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23 Comments

How long did it take you to integrate Stripe or payment feature?

Hey all,

Just wanted to ask, how long did it take you to build or integrate Stripe or pricing feature into your apps? Days? Weeks? Months??

I feel that every-time I integrate Stripe, it seems a little more complex and I feel the need to provide other features such as the ability for cancellation,
upgrading or downgrading and making sure they can see basic billing history.

Don't get me wrong, I love Stripe and their docs are great. Just wondering what other people's thoughts are?

What are you thoughts? How far do you go or put into implementing your payment features?

  1. 2

    I use Paddle in 2 different projects. Both are SaaS subscription model. It took just a few hours to integrate, and now I have all the features I need including coupons, variable payments for addons, etc. They also take care of all tax calculations which is a big headache, and they support the billing requests of my customers.
    They act as reseller which takes away a lot of the legal pain.
    They are super responsive to support requests before and after you launch.
    They take 5% flat with no monthly payment. Considering everything that they do is no brainer.
    I highly recommend them.

  2. 1

    If you complete with company registration/cert number in you country. It will take a minute.

    your company name in Stripe form must same with company cert you upload at Stripe.

    Im using telegram payment gateway + Stripe. take a look at https://t.me/twt_jogging

  3. 1

    Hello all. I just wanted to drop a note here regarding Integrated Payfacs. Stripe is really only a good option for international markets. Startups are overlooking the revenue opportunity that payments can create. Stripe connect only pays about 19 to 24 basis points of revenue, with Express and Custom leaving you with high development and design overhead. Feels very bootstrapped.
    With the same effort and time as a Stripe Connect implementation, my companies API can deliver an automated, customizable, fully white label embedded payments platform where you can control your own pricing, that pays you out 70 to 80 basis points on average, and if you implement service fees, this can climb upwards to 200 to 300 basis points.
    This also comes with white label realtime dashboards, KYC, biz verification, OFAC checks, Risk and Underwriting, Partner and Developer Support, AND 0 liability for CHARGEBACKS AND LOSSES.
    In an acquisition, the average gross monthly revenue of payments is multiplied by 50 to 70 times.

    I hope this is insightful or helpful. Let me know if anyone here would like more info on my company.

  4. 1

    I've implemented Stripe in two Rails apps, both with very different goals.

    The first was an e-commerce-like site. You ordered/reserved hard to find beer online and picked it up at the bar. I had to implement the cart and checkout UI, sending data to Stripe, account management (and syncing with Stripe), and refund requests. It took me, a single developer, about three months working full-time.

    The second site is a more traditional saas. You got to a pricing page and clicked a plan. With the use of Stripe Checkout I was able to get this up and running in a few hours. I then added Stripe Customer Portal for self-service billing management in about an hour.

    tl;dr - Rolling everything on my own took months, using Stripe's "shortcuts" took less than a day.

    1. 1

      Oh wow, I never knew about the Stripe Customer Portal. Thanks for sharing! I wonder if people prefer the new Stripe Checkout where it takes you to a new window or they preferred the old way Stripe Checkout Legacy which was a modal pop.
      Understandable, it was because of regulation. But from user experience, just wondered which one people preferred?

      1. 1

        Yeah, the customer portal is amazing. It easily saved a few days (weeks?) or work so I can focus on the actual product.

        I'm also free to rip it out later and implement something custom. But only if I want! Which is perfect for an IHer.

      2. 1

        Wow, my first learning of Stripe Customer Portal too. That would have been super handy.

  5. 1

    I'm working on it today actually... Most of the code is already written in the docs, it's not too hard once one understands the workflow...

    1. 1

      Yeah, Stripe do have really good docs and code examples, so it does make it straightforward to integrate. I just find it over the years, the examples have grown much larger and there is a lot more customisation available.

      1. 1

        Exactly, you have to read a few examples to undertand the workflow, what to use and what's not relevant... Once one understands the various workflows the code becomes easy to customize. For instance, with Stripe Connect it's not clear how to keep funds and pay a seller later... The example given is for an instant transfer to a seller. Because there are so many possible scenarios one can be confused by the single code example...

  6. 1

    I am now implementing Stripe. I will make it minimal, so using their Checkout and admin to start, edit, cancel subscriptions. Then I just implement web hooks in my app. I guess it cannot be much less than that. Still, around 10+ days given the research, tests, etc.

    1. 1

      I think that's a good approach - making it minimal. I've implemented way too much at times, only for them not being used. What do you primarily use the webhooks for? I presume to integrate back into you system or db?

      1. 1

        Webhooks have to basically save the subscription to the app database, download invoice, react to changes.

  7. 1

    Longer than I'd have liked, and I'm likely still not done. That said, my use case is a little different.

    I'm building Nodewood, a JavaScript-based web app starter kit, and a big selling point is that I've already written the subscriptions feature -- all the developer needs to do is set up their products/prices/coupons/taxes, and all the rest of the integration is done. But as a result, this means that I've had to think about a bunch of extra test cases that your average developer won't -- they'll implement things in one specific way, but I might have different developers who want access to things in different ways, and I have to support both.

    Plus, I added a feature where you define your products/prices/coupons/taxes as JSON files, and I have a CLI command that will sync that config to Stripe. This means you can put your Stripe config in version control, and "run migrations" when you deploy to production. Handy, but most folks won't write this just for themselves.

    All told, I think it took a couple of months of nights/weekends, but that's also hardly a fair estimate, since it was right in the middle of the pandemic, and I don't know about you, but I personally find it hard to be nearly as productive these days as I used to be, about a year ago. If you were aiming to do a less generic integration, and weren't quite as affected by the pandemic as I was, you could definitely pull it off way, way faster.

    1. 2

      Great site @DanHultan. Yeah, I know what you mean, I totally forgot about coupons! Another thing to implement.
      I find that developing and integrating payments is a mini side project in itself!

    2. 1

      I really love the idea of your Stripe config! That’s cool man. Is your product ready to try out? Setting up all that stuff is a pain and I’ve thought I’d definitely use a starter kit if a good one existed.

      1. 1

        Hi Dustin! Thanks!

        Nodewood's not officially released, but it is in private beta, and I'm looking for a couple more people to participate and provide feedback, if you're interested in getting in a little early. Some things will be a bit unpolished, but on the plus side, it's a great opportunity to get your feedback implemented while it's still easy to modify things.

        If you're interested, you can sign up for the Nodewood beta here. Beta participants get a 50% off discount as thanks for their participation and feedback.

  8. 1

    Good question. I have implement Stripe from a scratch over 3 -5 times on different sites / platforms. It was definitely easier before Stripe elements was around but I think the regulations were different then. 3d secure made things a lot more complex.

    Recently I implemented their billing on my site https://formcrafts.com having just moved from 2Checkout. It's a subscription model with monthly pricing, plus variable billing for additional seats, support for updating card, updating billing info, viewing invoices, plan upgrades / downgrades, and implementing Stripe events to keep the data in sync. It took me about a week of work.

    FormCrafts is a form platform which also allows people to take payment via Stripe. This one uses Stripe connect. This one includes subscriptions + charges (including support for 3d secure AND coupons), and is much more complex in the back-end. This one took 2 - 4 weeks, and then a lot of testing over time.

    In my opinion what made Stripe complicated over time was regulatory issues. That said, they are still miles ahead of others that I have tried.

    1. 2

      Hey @nish234, formcrafts looks really neat! I think you're right, the new Stripe checkout is due to regulatory rules. Stripe used to have a really nice modal pop up which was super easy to integrate, now it's legacy. Like you say, it's getting more and more complicated.

    2. 1

      Even more so than Braintree/PayPal?

      1. 1

        I can't speak for Braintree but PayPal was a nightmare. I spend days pouring over their documentation and I had no idea where to begin or even what PayPal products I need to use.

        I actually used to have PayPal option on FormCrafts for people to make PayPal forms but I dropped support for that.

        Aside from that I have worked with 2Checkout, which is worse than PayPal.

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