Integrating Stripe for SaaS Billing in Laravel

SaaS billing looks simple on a pricing page but hides edge cases: proration, failed payments, plan upgrades mid-cycle, tax IDs, and webhook idempotency. We integrate Stripe across RelaxGen's software store and client SaaS products — here is what we recommend for Laravel teams.

Cashier vs Payment Intents

Laravel Cashier excels at subscription lifecycle management: trials, coupons, invoice PDFs and customer portals. For one-time tool purchases or marketplace splits, Payment Intents with explicit checkout flows give you more control. Many of our clients use both: Cashier for recurring school SMS plans and Payment Intents for license key sales.

Webhook design that survives retries

Stripe will retry webhooks. Store event IDs in a stripe_events table and short-circuit duplicates. Process invoice.payment_failed, customer.subscription.updated and checkout.session.completed in dedicated action classes. Never trust client-side success redirects alone — always confirm via webhook.

Testing without fear

Use Stripe test clocks and fixture cards. Automate Pest tests that simulate subscription creation, cancellation and card expiry. Document sandbox vs live keys in separate .env profiles and restrict live keys to production servers only.

Need PayPal instead? Read our companion article on PayPal checkout for Laravel SaaS — we support both at RelaxGen.

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