WooCommerce Place Order Button Not Working? Causes & Fix

The customer clicks Place order and nothing happens. No spinner, no error, no order. Almost always a JavaScript error has stopped WooCommerce's checkout script from binding to the form — so the click never becomes a request. The browser console tells you which script in about a minute.

Last updated: 16 Jul 2026 · ~6 min read

What's meant to happen when you click Place order

Place order isn't a normal form button. WooCommerce's checkout script intercepts the submit, validates the fields, and posts the whole checkout over AJAX to /?wc-ajax=checkout. The server replies with JSON, and the script redirects the browser to the Order received page.

That means there are exactly two failure shapes, and telling them apart takes ten seconds in the Network tab. No request at all means the JavaScript never bound — a script error broke the chain. A request that comes back non-200 means the JS is fine and something server-side is blocking it. Everything below follows from that split.

The most common causes (most likely first)

1. A JavaScript error stops the checkout script binding the submit handlerOpen DevTools → Console on the checkout page. There's a red error on load, thrown by a plugin or theme script. Click Place order and the Network tab shows no request at all — the click goes nowhere. This is the number one cause by a distance.
2. jQuery is missing, deferred or duplicated by an optimisation pluginThe console says something like jQuery is not defined or $ is not a function. WooCommerce's checkout script depends on jQuery being loaded first — combining or deferring scripts breaks that order. Turn off JS combine/defer for checkout and retry.
3. The wc-ajax request is being blocked or redirectedThe Network tab does show a request to /?wc-ajax=checkout, but it returns 403, 404 or a 302 redirect instead of 200 JSON. A security plugin, a WAF rule or a server-level block is eating the request.
4. Validation is failing on a field you can't seeThe button flickers or a spinner appears briefly, then nothing. Scroll to the top of the checkout — there's usually a notice there, hidden off-screen or behind a sticky header. A required custom field added by a plugin is a common culprit.
5. The checkout page is being cached, serving a stale nonceIt works in a fresh incognito window but fails on a normal visit, or fails only for logged-out customers. Checkout must never be cached — exclude /checkout/ and /cart/ from page caching entirely.

Where to look first

• Open DevTools (F12) → Console and reload the checkout page. Any red errors before you click? That's cause 1 or 2 — read the file path in the error, it names the plugin or theme.
• Click Place order with the Network tab open. No request appears at all? The JavaScript never bound (cause 1 or 2). A request to ?wc-ajax=checkout appears but isn't 200? That's server-side (cause 3).
• Spinner flashes then stops? Scroll to the top of the page — there is almost certainly a validation notice you can't see from where the button is (cause 4).
• Exclude /checkout/ and /cart/ from page caching, and turn off JS combine/minify/defer, then purge and retry. If it starts working, reintroduce the optimiser with checkout excluded.
• Still stuck? On a staging copy, deactivate all plugins except WooCommerce and your gateway, confirm the button works, then reactivate one at a time. The one that brings the console error back is yours.

How to know you fixed it

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