Ema.subscription-events

[onyx needle]

Hey there! What language are you using? There's a good example here that explains how webhooks work with subscriptions: https://stripe.com/docs/billing/subscriptions/build-subscription?ui=checkout#provision-and-monitor

[gray estuary]

Hello ynnoj! I fixed my webhook doubt for the question I initially submitted, and proceeded to create a webhook that executes successfully. I'm still doubtful about at which part of the transaction I should save the subscription in the database

I don't think these requests are ordered since I see payment_intent.succeeded before creation?

Also, I'm on MERN stack!

[onyx needle]

Yeah, we can't guarantee the order of events: https://stripe.com/docs/webhooks/best-practices#event-ordering

If this is to provision access to your product/service, you'd likely be best of listening to the invoice.* related events to act accordingly

[gray estuary]

Yes, it's about provisioning access, so I want to make sure people get access to the service once the payment is successful

Also would you have any insight about how to cancel subscriptions when managing them through Stripe? Is there any specific event I should listen for?

I'm sorry for the beginner questions but I recently started as a software engineer and this is my first exposure to Stripe!

[onyx needle]

Sounds like you want: https://stripe.com/docs/api/events/types#event_types-customer.subscription.deleted

More context here: https://stripe.com/docs/billing/subscriptions/overview#subscription-events

[gray estuary]

Thank you so much! I'll read up on that.

[onyx needle]

Np! Let me know if something isn't clear

[gray estuary]

I have a question about subscription renewals! If I want to provision the services through a boolean flag "subscribed: true/false", can I set up the webhook so that every month it sets the flag accordingly?

I have noticed your very well designed dashboard handles cancelling subscriptions, renewing them, switching tiers and more, but how would this connect to my app's backend?

And is there any way to set some extra headers for the requests I send to the webhook? e.g. I want to have the UID of the user that is doing things with their subscriptions so that I can perform operations on the related document in my DB (like setting the flag)

[onyx needle]

Yes, you'd probably want to listen for invoice.paid event. Equally, invoice.payment_failed to revoke access/prompt for payment

[onyx needle]

Are you referring to the Customer Portal?

[onyx needle]

You could manage this via metadata on the subscription: https://stripe.com/docs/api/subscriptions/create#create_subscription-metadata

[gray estuary]

Yes, the customer portal!

my apologies :p

[onyx needle]

You'd just listen for the corresponding events that the action in the Customer Portal would trigger

[gray estuary]

so the customer portal still fires back to my webhook and triggers the events?

[onyx needle]

Yep, exactly

[gray estuary]

Last question, and I'm sorry for asking so many!

I've seen that accessing the customer portal takes a Checkout Session ID, how would I approach getting to the customer portal without a checkout session? Like, the customer is in their personal area on my website and they want to access stripe settings

[onyx needle]

Hmm, think you mean a Customer Portal session? https://stripe.com/docs/api/customer_portal/sessions/create

But yes, you'll need to generate one via your server and return the URL to your app to redirect the user

[gray estuary]

This is what the example does right now!

I think checkoutSession just makes it so that the API pulls the customer ID on its own?

so I could just pass the customer ID

[onyx needle]

Hmm, I'm confused. You keep mentioning Checkout?

[gray estuary]

Yes! Sorry, let me clarify.
What I am doing right now is implementing this https://github.com/stripe-samples/checkout-single-subscription

if you go to server/node/server.js, you'll see the code I'm referring to.

[onyx needle]

Ah, the customer ID

You said Checkout Session ID and it confused me 😆

Yep, if you have the Customer ID from elsewhere then you can just pass that. Not need to fetch a Checkout Session

[gray estuary]

Thank you very much! I think this answered all my questions

[onyx needle]

Sure, np!