We maintain a handful of official Stripe API libraries, and we also try to keep our underlying REST API straightforward enough that it's easy for others to build and maintain their own libraries. There are now community-supported bindings in everything from Go to Smalltalk.

Since we launched, Node.js has continued to take over the internet, and we decided that we should really have official Node support. As it happens, Ask Bjørn Hansen has been maintaining a popular Node.js library for around two years. We've worked with him to transfer the stripe npm module and Github repository to Stripe maintainership. Along the way, we added new documentation, support for promises, a broader test suite, and updates to support a few new resources and methods.

You can install the stripe module with npm:

$ npm install stripe

If you previously used the unofficial library to integrate Stripe, just update the module to get the latest version.

In contrast to our other bindings, the Node API maintains strict asynchronicity:

var stripe = require('stripe')(api_key);

stripe.charges.create({
    amount: 1600,
    currency: 'usd',
    customer: customer.id
}, function(err, charge) {
    if (err) {
        // bad things
    } else {
        // successful charge
    }
});

You can read more over on the full documentation. If you have feedback, I'd love to hear from you.

Come say hi to Evan, Nelson, Kiran, Carl, and Christian at John Harvard's in Harvard Square on Tuesday night. We'd love to meet you all and buy you a beer!

RSVP via our Meetup event.

When we launched Stripe Shop, a lot of people asked us to open-source it so they could build their own single-page stores. We've just released the code on Github; please feel free to borrow any parts you find useful! (We didn't want to open-source the photo of Kat and Thairu, so we decided to take a replacement.)

Stripe’s first three people—myself included—grew up in Ireland. We’ve been looking forward to launching here since Stripe’s earliest days.

Ireland is the fourth country (and first Eurozone nation) in which Stripe has launched. To date, online payments infrastructure in most of these countries, including Ireland, has been dominated by lumbering incumbent banks. Accepting internet payments involved weeks of setup, reams of paperwork, and bureaucratic approval processes.

We want to fix this. With Stripe’s launch in Ireland, we’re bringing all our core functionality to every Irish individual and business: instant setup, full control over the user experience, straightforward pricing, and a fully integrated stack.

Pricing is 2.4% and 24 cent + VAT per transaction. That’s it. There are no monthly fees, minimums, or any other charges. All major card types are supported (including American Express and Visa/MasterCard-branded debit cards). Irish businesses can charge in Euro, US dollars, and British pounds, with Stripe handling all necessary conversions.

While running our beta in Ireland, we were lucky to work with some of the best Irish tech companies, including Boards.ie, Tito, and PCH International. Now that we’re publicly available to everyone, we look forward to working with many more. Most of all, we hope that Stripe helps more businesses get started.

Start accepting payments instantly. Get Started with Stripe

Making online payments work better also means making them work everywhere. Today, we’re getting a little closer: we’re crossing the Atlantic and launching Stripe in the UK.

We’ve worked hard not to compromise with this expansion. UK users get the same instant activation that we provide in the US and Canada. We support all major card types, including American Express. You retain complete control over your payment experience. And, as ever, it’s all covered by simple, flat pricing.

In addition to keeping the best parts, we’ve also built multi-currency support: the ability for UK businesses to charge customers around the world in US dollars, British pounds, and Euro. We’ll automatically handle all the conversions for you and deposit daily into your bank account.

We’ve been testing in the UK for a few months with companies like Teddle, Virgin Pure, Steer, and Thread. To them and everyone else: we’re hugely grateful for your help and suggestions.

UK pricing starts at 2.4% and 20p per transaction. Volume pricing is available for businesses at scale—please get in touch if you expect to process more than £250,000 in the next year.

Taking Stripe global

We’re continuing to work on bringing Stripe to more businesses worldwide. We’ve opened an engineering office here in London—our bet is that global presence will make Stripe better for everyone. We’re already at work on the next countries and we're hiring globally. If you'd like to come work with us, we'd love to hear from you.

Start accepting payments instantly. Get Started with Stripe

Thairu and Kat in shirts from the first batch.

We've had Stripe gear since we publicly launched, but there's never been any obvious way to obtain any. With the Stripe Shop, we're now making Stripe T-shirts available to everyone for the price of shipping. (We'll likely add more merchandise down the line.)

In addition to distributing Stripe gear around the world, this also gives us another way to use Stripe. By shipping physical items, we're able to experience first-hand—and hopefully improve—a workflow that's common to many of our users.

Get a Stripe T-shirt! Visit the Shop

We heard from you—loud and clear—that our API needed two things: multiple cards and the ability to edit cards without resubmitting the full card number. We've just launched those features (and some extras!) to help you manage the credit cards you store with Stripe:

Check out the full documentation, and let us know what you think.

Stripe now supports separately authorizing and capturing money on cards. It’s like two-phase commit for payments. This makes some new payment flows possible—most notably, capturing funds only when an order is ready for shipping.

To use it, you just set capture = false when you create the charge. Then, when you’re ready to actually accept the payment, you just call our new capture endpoint:

curl https://api.stripe.com/v1/charges/ch_4wiJTzdLun9J17/capture \
   -u mT8YiXgscGm3Vu5zxY7DypK5lYKnXN85: \
   -X POST

In addition to capturing the full amount, you can also capture less than the amount originally authorized by passing an amount parameter. An authorization left uncaptured for 7 days will be automatically reversed.

There are some caveats: occasionally, a bank will show an authorization as an actual charge. As such, using this in cases where the customer doesn’t expect to be charged can be confusing. It’s worth thinking carefully about your use-case. (We’re of course happy to help.)

We don’t charge any fees on uncaptured charges, and fees after you capture are the same as any other charge.

You can now use Stripe to programmatically send bank transfers to anyone with a US bank account. This makes it easier to build businesses like Lyft or Exec that involve sending many payments to others. You can use the API to transfer money to vendors, service providers, sellers, or anyone else you need to pay as part of your business.

To use it, charge your customers as you normally would. Once you’ve enabled transfers, you’ll be able to pay out to any number of accounts instead of having the funds automatically deposited in your main bank account.

You can collect recipient bank account details directly with our API or with Stripe.js (which means sensitive details never touch your server). Once you create a recipient, you can transfer funds to them with a single API call:

curl https://api.stripe.com/v1/transfers \
  -u sk_test_mkGsLqEW6SLnZa487HYfJVLf: \
  -d amount=3000 \
  -d currency=usd \
  -d description="Amber Feng - Jun 05 2013" \
  -d statement_descriptor="MAY SALES" \
  -d recipient=rp_1xITEl4DYvhVlE

Marketplaces

A growing collection of companies—many enabled by the explosion of mobile devices—are using the internet to create new markets.

Lyft and Sidecar use the spare capacity of existing cars and drivers to provide transportation. Shoptiques is creating a central hub for one-of-a-kind inventory from small boutiques. Exec creates a market for on-demand labor. These, and many others, are bringing networked efficiency to previously analog systems and are creating new kinds of marketplaces.

These marketplaces require payments on two sides. As ever, you have to charge the customer, but as the provider shifts from being a single entity to a multiplicity of suppliers, you also need to coordinate complex payouts.

We want to expand commerce on the internet. When we saw what these businesses needed, we saw a great opportunity to do so.

Use and Rollout

As with much of what we release, we’ve been testing this for a few months. Production users today include Lyft, Exec, Sidecar, Postmates, Homejoy, Kitchensurfing, HomePolish, Flightfox, and Shoptiques, among others.

The API is available immediately to businesses in the US, and we’re working on support for other countries too. It costs a flat 25¢ per transfer.

We’re really excited to see what you build. Get started with the documentation below, and as ever, please let us know what you think!

Start sending payouts today. View documentation

We're headed south! And we're holding a get-together for our users and friends in Santa Monica on Wednesday. Meet other startups, hear about secret upcoming features from John and me, and enjoy wine and desserts on us.

RSVP via our Meetup event.