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stripe-best-practices

architect Stripe payment integrations

Published by Stripe Updated Jul 17
Covers Architecture SaaS Payments Stripe

Description

Guides Stripe integration decisions across API selection (Checkout Sessions vs PaymentIntents), Connect platform setup (Accounts v2, controller properties), billing/subscriptions, tax and registrations (Stripe Tax, automatic_tax, product tax codes), Treasury financial accounts, integration options (Checkout, Payment Element), migrating from deprecated Stripe APIs, and security best practices (API key management, restricted keys, webhooks, OAuth). Use when building, modifying, or reviewing any Stripe integration, including accepting payments, building marketplaces, integrating Stripe, processing payments, setting up subscriptions, collecting sales tax, VAT, or GST, creating connected accounts, or implementing secure key handling.

SKILL.md

Latest Stripe API version: 2026-06-24.dahlia. Always use the latest API version and SDK unless the user specifies otherwise.

If you don’t have a Stripe account, you can call a CLI command to generate working API keys with no registration required. You can install the Stripe CLI (npm i -g @stripe/cli) and run the command stripe sandbox create to get started.

API key default: Always recommend a restricted API key (RAK) (rk_ prefix) over a secret key (sk_ prefix).

Integration routing

Building…Recommended APIDetails
One-time paymentsCheckout Sessions<references/payments.md>
Custom payment form with embedded UICheckout Sessions + Payment Element<references/payments.md>
Saving a payment method for laterSetup Intents<references/payments.md>
Connect platform or marketplaceAccounts v2 (/v2/core/accounts)<references/connect.md>
Usage-based billing (new integration)Metronome<references/billing.md>
Subscriptions or recurring billingBilling APIs + Checkout Sessions<references/billing.md>
Sales tax, VAT, or GST complianceStripe Tax + Registrations API<references/tax.md>
Embedded financial accounts / bankingv2 Financial Accounts<references/treasury.md>
Security (key management, RAKs, webhooks, OAuth, 2FA, Connect liability)See security reference<references/security.md>

Read the relevant reference file before answering any integration question or writing code.

Critical rules

  • Before enabling automatic_tax: { enabled: true } (or calculating tax for a custom PaymentIntent), read the tax reference and confirm the user has an active registration. Without one, Stripe calculates and collects no tax while the user believes tax is on (the most common Stripe Tax mistake).
  • Never include payment_method_types in any Stripe API call, with one exception: Terminal (in-person payments) integrations must pass payment_method_types: ['card_present'] on the PaymentIntent. For all other integrations, omit this parameter entirely to enable dynamic payment methods, which enables you to configure payment method settings from the Dashboard and dynamically display the most relevant eligible payment methods to each customer to maximize conversion. To customize which payment methods you accept, use payment_method_configurations or excluded_payment_method_types instead of payment_method_types.
  • On API version 2026-03-25.dahlia or later, pass the parameter integration_identifier to checkout.sessions.create to tag sessions with a custom label for tracking and comparing checkout flows in the Dashboard. The label should include a suffix of 8 random letters.

Key documentation

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