Stripe Integration
Stripe is the best-documented payment platform on the internet — and integrations still fail in predictable places: webhook handling, subscription state, and the gap between "money moved" and "system knows". Those are the places this work covers.
Slapping a payment link on a button takes ten minutes. An integration that survives contact with real customers takes engineering: checkout that handles failed cards and 3-D Secure gracefully, webhook handlers that process retries idempotently, subscription lifecycle states (trial, past-due, canceled) mapped to what your system actually does, and refunds and disputes with a paper trail. The gap between the two is where stores quietly leak money.
The work is scoped to your model: one-time checkout for a store, Stripe Billing for subscriptions and member areas, payment intents for custom flows. Every build includes the unglamorous half — webhook signature verification, idempotency keys, test-mode coverage of decline paths, and a reconciliation pass so orders, customers and receipts agree with the Stripe dashboard. Test cards exercise the sad paths before your customers do.
Honest boundary: this is integration engineering, not financial advice — tax handling, SCA legalities and marketplace payout structures get configured per your accountant's and Stripe's guidance, stated plainly. Scope follows the brief; fixed quote; the checkout-failure triage page covers the emergency version of this work when a live store is bleeding.
What the engagement covers
- Checkout or payment-element build matched to your model — one-time, cart, or subscription
- Stripe Billing configuration: prices, trials, proration, dunning emails, customer portal
- Webhook handlers: signature verification, idempotency, retry-safe state transitions
- Subscription lifecycle mapped to your system: active, trialing, past-due, canceled
- Test-mode coverage of the sad paths — declines, 3-D Secure challenges, disputed charges
- Reconciliation pass: orders, customers and receipts verified against the Stripe dashboard
Honest limits
What this is deliberately not.
Not this: Payment-link buttons dressed up as an "integration" — if that is genuinely all you need, it is a ten-minute DIY, said plainly
Not this: Chargeback disputes and legal paperwork — process work, not code
Not this: Marketplace payout structures needing money-transmitter review — configured per legal guidance, not invented here
Not this: Guaranteed uptime of Stripe itself — their platform, their status page; the integration handles it gracefully
Questions · Stripe
Asked before building.
Yes — that is the common case. Stripe Billing layers onto WordPress, Shopify (via its own mechanisms) or a custom stack, and the scoping question is what a "subscriber" means in your system: access to what, billed when, canceled how. The integration is sized by that answer, not by the Stripe setup itself, which is the quick part.
That is the webhook gap: the card charged, but the confirmation call back to your site failed — wrong secret, blocked URL, or a handler that crashes on retries. The fix is verified webhook handling with idempotency, plus reconciliation of the stranded records. The checkout triage page covers the emergency version of exactly this.
For payment links and basic checkout, honestly no — Stripe's own tooling covers it. A developer earns the fee when money must change state somewhere else: grant course access, update a membership, trigger fulfillment, handle proration. If nothing in your system needs to react to a payment, skip this page.
Yes, with one small real transaction as the final gate: test cards cover declines, 3-D Secure and retries safely, then a real (small) charge proves the full pipeline — payment captured, order recorded, receipt delivered, refund working. The fee is cents; the confidence is the launch.
Related: all integrations · the integrations stack page · the requirements template.
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