Payment Integration with Stripe and Paddle

Traffic without monetization is expensive. Payment integration completes the business loop, turning visitors into revenue. Using proven templates makes implementation straightforward.

Choosing Your Payment Processor

Stripe works for most cases where you can establish a business relationship with them. Stripe handles the payment processing while you remain the merchant of record. This gives more control but requires business verification.

Paddle operates as merchant of record, handling taxes and compliance on your behalf. This simplifies international sales but means Paddle is technically the seller. Paddle works well when Stripe registration isn’t possible.

Both processors have open source Next.js integration templates that handle the complex parts.

Using the Vercel Stripe Template

The nextjs-subscription-payments template on GitHub provides a complete subscription implementation. Checkout flows, webhook handling, and subscription management come pre-built.

Deploy the template to Vercel, configure environment variables with your Stripe API keys, and customize the product offerings. The template saves weeks of integration work.

Configuration requires creating products in Stripe’s dashboard, setting prices, and copying the resulting Price IDs into your application configuration. Webhooks need endpoint URLs registered in Stripe pointing to your deployed app.

Test the complete flow using Stripe’s test mode. Test card numbers simulate successful payments, declined cards, and various edge cases before you process real transactions.

Cost Optimization

Currency conversion eats margin. If customers pay in USD but your Stripe account settles in another currency, you pay conversion fees on every transaction. Adding a USD bank account to your Stripe configuration avoids the 2% conversion cost on USD transactions.

The per-transaction fixed fee hurts low-price products. Stripe’s $0.30 fixed fee represents 6% on a $5 purchase but only 0.3% on a $100 purchase. Structure pricing to minimize the impact, potentially offering annual subscriptions rather than low monthly fees.

Fraud Prevention

Enable Stripe Radar to catch fraudulent transactions. Set rules to block or review high-risk transactions based on risk scores or originating countries with high fraud rates.

Disputed transactions cost money even when you win. The dispute process itself incurs fees. Prevention through fraud screening costs less than dealing with chargebacks after the fact.

Consider friction carefully. Requiring 3D Secure verification reduces fraud but also reduces conversion. The right balance depends on your market and average transaction value.