stripe

What is stripe?

The Stripe npm package is a library that provides a powerful and easy-to-use interface to the Stripe API, allowing developers to integrate payment processing into their Node.js applications. It supports a wide range of payment operations, from charging credit cards to managing subscriptions and handling disputes.

What are stripe's main functionalities?

Charging a Credit Card

This feature allows you to create a charge on a credit card. The amount is specified in the smallest currency unit (e.g., cents for USD).

stripe.charges.create({
  amount: 2000,
  currency: 'usd',
  source: 'tok_amex',
  description: 'Charge for [e-mail]'
}).then(function(charge) {
  // asynchronously called
});

Creating a Customer

This feature enables you to create a new customer object, which can be used for recurring charges and tracking multiple charges that are associated with the same customer.

stripe.customers.create({
  email: '[e-mail]'
}).then(function(customer) {
  // asynchronously called
});

Managing Subscriptions

This feature allows you to create and manage subscriptions for recurring payments. You can specify the plan and customer to associate with the subscription.

stripe.subscriptions.create({
  customer: 'cus_4fdAW5ftNQow1a',
  items: [{
    plan: 'plan_CBXbz9i7AIOTzr'
  }]
}).then(function(subscription) {
  // asynchronously called
});

Handling Webhooks

This feature is for setting up a webhook endpoint to listen for events from Stripe. This is useful for receiving notifications about various events, such as successful payments or subscription cancellations.

const express = require('express');
const bodyParser = require('body-parser');
const app = express();
app.post('/webhook', bodyParser.raw({type: 'application/json'}), (request, response) => {
  let event;
  try {
    event = JSON.parse(request.body);
  } catch (err) {
    response.status(400).send(`Webhook Error: ${err.message}`);
    return;
  }
  // Handle the event
  switch (event.type) {
    case 'payment_intent.succeeded':
      const paymentIntent = event.data.object;
      console.log(`PaymentIntent was successful!`);
      break;
    // ... handle other event types
    default:
      console.log(`Unhandled event type ${event.type}`);
  }
  response.status(200).end();
});
app.listen(8000, () => {
  console.log('Running on port 8000');
});

Other packages similar to stripe

braintree

Braintree is a full-stack payment platform that makes it easy to accept payments in your app or website. It offers similar functionalities to Stripe, including payment processing, subscription management, and fraud protection. Braintree is known for its PayPal integration, which can be a deciding factor for some businesses.

square-connect

Square Connect is the official Square npm package. It provides access to various Square services, including payment processing. While it offers similar features to Stripe, such as handling transactions and managing customers, it is particularly tailored for businesses that use Square's point of sale system.

mollie-api-node

Mollie is a payment service provider that offers an easy-to-implement process for integrating payments into a website or app. It supports various payment methods and is known for its simplicity. However, it might not have as extensive a feature set as Stripe, particularly in terms of global reach and customization options.

README

Stripe Node.js Library

The Stripe Node library provides convenient access to the Stripe API from applications written in server-side JavaScript.

For collecting customer and payment information in the browser, use Stripe.js.

Documentation

See the stripe-node API docs for Node.js.

See video demonstrations covering how to use the library.

Requirements

Node 12 or higher.

Installation

Install the package with:

npm install stripe
# or
yarn add stripe

Usage

The package needs to be configured with your account's secret key, which is available in the Stripe Dashboard. Require it with the key's value:

const stripe = require('stripe')('sk_test_...');

stripe.customers.create({
  email: '[e-mail]',
})
  .then(customer => console.log(customer.id))
  .catch(error => console.error(error));

Or using ES modules and async/await:

import Stripe from 'stripe';
const stripe = new Stripe('sk_test_...');

const customer = await stripe.customers.create({
  email: '[e-mail]',
});

console.log(customer.id);

Usage with TypeScript

As of 8.0.1, Stripe maintains types for the latest API version.

Import Stripe as a default import (not * as Stripe, unlike the DefinitelyTyped version) and instantiate it as new Stripe() with the latest API version.

import Stripe from 'stripe';
const stripe = new Stripe('sk_test_...');

const createCustomer = async () => {
  const params: Stripe.CustomerCreateParams = {
    description: 'test customer',
  };

  const customer: Stripe.Customer = await stripe.customers.create(params);

  console.log(customer.id);
};
createCustomer();

You can find a full TS server example in stripe-samples.

Using old API versions with TypeScript

Types can change between API versions (e.g., Stripe may have changed a field from a string to a hash), so our types only reflect the latest API version.

We therefore encourage upgrading your API version if you would like to take advantage of Stripe's TypeScript definitions.

If you are on an older API version (e.g., 2019-10-17) and not able to upgrade, you may pass another version and use a comment like // @ts-ignore stripe-version-2019-10-17 to silence type errors here and anywhere the types differ between your API version and the latest. When you upgrade, you should remove these comments.

We also recommend using // @ts-ignore if you have access to a beta feature and need to send parameters beyond the type definitions.

Using expand with TypeScript

Expandable fields are typed as string | Foo, so you must cast them appropriately, e.g.,

const paymentIntent: Stripe.PaymentIntent = await stripe.paymentIntents.retrieve(
  'pi_123456789',
  {
    expand: ['customer'],
  }
);
const customerEmail: string = (paymentIntent.customer as Stripe.Customer).email;

TypeScript and the stripe-node versioning policy

The TypeScript types in stripe-node always reflect the latest shape of the Stripe API. When the Stripe API changes in a backwards-incompatible way, there is a new Stripe API version, and we release a new major version of stripe-node. Sometimes, though, the Stripe API changes in a way that weakens the guarantees provided by the TypeScript types, but that cannot result in any backwards incompatibility at runtime. For example, we might add a new enum value on a response, along with a new parameter to a request. Adding a new value to a response enum weakens the TypeScript type. However, if the new enum value is only returned when the new parameter is provided, this cannot break any existing usages and so would not be considered a breaking API change. In stripe-node, we do NOT consider such changes to be breaking under our current versioning policy. This means that you might see new type errors from TypeScript as you upgrade minor versions of stripe-node, that you can resolve by adding additional type guards.

Please feel welcome to share your thoughts about the versioning policy in a Github issue. For now, we judge it to be better than the two alternatives: outdated, inaccurate types, or vastly more frequent major releases, which would distract from any future breaking changes with potentially more disruptive runtime implications.

Using Promises

Every method returns a chainable promise which can be used instead of a regular callback:

// Create a new customer and then create an invoice item then invoice it:
stripe.customers
  .create({
    email: '[e-mail]',
  })
  .then((customer) => {
    // have access to the customer object
    return stripe.invoiceItems
      .create({
        customer: customer.id, // set the customer id
        amount: 2500, // 25
        currency: 'usd',
        description: 'One-time setup fee',
      })
      .then((invoiceItem) => {
        return stripe.invoices.create({
          collection_method: 'send_invoice',
          customer: invoiceItem.customer,
        });
      })
      .then((invoice) => {
        // New invoice created on a new customer
      })
      .catch((err) => {
        // Deal with an error
      });
  });

Usage with Deno

As of 11.16.0, stripe-node provides a deno export target. In your Deno project, import stripe-node using an npm specifier:

Import using npm specifiers:

import Stripe from 'npm:stripe';

Please see https://github.com/stripe-samples/stripe-node-deno-samples for more detailed examples and instructions on how to use stripe-node in Deno.

Configuration

Initialize with config object

The package can be initialized with several options:

import ProxyAgent from 'https-proxy-agent';

const stripe = Stripe('sk_test_...', {
  maxNetworkRetries: 1,
  httpAgent: new ProxyAgent(process.env.http_proxy),
  timeout: 1000,
  host: 'api.example.com',
  port: 123,
  telemetry: true,
});

Option	Default	Description
apiVersion	null	Stripe API version to be used. If not set, stripe-node will use the latest version at the time of release.
maxNetworkRetries	1	The amount of times a request should be retried.
httpAgent	null	Proxy agent to be used by the library.
timeout	80000	Maximum time each request can take in ms.
host	'api.stripe.com'	Host that requests are made to.
port	443	Port that requests are made to.
protocol	'https'	'https' or 'http'. http is never appropriate for sending requests to Stripe servers, and we strongly discourage http, even in local testing scenarios, as this can result in your credentials being transmitted over an insecure channel.
telemetry	true	Allow Stripe to send telemetry.

Note Both maxNetworkRetries and timeout can be overridden on a per-request basis.

Configuring Timeout

Timeout can be set globally via the config object:

const stripe = Stripe('sk_test_...', {
  timeout: 20 * 1000, // 20 seconds
});

And overridden on a per-request basis:

stripe.customers.create(
  {
    email: '[e-mail]',
  },
  {
    timeout: 1000, // 1 second
  }
);

Configuring For Connect

A per-request Stripe-Account header for use with Stripe Connect can be added to any method:

// List the balance transactions for a connected account:
stripe.balanceTransactions.list(
  {
    limit: 10,
  },
  {
    stripeAccount: 'acct_foo',
  }
);

Configuring a Proxy

To use stripe behind a proxy you can pass an https-proxy-agent on initialization:

if (process.env.http_proxy) {
  const ProxyAgent = require('https-proxy-agent');

  const stripe = Stripe('sk_test_...', {
    httpAgent: new ProxyAgent(process.env.http_proxy),
  });
}

Network retries

As of v13 stripe-node will automatically do one reattempt for failed requests that are safe to retry. Automatic network retries can be disabled by setting the maxNetworkRetries config option to 0. You can also set a higher number to reattempt multiple times, with exponential backoff. Idempotency keys are added where appropriate to prevent duplication.

const stripe = Stripe('sk_test_...', {
  maxNetworkRetries: 0, // Disable retries
});

const stripe = Stripe('sk_test_...', {
  maxNetworkRetries: 2, // Retry a request twice before giving up
});

Network retries can also be set on a per-request basis:

stripe.customers.create(
  {
    email: '[e-mail]',
  },
  {
    maxNetworkRetries: 2, // Retry this specific request twice before giving up
  }
);

Examining Responses

Some information about the response which generated a resource is available with the lastResponse property:

customer.lastResponse.requestId; // see: https://stripe.com/docs/api/request_ids?lang=node
customer.lastResponse.statusCode;

request and response events

The Stripe object emits request and response events. You can use them like this:

const stripe = require('stripe')('sk_test_...');

const onRequest = (request) => {
  // Do something.
};

// Add the event handler function:
stripe.on('request', onRequest);

// Remove the event handler function:
stripe.off('request', onRequest);

request object

{
  api_version: 'latest',
  account: 'acct_TEST',              // Only present if provided
  idempotency_key: 'abc123',         // Only present if provided
  method: 'POST',
  path: '/v1/customers',
  request_start_time: 1565125303932  // Unix timestamp in milliseconds
}

response object

{
  api_version: 'latest',
  account: 'acct_TEST',              // Only present if provided
  idempotency_key: 'abc123',         // Only present if provided
  method: 'POST',
  path: '/v1/customers',
  status: 402,
  request_id: 'req_Ghc9r26ts73DRf',
  elapsed: 445,                      // Elapsed time in milliseconds
  request_start_time: 1565125303932, // Unix timestamp in milliseconds
  request_end_time: 1565125304377    // Unix timestamp in milliseconds
}

Webhook signing

Stripe can optionally sign the webhook events it sends to your endpoint, allowing you to validate that they were not sent by a third-party. You can read more about it here.

Please note that you must pass the raw request body, exactly as received from Stripe, to the constructEvent() function; this will not work with a parsed (i.e., JSON) request body.

You can find an example of how to use this with various JavaScript frameworks in examples/webhook-signing folder, but here's what it looks like:

const event = stripe.webhooks.constructEvent(
  webhookRawBody,
  webhookStripeSignatureHeader,
  webhookSecret
);

Testing Webhook signing

You can use stripe.webhooks.generateTestHeaderString to mock webhook events that come from Stripe:

const payload = {
  id: 'evt_test_webhook',
  object: 'event',
};

const payloadString = JSON.stringify(payload, null, 2);
const secret = 'whsec_test_secret';

const header = stripe.webhooks.generateTestHeaderString({
  payload: payloadString,
  secret,
});

const event = stripe.webhooks.constructEvent(payloadString, header, secret);

// Do something with mocked signed event
expect(event.id).to.equal(payload.id);

Writing a Plugin

If you're writing a plugin that uses the library, we'd appreciate it if you instantiated your stripe client with appInfo, eg;

const stripe = require('stripe')('sk_test_...', {
  appInfo: {
    name: 'MyAwesomePlugin',
    version: '1.2.34', // Optional
    url: 'https://myawesomeplugin.info', // Optional
  },
});

Or using ES modules or TypeScript:

const stripe = new Stripe(apiKey, {
  appInfo: {
    name: 'MyAwesomePlugin',
    version: '1.2.34', // Optional
    url: 'https://myawesomeplugin.info', // Optional
  },
});

This information is passed along when the library makes calls to the Stripe API.

Auto-pagination

We provide a few different APIs for this to aid with a variety of node versions and styles.

Async iterators (for-await-of)

If you are in a Node environment that has support for async iteration, such as Node 10+ or babel, the following will auto-paginate:

for await (const customer of stripe.customers.list()) {
  doSomething(customer);
  if (shouldStop()) {
    break;
  }
}

autoPagingEach

If you are in a Node environment that has support for await, such as Node 7.9 and greater, you may pass an async function to .autoPagingEach:

await stripe.customers.list().autoPagingEach(async (customer) => {
  await doSomething(customer);
  if (shouldBreak()) {
    return false;
  }
});
console.log('Done iterating.');

Equivalently, without await, you may return a Promise, which can resolve to false to break:

stripe.customers
  .list()
  .autoPagingEach((customer) => {
    return doSomething(customer).then(() => {
      if (shouldBreak()) {
        return false;
      }
    });
  })
  .then(() => {
    console.log('Done iterating.');
  })
  .catch(handleError);

autoPagingToArray

This is a convenience for cases where you expect the number of items to be relatively small; accordingly, you must pass a limit option to prevent runaway list growth from consuming too much memory. Once the limit number of items have been fetched, auto-pagination will stop.

Returns a promise of an array of all items across pages for a list request.

const allNewCustomers = await stripe.customers
  .list({created: {gt: lastMonth}, limit: 100}) // 100 items per page
  .autoPagingToArray({limit: 10000}); // Stop after 10000 items total

Telemetry

By default, the library sends request telemetry to Stripe regarding request latency and feature usage. These numbers help Stripe improve the overall latency of its API for all users, and improve popular features.

You can disable this behavior if you prefer:

const stripe = new Stripe('sk_test_...', {
  telemetry: false,
});

Beta SDKs

Stripe has features in the beta phase that can be accessed via the beta version of this package. We would love for you to try these and share feedback with us before these features reach the stable phase. The beta versions can be installed in one of two ways

• To install the latest beta version, run the command npm install stripe@beta --save
• To install a specific beta version, replace the term "beta" in the above command with the version number like npm install stripe@1.2.3-beta.1 --save

Note There can be breaking changes between beta versions. Therefore we recommend pinning the package version to a specific beta version in your package.json file. This way you can install the same version each time without breaking changes unless you are intentionally looking for the latest beta version.

We highly recommend keeping an eye on when the beta feature you are interested in goes from beta to stable so that you can move from using a beta version of the SDK to the stable version.

The versions tab on the stripe page on npm lists the current tags in use. The beta tag here corresponds to the the latest beta version of the package.

If your beta feature requires a Stripe-Version header to be sent, use the apiVersion property of config object to set it:

const stripe = new Stripe('sk_test_...', {
  apiVersion: '2022-08-01; feature_beta=v3',
});

Custom requests

If you would like to send a request to an undocumented API (for example you are in a private beta), or if you prefer to bypass the method definitions in the library and specify your request details directly, you can use the rawRequest method on the StripeClient object.

const client = new Stripe('sk_test_...');

client.rawRequest(
    'POST',
    '/v1/beta_endpoint',
    { param: 123 },
    { apiVersion: '2022-11-15; feature_beta=v3' }
  )
  .then((response) => /* handle response */ )
  .catch((error) => console.error(error));

Or using ES modules and async/await:

import Stripe from 'stripe';
const stripe = new Stripe('sk_test_...');

const response = await stripe.rawRequest(
  'POST',
  '/v1/beta_endpoint',
  { param: 123 },
  { apiVersion: '2022-11-15; feature_beta=v3' }
);

// handle response

Support

New features and bug fixes are released on the latest major version of the stripe package. If you are on an older major version, we recommend that you upgrade to the latest in order to use the new features and bug fixes including those for security vulnerabilities. Older major versions of the package will continue to be available for use, but will not be receiving any updates.

More Information

• REST API Version
• Error Handling
• Passing Options
• Using Stripe Connect

Development

Run all tests:

$ yarn install
$ yarn test

If you do not have yarn installed, you can get it with npm install --global yarn.

The tests also depends on stripe-mock, so make sure to fetch and run it from a background terminal (stripe-mock's README also contains instructions for installing via Homebrew and other methods):

go get -u github.com/stripe/stripe-mock
stripe-mock

Run a single test suite without a coverage report:

$ yarn mocha-only test/Error.spec.ts

Run a single test (case sensitive) in watch mode:

$ yarn mocha-only test/Error.spec.ts --grep 'Populates with type' --watch

If you wish, you may run tests using your Stripe Test API key by setting the environment variable STRIPE_TEST_API_KEY before running the tests:

$ export STRIPE_TEST_API_KEY='sk_test....'
$ yarn test

Run prettier:

Add an editor integration or:

$ yarn fix