Process payments with Firebase

Using a few different Firebase features and Stripe, you can process payments in your web app without building your own server infrastructure. This guide walks you through customizing and deploying your own version of the open-source cloud-functions-stripe-sample.web.app example app.

Before you start, create a project in the Firebase console and set up a Stripe account.

Implementation overview

  1. Set up a Stripe account.
  2. Create a project in the Firebase console.
  3. Enable billing for your project and configure the Firebase CLI to use your project with firebase use --add.
  4. Get the source code for the sample Firestripe app. Configure it with the right information for your project and customize the code to fit your app.
  5. Once you've deployed your app, look for a list of users and transactions in the Firebase console.

Set up and deploy the sample app

  1. Get the source code.
  2. Enable Google & Email sign-in in your authentication provider settings.
  3. Enable Cloud Firestore.
  4. Install the Firebase CLI if you haven't already, and log in with firebase login.
  5. Configure this sample to use your project with firebase use --add.
  6. Install dependencies locally by running cd functions; npm install; cd -

  7. Add your Stripe API Secret Key to your Cloud Functions environment configuration:

    firebase functions:config:set stripe.secret=<YOUR STRIPE SECRET KEY>

  8. Set your Stripe publishable key in /public/javascript/app.js:

    const STRIPE_PUBLISHABLE_KEY=<YOUR STRIPE PUBLISHABLE KEY>;

  9. Deploy your project using firebase deploy. This command:

    1. Sends all the files in the public directory to Hosting so that your website is available.
    2. Sends the code in the functions directory to Cloud Functions for Firebase.
    3. Sets security rules on your Cloud Firestore database as configured in firestore.rules. The provided rules only allow a user to read and write their own payments and payment methods.

Test the sample app

Visit your payments app's URL at your-firebase-project-id.web.app and verify that the following features work:

  • You can sign in via Google or Email.
  • You can add a new Stripe test card and view it in the card select element.
  • You can select one of your cards and charge it.
  • You can sign out.

For comparison, see cloud-functions-stripe-sample.web.app.

To provide a streamlined experience for your users, you can further customize your payment page's appearance, or plug it into your existing app.

View processed payments

Once you've set up and deployed your payments page, you can check the Firebase console and see a list of users along with their payment methods and payments.

  1. Go to Cloud Firestore.
  2. Check for a list of your users and, if they added any credit cards or made any transactions, a list of those under each user.

Accept live payments

Once you’re ready to go live, you'll need to exchange your test keys for your live keys. See the Stripe docs to learn more about these keys.

  1. Update your Stripe secret config:

    firebase functions:config:set stripe.secret=<YOUR STRIPE LIVE SECRET KEY>

  2. Set your live publishable key in /public/javascript/app.js.

  3. Redeploy both Cloud Functions and Hosting for the changes to take effect: firebase deploy.