Angular Stripe Integration: Master Payments with Elements & Checkout

Introduction

If you're building an Angular Progressive Web App (PWA), monetizing it is crucial for sustainability. Stripe is a popular API that empowers you to seamlessly integrate payment solutions. This blog post explores how to implement Stripe Checkout and Stripe Elements within your Angular application, enabling you to securely collect credit card information and convert users into paying customers. Note that this post covers frontend implementation. A backend implementation is required to create the actual charge.

1. Getting Started with Stripe Checkout in Angular

Stripe Checkout provides a quick and easy way to implement a payment modal in your Angular application. It handles most of the frontend work, including securely collecting and validating credit card information. To use Stripe Checkout, you'll need to include the Stripe Checkout script in your index.html file. Stripe recommends including it as a script tag rather than in your JavaScript bundle.

First, declare a namespace for Stripe Checkout in your component. Then, configure the handler during ngOnInit using StripeCheckout.configure. You'll need your Stripe publishable key, found in your Stripe dashboard under Developers > API keys.

Here's how you can include the Stripe Checkout script in your index.html:

<script src="https://checkout.stripe.com/checkout.js"></script>
    

And here is a configuration example in your Angular component:

ngOnInit() {
    this.handler = StripeCheckout.configure({
        key: 'YOUR_STRIPE_PUBLISHABLE_KEY',
        image: 'YOUR_IMAGE_URL',
        locale: 'auto',
        token: token => {
            // Handle the tokenized payment source here
            this.loading = true;
            // Logic to create charge on your backend using Firebase Callable Functions
            // (or other backend implementation)
            // Example call (replace with your function name and parameters)
            this.afn.httpsCallable('createStripeCharge')({ source: token.id, amount: this.amount })
              .subscribe(res => {
                  this.loading = false;
                  this.confirmation = res;
              });
        }
    });
}

Remember to replace YOUR_STRIPE_PUBLISHABLE_KEY with your actual publishable key.

You also need to create a checkout method that will open the handler upon user interaction:

checkout() {
    this.handler.open({
        name: 'Your Company',
        description: this.description,
        amount: this.amount,
        email: 'user@example.com' // optional, you can fetch from user auth service.
    });
}

2. Customizing the Checkout Experience with Stripe Elements

While Stripe Checkout is easy to implement, it offers limited customization options. For a more tailored checkout experience, Stripe Elements provides the flexibility to build custom forms with the same security and validation benefits. This is what is used on Fireship.io.

To use Stripe Elements, include the Stripe.js v3 script in your index.html:

<script src="https://js.stripe.com/v3/"></script>
    

In your Angular component, use ViewChild to reference the DOM element where the card element will be mounted. Then, initialize Stripe with your publishable key and create the card element.

Here's an example of how to initialize Stripe Elements in your component:

import { Component, AfterViewInit, ViewChild, ElementRef } from '@angular/core';
declare var Stripe: any; // Declare Stripe as a global variable

@Component({
  selector: 'app-stripe-elements',
  templateUrl: './stripe-elements.component.html',
  styleUrls: ['./stripe-elements.component.css']
})
export class StripeElementsComponent implements AfterViewInit {
  @ViewChild('cardElement') cardElement: ElementRef;

  stripe: any;
  elements: any;
  card: any;
  cardErrors: any;
  loading = false;
  confirmation: any;

  ngAfterViewInit() {
    this.stripe = Stripe('YOUR_STRIPE_PUBLISHABLE_KEY');
    this.elements = this.stripe.elements();
    this.card = this.elements.create('card');
    this.card.mount(this.cardElement.nativeElement);

    this.card.on('change', (event) => {
      this.cardErrors = event.error ? event.error.message : null;
    });
  }

  async handleForm(e) {
      e.preventDefault();
      this.loading = true;

      const { source, error } = await this.stripe.createSource(this.card);

      if (error) {
        this.cardErrors = error.message;
        this.loading = false;
      } else {
        // Call your backend to create the charge
        // Example (replace with your function name and parameters)
        this.afn.httpsCallable('createStripeCharge')({ source: source.id, amount: this.amount })
          .subscribe(res => {
              this.loading = false;
              this.confirmation = res;
          }, err => {
              this.cardErrors = err.message; // Handle backend errors
              this.loading = false;
          });
      }
  }
}
    

Ensure that you replace YOUR_STRIPE_PUBLISHABLE_KEY with your own.

In the HTML, define the form and the card element container.

<form (submit)="handleForm($event)">
    <div #cardElement></div>
    <div *ngIf="cardErrors">{{ cardErrors }}</div>
    <button type="submit" [disabled]="loading">
        <span *ngIf="loading">Processing...</span>
        <span *ngIf="!loading">Pay</span>
    </button>
</form>
    

3. Backend Integration (Important!)

The transcript emphasizes that the video and this blog post primarily cover the frontend aspects of integrating Stripe with Angular. Creating the actual charge and handling sensitive data should always be performed on the backend using a secure environment, like Firebase Cloud Functions or a dedicated server. You'll need to implement an API endpoint that receives the tokenized payment source from the frontend and uses the Stripe API to create the charge securely.

Conclusion

Integrating Stripe into your Angular PWA is essential for monetizing your application. Stripe Checkout provides a simple, drop-in solution, while Stripe Elements offers greater flexibility for customizing the checkout experience. Remember to always handle the actual charge creation on the backend for security reasons. By using these tools effectively, you can create a seamless and secure payment process for your users.

Keywords

• Angular Stripe Integration
• Stripe Checkout
• Stripe Elements
• PWA Monetization
• Angular Payment Processing