Supabase Stripe Essentials for Developers

Most developers will likely agree that integrating payments is a major headache when building web apps.

By combining Supabase's open-source Firebase alternative backend with Stripe's simplified payments API, you can quickly embed secure checkout flows and unlock recurring revenue at scale.

In this guide, you'll learn the essentials for integrating Supabase and Stripe, including practical code samples for user authentication, payment intents, subscriptions, and more.

Unlocking Payment Capabilities: An Introduction to Supabase and Stripe

Integrating Supabase and Stripe provides developers powerful capabilities for building full-featured web applications with user management, databases, and payment processing.

Understanding Supabase: The Open Source Firebase Alternative

Supabase is an open source alternative to Firebase that provides user management and realtime data syncing tools out of the box. Some key features include:

User authentication with OAuth providers like Google and GitHub
Realtime subscriptions to database changes
Auto-generated APIs for database operations
Simple and fast data storage with Postgres
Fine-grained access control rules
Desktop and mobile SDKs

For example, adding user sign-up and login can be done with just a few lines of code:

import { createClient } from '@supabase/supabase-js'

const supabase = createClient(url, key)

async function signUpUser(email, password){

  const { user, error } = await supabase.auth.signUp({
    email: email,
    password: password  
  })

}

Overall, Supabase accelerates building the backend infrastructure needed for web apps.

Stripe: Simplifying Online Payments for Developers

Stripe provides a suite of APIs and tools for accepting payments online, managing subscriptions, sending invoices, and more. Highlights include:

Prebuilt checkout flows
Support for cards, wallets, bank transfers
Fraud analysis and dispute management
Subscriptions and billing engine
Payouts to bank accounts
Tax compliance
Extensive customization

For example, integrating card payments involves calling Stripe's API:

import { Stripe } from 'stripe'

const stripe = new Stripe(secretKey)

async function createPayment(amount){

  const paymentIntent = await stripe.paymentIntents.create({
    amount: amount,
    currency: 'usd'
  })

}

Overall, Stripe handles all the complexities of payment processing so developers can focus on their product.

The Synergy of Supabase and Stripe Integration

Together, Supabase and Stripe provide complementary building blocks for scalable web applications:

Supabase manages user identities, access control, and database storage
Stripe enables accepting payments, managing subscriptions, and payouts

Integrating these two tools allows quickly building secure sites with monetization baked in. For example, an online course marketplace could leverage Supabase for user profiles and Stripe for subscription payments. Or an SAAS could use Supabase for organization management and Stripe for usage-based billing.

The open source nature of Supabase combined with Stripe's payments infrastructure offers developers an end-to-end platform for launching robust commercial web apps. And with each tool's extensive documentation and large community support, solutions are readily available.

So by connecting Supabase and Stripe, developers gain powerful capabilities while avoiding the complexity of building custom authentication, databases, and billing from scratch.

How do I integrate Stripe payments?

Integrating Stripe payments allows you to easily accept credit card transactions on your website. Here are the key steps:

Set up a Stripe account

First, sign up for a Stripe account. This will provide you API keys to connect your website to Stripe.

Install Stripe library

Next, install the Stripe library in your project. For example, with Supabase:

npm install --save @supabase/supabase-js stripe

Collect payment details

In your frontend code, create a checkout form to securely collect customer details like credit card number. Use Stripe Elements for prebuilt, compliant UI components.

// Example
import { CardElement } from '@stripe/react-stripe-js';

function CheckoutForm() {
  return (
    <CardElement /> 
  );
}

Create payment endpoint

On your backend, create an endpoint to process payments by calling Stripe APIs with the payment details. Use your API keys for authorization.

Confirm transaction

On successful charge, the endpoint will return a response that you can display to confirm the transaction for the user.

By following these steps, you can integrate Stripe's flexible payments platform into your Supabase application. The client-side components and server-side APIs handle complex logic behind the scenes to create smooth checkout experiences.

Webhooks for order fulfillment
Saving payment data to database
Subscription billing with Stripe

Let me know if you have any other questions!

What is Stripe API used for?

The Stripe API allows developers to integrate payment processing into their applications. Specifically, the Stripe API enables:

Accepting online payments from credit/debit cards and various alternative payment methods
Managing customers and saving payment methods for future purchases
Creating one-time and recurring payments
Handling payment flows like subscriptions, invoices, checkout, and more

Some key benefits of using Stripe include:

Simplicity - Their API abstracts away much complexity so you can focus on your core product
Scalability - Built to handle enterprise-level payment volume
Global reach - Supports payments in over 135 currencies
Fraud protection - Uses advanced machine learning to detect fraud

For example, you can use the Stripe API to:

Build a checkout flow to collect payment and customer details
Create subscription services and manage renewals
Send invoices and track payment status
Save customer payment methods for repeat purchases
Expand to alternative payment methods like Apple Pay

By handling payments with Stripe instead of directly, you reduce compliance burdens and can focus dev resources on your product.

Overall, if your application or business model includes online payments, Stripe's API delivers the tools to make this possible. Their documentation and SDKs support quick integration in languages like JavaScript, Python, Ruby, Java, PHP, and more.

To learn more, check out their extensive documentation which includes code examples for common payment flows. The Stripe dashboard also provides testing tools as you build out functionality.

How does Stripe SDK work?

The Stripe Android SDK provides pre-built UI components and APIs to help developers easily integrate payments into their Android apps. Here is an overview of how it works:

Collecting Payment Details

The SDK includes customizable UI elements like payment sheet and payment card field that you can use to securely collect sensitive card details from your users. These components are PCI compliant out-of-the-box.

For example, to integrate the payment sheet:

PaymentSheet paymentSheet = new PaymentSheet(this, paymentConfiguration);
paymentSheet.presentWithPaymentIntent(paymentIntentClientSecret);

This presents a beautiful, customizable payment sheet to capture the user's payment details.

Tokenizing Payments

Once the user enters their information, the SDK can automatically tokenize the payment details by exchanging them for a payment token. This token can then be safely sent to your server to process the payment.

Simplified Payments Integration

The SDK handles all the complexity behind payments like managing API requests, retry logic, and error handling. This makes accepting payments incredibly simple on the client-side.

Customizing Design and Flow

While the SDK provides pre-built components, you can customize the styling, theme, fonts, colors and flow to match your app design. This ensures your users have a seamless payments experience.

Overall, the Stripe Android SDK abstracts away the complexity of payments so you can focus on building great mobile user experiences. With its simple APIs and pre-built UI, integrating payments is faster and easier.

How do I use Stripe API in Postman?

To get started using the Stripe API in Postman, follow these steps:

Set up your Stripe account

First, you'll need a Stripe account. You can sign up for a free Stripe account on their website.

Once signed up, go to the Stripe dashboard and copy your secret test API key. This will allow you to make test API calls in Postman.

Import the Stripe API collection

Next, in Postman, import the Stripe API collection. This contains all the Stripe endpoints available.

You can import it by going to the import button in the top left. Paste in the raw Stripe API collection JSON.

Configure the environment

Then, set up a Postman environment for Stripe by clicking the gear icon in the top right. Create a variable called stripe_test_key and paste your test secret key as the value.

This stores your key securely and allows you to reuse it across requests.

Make API calls

With that set up, you can now use Postman to make calls to the Stripe API!

For example, to create a customer, select the Customers > Create Customer endpoint, add any needed parameters, click send, and a customer will be created using your test key.

The collection has all the Stripe endpoints available to try out. You can consult the Stripe API reference docs to learn more about the parameters for each one.

Initial Setup: Supabase Meets Stripe

Integrating Stripe with Supabase allows developers to easily add payment processing and subscriptions to their web applications. By combing Supabase's authentication and real-time databases with Stripe's flexible API and extensive suite of financial tools, you can rapidly build secure, scalable products with monetization baked in.

This guide will walk through the initial steps of creating Supabase and Stripe accounts, setting up core features, and preparing the foundation for a integrated app using these two services.

Launching Your First Supabase Project

Getting started with Supabase only takes a minute. Follow this quick process to spin up your first project:

Go to app.supabase.io and click Sign Up. You can register with your GitHub account or an email.
Once registered and logged in, click New Project then give your project a name.
Supabase provisions a Postgres database and auto-generates a unique URL for you to access it.
Click into your Project Dashboard to view usage metrics, access API keys, manage team members and more.

With your Supabase project ready, we can shift focus to the user management and authentication piece.

Authenticating Users with Supabase

Supabase makes securing your web app painless thanks to its robust user management system. Enable email/password authentication with these steps:

In the Supabase Dashboard, go to the Authentication section.
Click Email/Password then toggle it on.
Modify any authentication settings like requiring confirmed emails.
Test it out by adding User rows in the Auth tables and signing in through your app's UI.

Supabase's auth features handle securely storing passwords, managing access tokens, routing to dashboards and more. As a developer, you can focus on building your app's core functionality rather than reinventing the wheel with authentication logic.

Enrolling with Stripe for Payment Processing

To unleash the revenue-driving power of Stripe, you'll first need to create a Stripe account:

Go to stripe.com and click Sign Up. Follow the steps to create your Stripe account.
In the Stripe dashboard, access your unique account and API keys for integrating Stripe with other services.

💡Tip: Keep these secret keys confidential for security purposes.
Under Developers > API Keys, click "Create Restricted API Key". Apply restrictions like Allowed IPs to enhance security.

With our Stripe account initialized, we can now activate specific Stripe products relevant to our use case.

Activating Stripe's Payment Features

Stripe equips developers with an extensive suite of financial tools including payments, invoicing, fraud prevention and more. Let's enable Stripe Checkout and Billing for subscriptions:

In the Stripe dashboard, click Checkout then flip the toggle to activate it.
Next enable Billing and under it, toggle on Subscriptions to support recurring payments.
Navigate to Products and select which pricing plans you intend to create later on.

And we're all set! Our Stripe account now has the essential payment functionality ready for integrating with a Supabase app.

With Supabase projects and databases provisioned plus Stripe accounts initialized, we've completed the fundamental setup steps. As two incredibly developer-friendly solutions, Supabase and Stripe lend themselves seamlessly to unified integrations for rapidly building full-stack apps.

In the next sections, we'll explore practical code examples for connecting Supabase auth tools with Stripe checkout flows to handle subscriptions and user payments in web applications.

Supabase Stripe Checkout: Simplifying Transactions

Step-by-step tutorial for adding Stripe checkout functionality using Stripe Elements in a Supabase web app.

Embedding Stripe's Library into Your Web App

To get started, we first need to import Stripe's library into our Next.js app. We'll also set our Stripe public key which is available in the Stripe dashboard:

import { loadStripe } from '@stripe/stripe-js';

const stripePromise = loadStripe(process.env.NEXT_PUBLIC_STRIPE_PUBLISHABLE_KEY);

This initializes Stripe with our publishable key so we can create payment objects later on.

Initiating Payment Intents with Supabase Functions

When a user initiates checkout, we need to create a PaymentIntent on the server. This represents the payment and includes data like the amount, currency, and payment method type.

We can create a Supabase function to generate these server-side:

export async function createIntent(amount) {
  const intent = await stripe.paymentIntents.create({
    amount,
    currency: 'usd'
  });

  return intent;
}

On the client, we would call this when checkout begins passing the cart total.

Crafting the Stripe Checkout Experience

With Stripe initialized and payments set up server-side, we can render the Elements checkout form.

This lets us securely collect sensitive information:

import { CardElement } from '@stripe/react-stripe-js';

function CheckoutForm() {
  return (
    <form>
      <CardElement />
      <button>Pay</button>
    </form>
  );
}

We need to handle submitting the payment data to Stripe to generate a token. This represents the charge without sensitive card details.

Securing Payment Confirmations

After collecting payment data, we confirm the charge server-side:

// Client
const payload = await stripe.confirmCardPayment(clientSecret);

// Server  
await stripe.paymentIntents.confirm(payload.paymentIntent.id);

Finally, on success, we can update the database to reflect the completed order in Supabase!

By integrating Stripe with Supabase using Elements and PaymentIntents, we unlock secure payments in our app!

Managing Recurring Revenue with Supabase Stripe Subscriptions

How to create customer subscriptions for recurring payments using Stripe Billing and Supabase realtime data sync.

Automating Subscriber Management with Stripe Webhooks

Use Stripe webhooks to keep customer and subscription data in Supabase databases updated in realtime.

Configure Stripe webhooks to listen for events like customer.created or invoice.paid
Set up Postgres tables in Supabase for customers, subscriptions, invoices etc.
When an event occurs, Stripe will send payload data to a Supabase function
The function can process the data and insert/update Supabase tables

For example, when a new customer signs up:

// Stripe webhook payload
const customer = {
  id: 'cus_1234',
  name: 'John Doe',
  email: 'john@doe.com'
}

// Insert new row into Supabase "customers" table
await supabase
  .from('customers')
  .insert({
    id: customer.id,
    name: customer.name,
    email: customer.email
  })

This automates subscriber data synchronization so details are always up-to-date in the database.

Subscription Lifecycles via Supabase Functions

Write secure Supabase functions to handle subscription status changes like cancelling, pausing, or updating subscriptions.

Listen for events like customer.subscription.deleted or customer.subscription.updated
Call Stripe APIs inside functions to take action on subscriptions
Change subscription statuses, pause profiles, refund customers etc.

For example, to cancel a subscription:

// Webhook payload  
const subscription = {
  id: 'sub_5678',
  customer: 'cus_1234'
}

// Cancel subscription in Stripe  
const deleted = await stripe.subscriptions.del(subscription.id)

// Update Supabase subscription status
await supabase
  .from('subscriptions')
  .update({ status: 'cancelled' })
  .eq('id', subscription.id)

This automates complex subscription management logic when events occur.

Synchronizing Subscription Data for Realtime Updates

Use Supabase realtime subscriptions to update your app UI instantly when subscription data changes.

Listen for PostgreSQL inserts/updates on subscription tables
Refresh UI components with latest customer or billing details
Build customized subscription dashboards and analytics

For example, show realtime successful payment updates:

// Listen for new rows in "payments" table
const sub = supabase
  .from('payments')
  .on('INSERT', (payload) => {
    // Play sound effect, show confetti, update UI...
  })
  .subscribe()

This enables seamless realtime sync in apps when subscription data changes on the backend.

Extending Functionality: Supabase and Stripe Advanced Integrations

Integrating Stripe with Supabase opens up many possibilities for adding payment features and leveraging user data in web applications. Here are some advanced ways to combine these platforms beyond basic checkout implementations.

Seamless Payments with Supabase-Enabled Stripe Checkout

By connecting Stripe Checkout with Supabase user profiles and functions, developers can enable customized checkout experiences.

Some potential use cases include:

Dynamically setting prices based on user account types stored in Supabase
Pre-filling customer details like name and email using Supabase Auth
Creating payment receipts with metadata from the Supabase database
Validating coupons from a Supabase table before applying discounts
Restricting payment options using Stripe Customer Portal managed by Supabase functions

This results in a streamlined purchase process where customers can check out faster. Developers also gain flexibility to configure payments.

Here is a code snippet that gets the user's email from Supabase to pre-fill the Stripe checkout form:

// Get user email from Supabase
const { data, error } = await supabase
  .from('profiles')
  .select('email')
  .eq('id', user.id)
  
const checkoutSession = await fetch('/api/create-checkout-session', {
  method: 'POST',
  headers: {
    'Content-Type': 'application/json',
  },
  body: JSON.stringify({
    customerEmail: data[0].email, 
  }),
});

Introducing the Stripe Billing Portal with Supabase

The Stripe Billing portal lets customers manage subscriptions and payment methods. Combined with Supabase for authentication, developers can build a customized billing portal experience.

Some use cases are:

Creating portal pages protected by Supabase Auth
Showing subscription status and history from the Supabase database
Updating user roles and access with webhooks on subscription changes
Sending subscription receipt emails using Supabase functions

By centralizing user management with Supabase, the billing portal can dynamically display information relevant to each customer for a personalized feel.

Below initializes the portal for authenticated users:

// Get logged in user data from Supabase  
const { data: { user } } = await supabase.auth.getUser()

// Fetch Stripe subscriptions for user from Supabase
const { data: subscriptions } = await supabase
  .from('subscriptions')
  .select(`*, customer:stripe_customer(name)`)
  .eq('user_id', user.id)

const portalSession = await fetch('/api/billing-portal', {
  method: 'POST',
  headers: {
    'Content-Type': 'application/json',
  },
  body: JSON.stringify({
    customerId: subscriptions[0].customer, 
    returnUrl: `${window.location.origin}/account`,
  }),
});

Payment Insights: Reporting with Supabase and Stripe Data

To analyze payment metrics and track revenue growth, developers can build reports combining Stripe data with Supabase's user, plans, and transactions databases.

The workflow would involve:

Storing Stripe charge and refund data in Supabase upon webhooks
Enriching this raw data by joining with other Supabase tables
Exporting the aggregated datasets to a business intelligence tool like Metabase
Building visual reports and dashboards for insights

By leveraging Supabase's Postgres databases and instant analytics with Metabase, developers can quickly gain visibility into key subscription metrics. These include monthly recurring revenue (MRR), churn rate, average revenue per user (ARPU), and more.

Here is a sample query joining Stripe and Supabase data:

SELECT charges.amount, subscriptions.plan
  FROM stripe.charges
  INNER JOIN supabase.subscriptions
    ON charges.subscription_id=subscriptions.stripe_id

This guide covered just some of the ways Stripe and Supabase can team up to provide payment, user, and analytics capabilities in web projects. With some creativity, developers can build truly unique experiences leveraging these platforms.

Wrapping Up: The Essentials of Supabase Stripe Integration

Integrating Stripe with Supabase allows developers to build full-featured web applications with user management, realtime data syncing, and payments. This combination of open source and managed services accelerates development.

Integrating Supabase and Stripe: A Recap

We covered key implementations like:

Stripe Checkout for one-time payments
Stripe Billing for subscriptions
Syncing payment data to Supabase for analytics

With a few lines of code, you can add billing and payments to an app.

Leveraging Open Source and Managed Services Together

Supabase (open source) handles the data layer with Postgres, realtime syncing, and user management. Stripe (managed service) handles payments, invoices, billing.

This division of responsibility plays to the strengths of each tool. You get powerful features without managing infrastructure.

Next Steps and Further Learning for Developers

Check out these resources to level up your Stripe and Supabase skills:

Supabase Docs
Stripe Docs
Full Stack Open - Free course
CS50 - Intro to Computer Science

Have any other questions on working with Supabase, Stripe, or building full stack apps? Feel free to reach out!