We build, manage, and update hundreds of websites each year. Our clients range from small businesses to enterprise level corporations, and often times the need for processing credit cards through their website or online store comes up. There are plenty of options for setting up merchant accounts, gateways, processors, PCI Compliance etc... but let’s face it, this stuff can be confusing. However, in the true nature of simplicity and innovation here at Designzillas, we’ve found an All-In-One Solution: Stripe.

For years we’ve relied on Paypal and Authorize.net to provide a secure payment processor, merchant account, and online gateway for transmitting credit card information. These services are reliable and credible, which will continue to remain so. Yet, there were constant headaches with these options: Setup fees, High percentage costs, Transaction fees, and most importantly a lack of PCI Compliance (without taking the visitor offsite to a secure page).

Introduction to the Stripe Payment Processor

Stripe is a fairly new solution that offers full-stack payments, simple API integration, and allows your website to accept credit cards on your website and avoid PCI compliance requirements. What you get is an all-in-one solution that doesn’t require a separate merchant account or gateway, and allows you to breathe easy about avoiding the pesky PCI compliance regulations. Although new, it has gained huge traction in the industry and is being utilized by thousands of websites: https://stripe.com/gallery

One of the major advantages to Stripe is that it keeps the credit card information off your server completely; thus how we are able to eliminate the need to be PCI-compliant. Through credit card encryption in JavaScript the credentials are submitted securely to the Stripe PCI-compliant server through an Ajax call. Your system receives a token representing your transaction, which is what your server uses to complete the transaction.

Stripe is intended to be setup by developers, but the actual service is incredible for the end client. The account setup process takes seconds and the interface is simple, elegant, and easy to understand. Another advantage to Stripe is that the client can securely link up their actual bank account, without needing a merchant account for the funds to be deposited. It’s easy, seamless, and pretty.

Setting up your payment form

Once you’ve been verified, it’s time to integrate a payment form! This is where you’ll need a developer’s help, but in this phase. The Designzillas team can of course help setup and integrate your payment form through a standard PHP form, Drupal website, Wordpress website, or any other type of CMS. The basics of the form setup will be:

• Collecting credit card information with Stripe.js
• Converting those details to a single-use token
• Sending the token and form elements to your server

We have the credit card information, now what?

After you’ve submitted the form and token to your server, we’ll want to take some type of action with the payment details. So we’re ready to charge the customer and we have 2 basic directions that can be made:

• Charge the user immediately (process a 1-time payment)
• Sign the user up for a recurring subscription

Viewing the charge in your control panel

After setup we’ve successfully integrated Stripe, we’re setting our control panel to “LIVE” and we’re ready to start selling products / services. The control panel dashboard is broken into: Dashboard, Payments, Customers, and Transfers.

We’re very pleased with Stripe and would recommend it to most e-commerce websites. However, we aren’t saying that Stripe is a total replacement for every project. Every website has a specific set of requirements that needs to be evaluated to determine the best solution. We pride ourselves on being experts in this industry, so if you need any help with your online store, Stripe configuration, or general questions let us know!

Source: Images / Content / Instructions courtesy of Stripe.com