Before we dive into integrating Stripe with your Next.js application, the first crucial step is to set up your Stripe account. This is where you'll manage your payments, view transactions, and access your vital API keys.
- Sign Up for a Stripe Account: Navigate to the Stripe website (stripe.com) and sign up for a new account. If you already have one, you can log in to your dashboard.
- Locate Your API Keys: Once logged into your Stripe dashboard, you'll need to find your API keys. These keys are essential for your application to communicate with Stripe's servers.
- In the dashboard, look for a section labeled 'Developers' or 'API'.
- Within that section, you should find 'API keys'.
- Understand Test vs. Live Keys: Stripe provides two sets of API keys:
- Test Keys: Used for development and testing. These allow you to simulate transactions without processing real money. This is where you'll spend most of your initial development time.
- Live Keys: Used when your application is ready to process actual customer payments. Be cautious when using live keys, as they involve real financial transactions.
- Copy Your Secret and Publishable Keys: You'll see a 'Secret Key' and a 'Publishable Key'.
- The Secret Key should be kept highly confidential and should never be exposed in your client-side code (e.g., directly in your Next.js frontend components). It's used for server-side operations like creating charges or managing customers.
- The Publishable Key is designed to be used in your client-side code. It's safe to include in your frontend because it doesn't grant access to sensitive operations.
- Store Your API Keys Securely: For your Next.js application, the best practice is to store your API keys as environment variables. This keeps them out of your codebase and makes them easy to manage, especially when deploying.
- For test keys, you'll typically use
STRIPE_SECRET_KEYandSTRIPE_PUBLISHABLE_KEY(or similar names) in your.env.localfile for local development. - For live keys, you'll configure these in your hosting provider's environment variable settings.
- For test keys, you'll typically use