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Alex Spinov
Alex Spinov

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Stripe Has a Free Payment API — Accept Payments with 10 Lines of Code

#stripe #webdev #javascript #saas

Stripe's API handles payments, subscriptions, invoicing, and billing portals. Free to integrate — you only pay per transaction (2.9% + $0.30).

Why Every SaaS Uses Stripe

PayPal: checkout redirects, iframe hell, inconsistent APIs.
Stripe: a REST API that makes payments feel like any other API call.

What You Get for Free (No Monthly Fee)

One-time payments:

const session = await stripe.checkout.sessions.create({
  line_items: [{
    price_data: {
      currency: 'usd',
      product_data: { name: 'Pro Plan' },
      unit_amount: 2999, // $29.99
    },
    quantity: 1,
  }],
  mode: 'payment',
  success_url: 'https://myapp.com/success',
  cancel_url: 'https://myapp.com/cancel',
});
// Redirect user to session.url
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Subscriptions:

const subscription = await stripe.subscriptions.create({
  customer: 'cus_xxx',
  items: [{ price: 'price_xxx' }], // recurring price
  trial_period_days: 14,
});
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Webhooks (real-time events):

app.post('/webhook', (req, res) => {
  const event = stripe.webhooks.constructEvent(req.body, sig, secret);
  switch (event.type) {
    case 'checkout.session.completed':
      // Activate user's account
      break;
    case 'invoice.payment_failed':
      // Send dunning email
      break;
  }
  res.sendStatus(200);
});
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What Stripe Handles

  • Checkout — hosted payment page (PCI-compliant, mobile-friendly)
  • Billing Portal — customers manage their own subscriptions
  • Invoicing — automatic invoice generation and delivery
  • Tax — automatic tax calculation for 130+ countries
  • Fraud detection — Radar ML-based fraud prevention
  • Connect — marketplace payments (pay sellers, take commission)

Quick Start 

npm i stripe
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import Stripe from 'stripe';
const stripe = new Stripe('sk_test_...');
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Test Mode

Stripe's test mode is identical to production. Use test API keys, test card numbers (4242 4242 4242 4242), and test webhooks. Ship with confidence.

If you're building a product that charges money — Stripe setup takes 30 minutes and handles everything.

Need web scraping or data extraction? Check out my tools on Apify — get structured data from any website in minutes.

Custom solution? Email spinov001@gmail.com — quote in 2 hours.

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