Stripe Integration

Master Stripe payment processing integration for robust, PCI-compliant payment flows including checkout, subscriptions, webhooks, and refunds.

When to Use This Skill

• Implementing payment processing in web/mobile applications
• Setting up subscription billing systems
• Handling one-time payments and recurring charges
• Processing refunds and disputes
• Managing customer payment methods
• Implementing SCA (Strong Customer Authentication) for European payments
• Building marketplace payment flows with Stripe Connect

Core Concepts

1. Payment Flows

Checkout Sessions

• Recommended for most integrations
• Supports all UI paths:
  • Stripe-hosted checkout page
  • Embedded checkout form
  • Custom UI with Elements (Payment Element, Express Checkout Element) using ui_mode='custom'
• Provides built-in checkout capabilities (line items, discounts, tax, shipping, address collection, saved payment methods, and checkout lifecycle events)
• Lower integration and maintenance burden than Payment Intents

Payment Intents (Bespoke control)

• You calculate the final amount with taxes, discounts, subscriptions, and currency conversion yourself.
• More complex implementation and long-term maintenance burden
• Requires Stripe.js for PCI compliance

Setup Intents (Save Payment Methods)

• Collect payment method without charging
• Used for subscriptions and future payments
• Requires customer confirmation

2. Webhooks

Critical Events:

• payment_intent.succeeded: Payment completed
• payment_intent.payment_failed: Payment failed
• customer.subscription.updated: Subscription changed
• customer.subscription.deleted: Subscription canceled
• charge.refunded: Refund processed
• invoice.payment_succeeded: Subscription payment successful

3. Subscriptions

Components:

• Product: What you’re selling
• Price: How much and how often
• Subscription: Customer’s recurring payment
• Invoice: Generated for each billing cycle

4. Customer Management

• Create and manage customer records
• Store multiple payment methods
• Track customer metadata
• Manage billing details

Quick Start

import stripe

stripe.api_key = "sk_test_..."

# Create a checkout session
session = stripe.checkout.Session.create(
    line_items=[{
        'price_data': {
            'currency': 'usd',
            'product_data': {
                'name': 'Premium Subscription',
            },

Detailed patterns and worked examples

Detailed pattern documentation lives in references/details.md. Read that file when the navigation tier above is insufficient.

Testing

# Use test mode keys
stripe.api_key = "sk_test_..."

# Test card numbers
TEST_CARDS = {
    'success': '4242424242424242',
    'declined': '4000000000000002',
    '3d_secure': '4000002500003155',
    'insufficient_funds': '4000000000009995'
}