Need help integrating Stripe for your SaaS product?
Hi IH fam,
We recently went through the process of integrating Stripe with our backend (not using Stripe Checkout, but with Stripe React Elements + backend API calls), and boy was it a doozy! It took almost three weeks to work through all the edge cases for transactions and make sure all the webhooks properly synced Stripe Customer data with our internal customer data.
Anyways, I'm wondering if anyone else here is going through a similarly harrowing experience? Stripe's APIs and documentation are amazing, but in the pursuit of flexibility, it actually makes implementing/managing recurring subscriptions (the basic stuff you need for a SaaS product) pretty time-consuming.
If you're going through this and need some help, reach out: nilkanth@midtype.com. We're happy to explain how we went about doing it (our stack is Postgres + NodeJS + React).
#saas #stripe #recurring #subscriptions
Stripe subscription were too limited (usage based billing) when we were implementing so we decided to handle the subscription part internally and just charge the user manually each month with an API call from our servers.
Interesting! So did you still use Stripe, but just do one-time monthly charges?
Yeah we manually keep track of the subscription usage (pro rating/crediting)
Yes, I did it for my SaaS app templates. It took about 1 week or so, I don't remember exactly. I used Python for backend, and Vue.js for the frontend, database is PostgreSQL too.
The integration itself was not hard - everything is pretty transparent. But just thinking out the workflow took some time.
I didn't use any hooks, though (I decided it could be too hard for users to set them up), so my model is rather asynchronous - the database is updated when a user does some action that checks the subscription state and updates the database.
Finally managed to load your site :)
The templates look great, but why are you charging only $39?
So, have you figured out what the problem was?
For a website template - maybe $49-$99? There are a lot of them. For a full SaaS template it should be much more.
It's not a web site template. It's a web app template with the integrated dashboard (SaaS) to manage blog and faq.
What’s different about the blogging engine than Wordpress that will encourage people to pay?
It's a pretty simple app written in Python. Not everyone wants to deal with a monstrous Wordpress written in PHP.
Another difference is the FAQ page that can be filled up from the dashboard. I know someone here on IH created a separate project about only FAQ management.
So, it's similar to any other SaaS boilerplate (like yours and mine) but aimed at founders who need to create a product website.
Yep, makes sense. Yeah we figured we might as well leverage the webhooks since Stripe's docs and implementation is pretty great. That's probably what took the most time. And the 3D secure and incomplete payment stuff. The small details really take the longest, haha.
Agreed re: your point about planning taking the longest. Wrapping your head around how Stripe works and how to use their API requires some thought to do right! Appreciate the feedback!
Might need your help soon :), plan on doing it for Versoly.
We are using React as well so hopefully will find a tutorial out there when we get to it.
Awesome! Yeah the frontend part isn't terrible (though that also took me a couple days of tinkering). It's the backend that really hurts. And only if you really want to cover all your bases (like support for 3D secure, which I think is mandatory for Europe, etc).
Versoly looks awesome btw. Definitely something some of our customers could use. We focus on backends and you focus on landing pages, so seems like a pretty good combo, haha.
Yeah we have Stripe setup for basic use cases, 3D is what we have to get working next :)
Yeah Midtype looks good and fits in with what we're doing at Versoly, we are already working on partnerships with other SaaS templates and more complex products such as yourself.
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Would love to help out! Not sure we are experts haha, but happy to help how we can. Feel free to reach out!