsers while you build and test.
2. Upload products to your catalog, add product information (descriptions, images, prices, etc.), business information (refund rules, shipping policies, FAQs), and other relevant details. Add WooCommerce Protected Categories if needed to further control access to your store.
3. Submit your application and required details to secure approval from underwriters, Square, Viva Wallet, or another CBD-friendly payment processor. Sync your store to their platform upon approval.
4. Then you can open access by gradually launching your WooCommerce CBD store in a controlled way. A good idea is to start with a handful of beta testers, then scale to wholesale customers, then retail. By the time you’re public, your store will already be vetted, stable, and ready for growth.

Get WooCommerce Private Store and WooCommerce Protected Categories and set up your compliant, conversion-focused CBD ecommerce store now.