Integrate a Stripe Payment with React

I have recently implemented the frontend side of an online payment system, and surprisingly it was not as complicated as I had thought. I confess Stripe handled most of it.

The Forntend Side
So, let's create a React app and install the necessary dependencies.

// in a terminal
npx create-react-app react-stripe
cd react-stripe
yarn add @stripe/stripe-js @stripe/react-stripe-js axios

Next, we need to create a Stripe account to get the publishable key that we’ll use to integrate Stripe into our project.

Note: Stripe has two modes, a test mode for development and a live mode for production. Each mode has its secret and publishable keys. Secret keys are for the backend code and should always be private. Publishable ones are for the frontend code, and they are not as sacred as the secret ones.

Now, to configure Stripe, we need loadStripe from @stripe/stripe-js, Elements from @stripe/react-stripe-js, and a PaymentForm.

// App.js
import { loadStripe } from "@stripe/stripe-js";
import { Elements } from "@stripe/react-stripe-js";
import PaymentForm from "./PaymentForm"; // not implemented yet

// when you toggle to live mode, you should add the live publishale key.
const stripePromise = loadStripe(STRIPE_PK_TEST);

function App() {
  return (
    <div className="App">
      {/* Elements is the provider that lets us access the Stripe object. 
         It takes the promise that is returned from loadStripe*/}
      <Elements stripe={stripePromise}>
        <PaymentForm /> 
      </Elements>
    </div>
  );
}

export default App;

In its simplest form, PaymentForm can be like this:

// PaymentForm.js
import { CardElement } from "@stripe/react-stripe-js";
import axios from "axios";

const PaymentForm = () => {

  const handleSubmit = async (e) => {
    e.preventDefault();
    // stripe code here
  };
  return (
    <form onSubmit={handleSubmit}>
      <CardElement />
      <button>BUY</button>
    </form>
  );
};

export default PaymentForm;

Now, we need to use Stripe to submit our form.

//PaymentForm.js
import { CardElement, useStripe, useElements } from "@stripe/react-stripe-js";
import axios from "axios";

const PaymentForm = () => {
  const stripe = useStripe();
  const elements = useElements();
  const handleSubmit = async (e) => {
    e.preventDefault();
    if (!stripe || !elements) {
      // Stripe.js has not loaded yet. Make sure to disable
      // form submission until Stripe.js has loaded.
      return;
    }
    // Get a reference to a mounted CardElement. Elements knows how
    // to find your CardElement because there can only ever be one of
    // each type of element.
    const cardElement = elements.getElement(CardElement);

    // use stripe.createToken to get a unique token for the card
    const { error, token } = await stripe.createToken(cardElement);

    if (!error) {
      // Backend is not implemented yet, but once there isn’t any errors,
      // you can pass the token and payment data to the backend to complete
      // the charge
      axios
        .post("http://localhost:5000/api/stripe/charge", {
          token: token.id,
          currency: "EGP",
          price: 1000, // or 10 pounds (10*100). Stripe charges with the smallest price unit allowed
        })
        .then((resp) => {
          alert("Your payment was successful");
        })
        .catch((err) => {
          console.log(err);
        });
    } else {
      console.log(error);
    }
  };

  return (
    <form onSubmit={handleSubmit}>
      <CardElement />
      <button>PAY</button>
    </form>
  );
};

export default PaymentForm;

Note: I used <CardElement/> here but you can use <CardNumberElement/>, <CardExpiryElement/>, and <CardCvcElement/> and then use elements.getElement(CardNumberElement) to access the card number element.

The Backend Side
For the backend, Stripe supports many languages, but here I'm using Node.js.

Move the React code into a client directory inside stripe-react. Run yarn init so that the outer directory can have the package.json for the backend code and then create server.js.

The project directory should look something like this:

• react-stripe
  • client (holds all React files).
  • .gitignore
  • package.json
  • server.js
  • yarn.lock

Install the necessary dependencies for the backend:

yarn add express stripe dotenv cors
 yarn add --dev concurrently nodmon

Add to the outer package.json:

"scripts": {
    "client": "cd client && yarn start",
    "server": "nodemon server.js",
    "start": "node server.js",
    "dev": "concurrently --kill-others-on-fail \"yarn server\" \"yarn client\""
  },

Now, in server.js, create the post api/route that will recieve the payment data and Stripe token from the FE to complete the charge.

require("dotenv").config();
const express = require("express");
const app = express();
const cors = require("cors");

app.use(express.json());
app.use(express.urlencoded({ extended: true }));
app.use(cors());

const PORT = process.env.PORT || 5000;

const stripe = require("stripe")(env.process.STRIPE_SECRET_KEY_TEST);

// same api we used in the frondend
app.post("/api/stripe/charge", async (req, resp) => {
  const { token, currency, price } = req.body;
  const charge = await stripe.charges.create({
    amount: price,
    currency,
    source: token,
  });

  if (!charge) throw new Error("charge unsuccessful");
});

app.listen(PORT, () => {
  console.log(`Server running on port: ${PORT}`);
});

Finally, run yarn dev and use one of these test cards to test the integration.
You should see all the payments under Payments on your Stripe dashboard.

References:
Stripe docs.
Stripe charges.
A more detailed tutorial