Can customers pay with Apple Pay or Google Pay?

Yes, if they’ve set them up on their device and their browser supports them. Stripe chooses which methods to show each customer from the ones switched on in your payment method settings.

How do I charge every month?

Give the product a recurring price when you create it. Stripe then charges the customer every period and can retry payments that fail; those customers appear under Billing → Subscriptions.

Find the payment in your Stripe Dashboard and refund all of it or part. The money usually shows on the customer’s statement within 5 to 10 business days.

Is it safe to put the link on a public page?

Yes. Anyone with the link can pay, which is the point, and card details are typed into Stripe’s own page, never into your site.

Take payments on your website with a Stripe payment link

A payment link lets a small website take money without turning it into a shop. It’s a web address that opens a checkout page hosted by Stripe, so it works behind any button, on any site that can show a link, plain HTML included.

Time: 15 minutes, then Stripe checks your details (minutes to a couple of days)
Cost: No monthly fee — Stripe keeps a small part of each payment

It suits a business that sells one thing or a few: a class, a deposit, a product, a monthly plan. The steps below were written for a site made with Promti, where the link goes into the wizard; on any other site, it goes on your button as an ordinary link.

Setting it up takes about a quarter of an hour, plus the time Stripe needs to check your details. There’s no monthly fee — Stripe keeps part of each payment — and your first payout usually lands one to two weeks after your first sale.

Before you start

Your business details as they appear on official papers: legal name, address and tax number, and whether you’re self-employed or a company.
An ID document you can photograph, in case Stripe asks to confirm who you are.
The IBAN of the bank account your payouts should go to.
Your website’s address and your privacy policy’s address.
For each thing you sell: its name, its price, and whether it’s paid once or every month.

Step by step: take payments with Stripe

Go to stripe.com, click Start now and sign up with your email. Confirm it from the email they send.
Activate payments: Stripe asks what your business is (self-employed or a company), your ID or tax number, your address and the bank account (IBAN) the money goes to. Until it has checked them you can make links, but not take real money.
Make the link: open Payment Links and click + New. Choose + Add a new product — its name, a photo if you like, the price, and whether it’s paid once or every month — and click Add product.
Optional: under After payment you can show a thank-you message, or send people back to your site.
Click Create link and copy it — it starts with https://buy.stripe.com/. Paste it here.

At the end: Your button opens a Stripe checkout: cards, Apple Pay and Google Pay, and the money goes to your bank.

Selling more than one thing, or several plans? Make one link for each.

What it costs

Stripe charges no monthly or setup fee, and payment links cost nothing on top. Its fee comes out of each payment and depends on the card: for a business in Spain, 1.5% + €0.25 for a standard card from the European Economic Area, 2.8% + €0.25 for a premium EEA card, 2.5% + €0.25 for a UK card and 3.15% + €0.25 for any other card, plus 2% when a currency conversion is needed. Elsewhere, check Stripe’s pricing page for your country.

On a €40 sale paid with a standard European card, the fee comes to €0.85 — 1.5% of €40 is €0.60, plus €0.25 — and €39.15 is yours.

Payment links also let customers abroad pay in their own currency; if they do, the rate they’re shown includes a 2–4% fee that they pay, not you. Paying in your currency, they avoid it, though their bank may charge its own.

Two costs catch people out. Sending a refund is free, but Stripe keeps the fee from the original payment. And a dispute, when a customer asks their bank to reverse a charge, costs €20, plus €20 more if you contest it, refunded if you win.

When the money reaches your bank

Each payment waits a few days before it can be paid out: for accounts in Spain, seven calendar days at first, then the standard three business days, unless Stripe’s risk criteria keep the longer wait. On a daily schedule, each business day brings the payments taken three business days earlier.

The first payout takes longer: Stripe typically schedules it 7 to 14 days after your first live payment, and it can take more depending on your industry, country and risk level. If you’re launching with a sale, don’t count on that money in the first fortnight.

You can switch to weekly or monthly payouts, or trigger them by hand. Stripe also offers instant payouts, at 1% of the amount with a €0.50 minimum.

Some payment methods, such as bank debits, take between 2 and 14 days to confirm a payment. Wait until Stripe shows it as succeeded before you ship or deliver anything.

Receipts, invoices and your terms

Stripe creates a receipt for every successful payment, but it only emails receipts automatically once you turn on Successful payments under Customer emails in its settings. Each receipt has to show your legal name, a support address and email, and the web address of your privacy policy.

If customers need an invoice rather than a receipt, Stripe can create one after each one-off payment. That’s priced separately: 0.4% of the total, capped at US$2 or its local equivalent per invoice. Whether a receipt is enough for your own tax records is a question for your accountant.

A payment link can also make buyers tick a box accepting your terms of sale, once your terms page’s address is in your Stripe public details.

Easy mistakes to avoid

Publishing a test link. Links made in a test environment have test_ in the address and never take real money: open yours from the live site before announcing it.

Choosing the wrong country. Once the account is live, the business’s country can’t be changed; the fix is a new account.

A statement name nobody recognises. The statement descriptor is what customers see on their bank statement, and Stripe warns that a charge they don’t recognise may end up disputed.

Selling what you haven’t got. A link keeps accepting payments until you deactivate it or cap the number of payments, and it knows nothing about your stock or your calendar.

Forgetting consumer rules. Selling online brings duties of its own — in Spain, information before the purchase and a confirmation after it; across the EU, a 14-day right of withdrawal, with exceptions. Have your terms of sale checked by someone who knows.

Questions

Can customers pay with Apple Pay or Google Pay?: Yes, if they’ve set them up on their device and their browser supports them. Stripe chooses which methods to show each customer from the ones switched on in your payment method settings.
How do I charge every month?: Give the product a recurring price when you create it. Stripe then charges the customer every period and can retry payments that fail; those customers appear under Billing → Subscriptions.
How do refunds work?: Find the payment in your Stripe Dashboard and refund all of it or part. The money usually shows on the customer’s statement within 5 to 10 business days.
Is it safe to put the link on a public page?: Yes. Anyone with the link can pay, which is the point, and card details are typed into Stripe’s own page, never into your site.