Welcome to the exciting world of subscriptions and recurring billing! In this chapter, we'll dive deep into how to leverage Stripe's powerful features to build robust subscription models within your Next.js applications. Whether you're offering a SaaS product, a content platform, or a membership service, understanding recurring payments is crucial for sustainable growth and predictable revenue.
Unlike one-time payments, subscriptions involve charging customers automatically at regular intervals (e.g., monthly, annually). This model offers immense benefits for both businesses and customers: predictable revenue streams for businesses, and convenient, uninterrupted access for customers. Stripe excels at managing the complexities of recurring billing, handling everything from initial setup to dunning (managing failed payments) and subscription lifecycle management.
We'll explore key concepts and Stripe objects that form the backbone of subscription management:
- Products and Prices: The fundamental building blocks. A 'Product' represents what you're selling (e.g., 'Pro Plan', 'Basic Membership'), and a 'Price' defines the cost, currency, and billing interval for that product.
const product = await stripe.products.create({
name: 'Monthly Subscription',
});
const price = await stripe.prices.create({
unit_amount: 2000, // $20.00
currency: 'usd',
recurring: {
interval: 'month',
},
product: product.id,
});- Customers: Represents your end-users. When a customer subscribes, you'll create or retrieve a Stripe Customer object and associate it with their payment method.
const customer = await stripe.customers.create({
email: 'customer@example.com',
name: 'Jane Doe',
});- Subscriptions: The core object that ties a Customer to a Price. A Subscription defines the terms of the recurring payment, including the customer, the price(s) they're subscribing to, and their status (active, past_due, canceled).
const subscription = await stripe.subscriptions.create({
customer: customer.id,
items: [
{
price: price.id,
},
],
});- Checkout Sessions: A streamlined way to guide customers through the subscription process, ensuring all necessary information is collected and securely processed by Stripe. We'll use Stripe Checkout extensively to handle the payment and subscription creation flow.
graph TD
A[Customer initiates subscription] --> B{Create Stripe Checkout Session};
B --> C[Redirect customer to Stripe Checkout];
C --> D{Customer completes payment on Stripe];
D --> E{Stripe creates Subscription and Customer};
E --> F[Redirect customer back to your app];
F --> G[Update UI to reflect subscription status];
In the following sections, we'll walk through the practical implementation of these concepts in a Next.js application, demonstrating how to create products and prices, handle customer creation, set up Checkout Sessions, and manage the subscription lifecycle.