Originally published on the Djangix blog. This is a condensed version — the full article is linked at the end.
Adding payments to a SaaS product looks simple until the first edge case: a card fails after access was granted, a customer is charged twice, or a cancellation never reaches your database. The original article treats billing as a state problem, not just a checkout form.
The core sequence, in my summary
- Model billing in your own data first. Keep the customer and subscription identifiers and the current status on your side, so your product does not depend on a live call to decide who has access.
- Use a hosted checkout for the first version. It handles card collection, common payment methods and compliance scope far better than a custom form built quickly.
- Let server-side events drive access. Payment and subscription changes should update your records from verified notifications arriving at your server — not from what the browser reports after redirect.
- Handle the awkward lifecycle events. Failed renewals, cancellations, plan changes and refunds each need an explicit response in your access logic, tested in advance.
- Make retries safe. Repeating a create call after a timeout should not create a second charge — use the provider's idempotency mechanism and test that path.
- Test with simulated events before going live, including the failure cases, using separate test and live credentials carefully.
Mistakes to avoid
Granting access from an unverified browser redirect, burying billing failures where support cannot see them, and assuming the happy path covers renewals. Most billing bugs are lifecycle bugs.
Read the full article on Djangix: Stripe API Integration for SaaS — with the full architecture, event list and common-mistakes checklist.
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