Create a React app with Stripe and Vercel

About this guide

This development guide walks you through everything you need to do to build a high-quality React app integrated with Stripe and Vercel. 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 vercel dev command, which handles running both your React front-end and Vercel serverless functions.

• ‍Integrate with Stripe CheckoutGet the code

  Create a Vercel serverless function at /api/stripe-checkout.js 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 a Vercel serverless function at /api/stripe-portal.js 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 a Vercel serverless function at /api/stripe-webhook.js 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.

• Deploy to VercelGet the code

  To deploy your React app to Vercel first link it to a project with the vercel link command. Next you'll want to make sure any to add any environment vars used in your app to Vercel using vercel env add or via the environment vars UI. You can then use the vercel command to deploy your project to a unique preview URL or vercel --prod to deploy to your production domain.

Get the code

You can get the code for this guide with our React, Stripe, and Vercel Boilerplate. You'll get a complete React codebase with Stripe and Vercel 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