Create a React app with Cloud Firestore and Stripe

About this guide

This development guide walks you through everything you need to do to build a high-quality React app integrated with Cloud Firestore and Stripe. Check out the tasks below to get started. To save time, you can also use our boilerplate, which gives you a complete React codebase with all of these tasks done for you. Okay, let's dive in!

Tasks

• Setup your React appGet the code

  Setup a React app using npx create-react-app and routing using React Router. There are many ways you can structure your app, but a common setup is to have an App component that defines top-level routes, with each route component imported from the /pages directory. The rest of your components should be located in your /components directory. You can then run your app locally with the npm run start command.

• Setup a Node (Express.js) serverGet the code

  This stack requires server logic, so we'll be setting up a Node (Express.js) server that we can query from our React front-end. We suggest defining your Express.js routes in a file located at /api/index.js and then creating a file for each route handler in the/api directory. Next make sure all requests to /api/* get routed to your Express server port by defining a proxy in your package.json. Lastly, run your server with the node api command in a new terminal window.

• Create Cloud Firestore query hooksGet the code

  Create React hooks that wrap your Cloud Firestore queries, such as useUser, useItem, and useItemsByUser. These hooks should subscribe to data using onSnapshot and return a query status of "success", "loading", or "error". The React Query library makes it especially easy to setup these hooks and have components re-render when data changes.

• Add Firestore rulesGet the code

  Be sure to specify your Firestore security rules so that your Firestore database is secure. For example, if you have a users collection you might ensure that the authenticated user can only update a doc if userDoc.uid matches their uid. If you have an items collection you might ensure that they can only update and fetch items where itemDoc.owner matches their uid. You'll also generally want to specify an array of fields that are writeable, as you wouldn't want a user to be able to change userDoc.planId without actually upgrading their plan.

• Build a data-driven UIGet the code

  Create a data-driven UI using your component library of choice that reads/writes data to Cloud Firestore. The specifics will depend on the type of app you're building, but we generally recommend having a useItemsByOwner hook that fetches "items" in Cloud Firestore that are owned by the current user. You can then create a component for displaying that data in a simple list or table if more columns are needed. Finally, you'll want create a flow for creating and updating items utilizing modal and form components.

• ‍Integrate with Stripe CheckoutGet the code

  Create an Express.js route at /api/stripe-checkout that receives a planId value, creates a new Stripe Checkout session for the given plan using stripe.checkout.sessions.create(), and then returns the session object. Next you'll create a /purchase/[planId] page that initiates the checkout flow. This page should automatically make a request to /api/stripe-checkout to get a new Checkout session and and then redirect to Checkout by calling stripe.redirectToCheckout(session.id). Finally, you'll design your plan selection UI using your component library of choice and link each plan to the /purchase/[planId] page you've setup above.

• ‍Integrate with Stripe Customer PortalGet the code

  Create an Express.js route at /api/stripe-portal that creates a new Stripe Customer Portal session using stripe.billingPortal.sessions.create() and then returns thesession object. Next you'll create a /settings/billing page that initiates the Customer Portal flow. This page should automatically make a request to /api/stripe-portal to get a new session and then redirect to the Customer Portal using the session.url value. Next you'll create a settings UI using your component library of choice and link to the /settings/billing page you setup above. Now your users can easily manage billing info and change payment methods.

• ‍Create a Stripe webhookGet the code

  In order to handle Stripe payment events you'll need to setup a webhook server endpoint. Create an Express.js route at /api/stripe-webhook that uses the stripe library to parse data from the request body, validate the event using stripe.webhooks.constructEvent(), and then call a handler function for each of the following events: checkout.session.completed, invoice.payment_succeeded, invoice.payment_failed, customer.subscription.updated, and customer.subscription.deleted. Your event handlers should update the user in the database so that your database contains their current plan and subscription status. When running your app locally, Stripe won't be able to ping your webhook endpoint, so you'll want to make sure to use the Stripe CLI to listen to events and route them to your local /api/stripe-webhook endpoint.

Get the code

You can get the code for this guide with our React, Cloud Firestore, and Stripe Boilerplate. You'll get a complete React codebase with Cloud Firestore and Stripe integration, all the tasks listed above done for you, and a responsive multi-page template. It should save you about two weeks of development time.

Get the boilerplate