Set up future payments
The Setup Intents API lets you save a customer’s payment details without an initial payment. This is helpful if you want to onboard customers now, set them up for payments, and charge them in the future—when they’re offline.
Use this integration to set up recurring payments or to create one-time payments with a final amount determined later, often after the customer receives your service.
Compliance
You’re responsible for your compliance with all applicable laws, regulations, and network rules when saving a customer’s payment details. These requirements generally apply if you want to save your customer’s payment method for future use, such as displaying a customer’s payment method to them in the checkout flow for a future purchase or charging them when they’re not actively using your website or app. Add terms to your website or app that state how you plan to save payment method details and allow customers to opt in.
When you save a payment method, you can only use it for the specific usage you have included in your terms. To charge a payment method when a customer is offline and save it as an option for future purchases, make sure that you explicitly collect consent from the customer for this specific use. For example, include a “Save my payment method for future use” checkbox to collect consent.
To charge them when they’re offline, make sure your terms include the following:
- The customer’s agreement to your initiating a payment or a series of payments on their behalf for specified transactions.
- The anticipated timing and frequency of payments (for example, if the charges are for scheduled installments, subscription payments, or unscheduled top-ups).
- How you determine the payment amount.
- Your cancellation policy, if the payment method is for a subscription service.
Make sure you keep a record of your customer’s written agreement to these terms.
Note
If you need to use manual server-side confirmation or your integration requires presenting payment methods separately, see our alternative guide.
Integrate Stripe’s prebuilt payment UI into the checkout of your Android app with the PaymentSheet
class.
Interested in displaying payment methods directly in your checkout screen?
We’re exploring an integration that lets you embed a prebuilt view directly in your checkout to display payment methods. Sign up for early access.
Set up StripeServer-sideClient-side
First, you need a Stripe account. Register now.
Server-side
This integration requires endpoints on your server that talk to the Stripe API. Use the official libraries for access to the Stripe API from your server:
Client-side
The Stripe Android SDK is open source and fully documented.
To install the SDK, add stripe-android
to the dependencies
block of your app/build.gradle
file:
Note
For details on the latest SDK release and past versions, see the Releases page on GitHub. To receive notifications when a new release is published, watch releases for the repository.
Add an endpointServer-side
Note
The mobile Payment Element only supports SetupIntents with cards, Link, and US bank accounts.
This integration uses three Stripe API objects:
A SetupIntent is an object that represents your intent to set up a customer’s payment method for future payments. The payment methods shown to customers during the checkout process are also included on the SetupIntent. You can let Stripe automatically pull payment methods from your Dashboard settings or you can list them manually.
A Customer. To set up a payment method for future payments, it must be attached to a Customer. Create a Customer object when your customer creates an account with your business. If your customer is making a payment as a guest, you can create a Customer object before payment and associate it with your own internal representation of the customer’s account later.
A Customer Ephemeral Key (optional). Information on the Customer object is sensitive, and can’t be retrieved directly from an app. An Ephemeral Key grants the SDK temporary access to the Customer.
For security reasons, your app can’t create these objects. Instead, add an endpoint on your server that:
- Retrieves the Customer, or creates a new one.
- Creates an Ephemeral Key for the Customer.
- Creates a SetupIntent with the Customer ID.
- Returns the SetupIntent’s client secret, the Ephemeral Key’s
secret
, the Customer’s ID, and your publishable key to your app.
The payment methods shown to customers during the checkout process are also included on the SetupIntent. You can let Stripe automatically pull payment methods from your Dashboard settings or you can list them manually.
Collect payment detailsClient-side
Note
If you want to present the mobile Payment Element before creating a SetupIntent, see Collect payment details before creating an Intent.
Before displaying the mobile Payment Element, your checkout page should include a checkout button to present Stripe’s UI.
Setting allowsDelayedPaymentMethods
to true allows delayed notification payment methods like US bank accounts. For these payment methods, the final payment status isn’t known when the PaymentSheet
completes, and instead succeeds or fails later. If you support these types of payment methods, inform the customer their order is confirmed and only fulfill their order (for example, ship their product) when the payment is successful.
Charge the saved payment method laterServer-side
Compliance
You’re responsible for your compliance with all applicable laws, regulations, and network rules when saving a customer’s payment details. When rendering past payment methods to your end customer for future purchases, make sure you’re listing payment methods where you’ve collected consent from the customer to save the payment method details for this specific future use. To differentiate between payment methods attached to customers that can and can’t be presented to your end customer as a saved payment method for future purchases, use the allow_redisplay parameter.
When you’re ready to charge your customer off-session, use the Customer and PaymentMethod IDs to create a PaymentIntent. To find a payment method to charge, list the payment methods associated with your customer. This example lists cards but you can list any supported type.
When you have the Customer and PaymentMethod IDs, create a PaymentIntent with the amount and currency of the payment. Set a few other parameters to make the off-session payment:
- Set off_session to
true
to indicate that the customer isn’t in your checkout flow during a payment attempt and can’t fulfill an authentication request made by a partner, such as a card issuer, bank, or other payment institution. If, during your checkout flow, a partner requests authentication, Stripe requests exemptions using customer information from a previous on-session transaction. If the conditions for exemption aren’t met, the PaymentIntent might throw an error. - Set the value of the PaymentIntent’s confirm property to
true
, which causes confirmation to occur immediately when the PaymentIntent is created. - Set payment_method to the ID of the PaymentMethod and customer to the ID of the Customer.