L Launch Your AI Startup

Setting up Stripe

A click-by-click walkthrough for connecting your own Stripe account, testing it with a fake card, and going live. No technical knowledge needed.

A click-by-click walkthrough for connecting your own Stripe account, testing it with a fake card, and going live. No technical knowledge needed.

Time: about 20 minutes, plus however long Stripe takes to check your business details (often minutes, sometimes a day or two).

You will move between two browser tabs: your Stripe dashboard and your workspace's back office. Keep both open.

Before you start

Have these to hand:

  • An email address for your Stripe login
  • Your business details: legal name, address, and what you sell
  • The bank account your money should be paid into
  • Your plans already created under What you sell → Plans & pricing

Step 1 — Create your Stripe account

  1. Go to stripe.com and click Sign up.
  2. Enter your email, name and a password, and confirm your email address.

You can do steps 2 to 7 straight away, in test mode, before Stripe has checked your business. You only need the checks finished for step 8, going live.

Step 2 — Switch Stripe to test mode

In your Stripe dashboard, turn on Test mode (a switch near the top right, or Sandbox in newer accounts). While it is on, nothing is real: no money moves and the cards are fake.

Step 3 — Copy your secret key

  1. In Stripe, open Developers → API keys. (If you cannot see Developers, search the dashboard for "API keys".)
  2. Find Secret key and click Reveal test key.
  3. Copy it. It starts with sk_test_.

Treat this key like a password. Anyone who has it can take payments and issue refunds on your account.

Step 4 — Paste it into your workspace

  1. In your workspace, open Setup → Payments, find the Stripe card and click Set up.
  2. Paste the key into Secret key.
  3. Tick Take payments through Stripe.
  4. Click Save, then Test connection.

The Status card should now say Verified and Test. If it says Failed, the message underneath tells you why — usually a key copied with a character missing.

Step 5 — Connect the webhook

The webhook is how Stripe tells your workspace that somebody has paid. Without it, customers are charged and get nothing. Do not skip this step.

  1. On your workspace's Stripe page, find Webhook endpoint and click the copy button next to the address. It is private to you — treat it like a password.
  2. In Stripe, open Developers → Webhooks and click Add endpoint (or Add destination).
  3. Paste the address as the Endpoint URL.
  4. Where it asks for an API version, pick the one shown on your workspace's Stripe page.
  5. Click Select events and tick each of these (the search box helps):
    • checkout.session.completed
    • checkout.session.async_payment_succeeded
    • invoice.paid
    • invoice.payment_failed
    • customer.subscription.updated
    • customer.subscription.deleted
    • charge.refunded
  6. Save the endpoint.
  7. Open the endpoint you just made, find Signing secret and click Reveal. Copy it — it starts with whsec_.
  8. Back in your workspace, paste it into Webhook signing secret and click Save.

Step 6 — Turn Stripe on for your customers

Open Setup → Payments and click Use Stripe on the Stripe card.

From now on, new customers check out through Stripe. Nothing to set up for your plans: each checkout tells Stripe the plan's name and price as it goes.

Step 7 — Make a test purchase

  1. Open your website in a private (incognito) window and register as a customer, using a different email from your own login.
  2. Choose a paid plan and click Pay. You are taken to Stripe's checkout page.
  3. Pay with Stripe's test card:
    • Card number 4242 4242 4242 4242
    • Any expiry date in the future, any three-digit CVC, any postcode
  4. You are brought back to your billing page. Within a minute the plan and credits appear.
  5. In your back office, Your customers → Payments shows the payment.

Then try cancelling from the customer's billing page, and refunding from Payments. Both should show up in Stripe too.

If the payment shows in Stripe but not in your workspace, the webhook is not connected properly — go back over step 5.

Step 8 — Go live

Once Stripe has finished checking your business (the dashboard tells you if anything is missing):

  1. In Stripe, turn Test mode off.
  2. Open Developers → API keys and copy your live secret key. It starts with sk_live_. Stripe may only show it once, so paste it straight in.
  3. In your workspace's Stripe page, paste it into Secret key, click Save and Test connection. The status card now says Live.
  4. Repeat step 5 with test mode off. Test and live webhooks are separate, so you need a new endpoint and a new signing secret.
  5. Make one small real purchase yourself, then refund it.

You are live.

Good to know

  • Tax: Stripe does not collect or pay sales tax, VAT or GST for you on this connection. If you need to charge tax, include it in your plan prices.
  • Payouts: Stripe pays your balance into your bank account on its own schedule. Change it under Settings → Payouts in Stripe.
  • Changing prices: change the price on the plan here. New purchases use the new price; existing subscribers keep theirs.

If you get stuck

"Failed" after Test connection. The key is wrong or incomplete. Copy it again from Developers → API keys — the whole thing, starting sk_.

Paid in Stripe, nothing here. The webhook: the address must be exactly the one shown on your workspace's Stripe page, all seven events ticked, and the signing secret pasted in. Stripe shows every delivery attempt on the endpoint's page — failed ones are marked in red.

Test payments worked, real ones do not. You are still using the sk_test_ key, or you have not made the live webhook.

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