Use Sofort to set up future SEPA Direct Debit payments

First, you need a Stripe account. Register now.

Use our official libraries for access to the Stripe API from your application:

# Available as a gem
sudo gem install stripe

# If you use bundler, you can add this line to your Gemfile
gem 'stripe'

Create a Customer when they create an account with your business and associate it with your internal representation of their account. This enables you to retrieve and use their saved payment method details later.

curl https://api.stripe.com/v1/customers \
  -u 
sk_test_4eC39HqLyjWDarjtT1zdp7dc
: \
  -X "POST"

A SetupIntent is an object that represents your intent to set up a customer’s payment method for future payments and tracks the steps of this setup process. For Sofort, this includes collecting a SEPA Direct Debit mandate from the customer and tracking its validity. Create a SetupIntent on your server with the Customer ID.

curl https://api.stripe.com/v1/setup_intents \
  -u 
sk_test_4eC39HqLyjWDarjtT1zdp7dc
: \
  -d "payment_method_types[]"="sofort" \
  -d "customer"="{{CUSTOMER_ID}}"

The SetupIntent includes a client secret, which is used on the client side to securely complete the setup process instead of passing the entire SetupIntent object.

Create a form on your client to collect the required billing details from the customer.

<form id="payment-form">
  <div class="form-row">
    <label for="name">
      Name
    </label>
    <input id="name" name="name" required>
  </div>

  <div class="form-row">
    <label for="email">
      Email
    </label>
    <input id="email" name="email" required>
  </div>

  <button id="submit-button">Submit</button>
  <!-- Display mandate acceptance text. -->
  <div id="mandate-acceptance">
    By providing your payment information and confirming this payment, you
    authorise (A) Rocketship Inc and Stripe, our payment service provider, to
    send instructions to your bank to debit your account and (B) your bank to
    debit your account in accordance with those instructions. As part of your
    rights, you are entitled to a refund from your bank under the terms and
    conditions of your agreement with your bank. A refund must be claimed
    within 8 weeks starting from the date on which your account was debited.
    Your rights are explained in a statement that you can obtain from your
    bank. You agree to receive notifications for future debits up to 2 days
    before they occur.
  </div>
  <!-- Used to display form errors. -->
  <div id="error-message" role="alert"></div>
</form>

Rather than sending the entire SetupIntent object to the client, use its client secret from step 3. This is different from your API keys that authenticate Stripe API requests.

The client secret should still be handled carefully because it can complete the setup. Do not log it, embed it in URLs, or expose it to anyone but the customer.

var stripe = Stripe(
'pk_test_TYooMQauvdEDq54NiTphI7jx');
var accountholderName = document.getElementById('name');
var accountholderEmail = document.getElementById('email');

// Redirects away from the client
stripe.confirmSofortSetup(
  '{{PAYMENT_INTENT_CLIENT_SECRET}}',
  {
    payment_method: {
      sofort: {
        country: "DE"
      },
      billing_details: {
        name: accountholderName.value,
        email: accountholderEmail.value,
      },
    },
    return_url: 'https://example.com/checkout/complete',
  }
).then(function(result) {
  if (result.error) {
    // Inform the customer that there was an error.
  }
});

When you need to charge your customer again, create a new PaymentIntent. Find the ID of the SEPA Direct Debit payment method by listing the payment methods associated with your customer.

curl https://api.stripe.com/v1/payment_methods \
  -u 
sk_test_4eC39HqLyjWDarjtT1zdp7dc
: \
  -d "customer"="{{CUSTOMER_ID}}" \
  -d "type"="sepa_debit"

Create a PaymentIntent with the SEPA Direct Debit and Customer IDs.

curl https://api.stripe.com/v1/payment_intents \
  -u 
sk_test_4eC39HqLyjWDarjtT1zdp7dc
: \
  -d "payment_method_types[]"="sepa_debit" \
  -d "amount"=1099 \
  -d "currency"="eur" \
  -d "customer"="{{CUSTOMER_ID}}" \
  -d "payment_method"="{{SEPA_DEBIT_PAYMENT_METHOD_ID}}" \
  -d "confirm"="true"

Additional information about the successful setup can be found by retrieving the SetupIntent and expanding the latest_attempt field.

curl https://api.stripe.com/v1/setup_intents/{{SETUP_INTENT_ID}} \
  -u 
sk_test_4eC39HqLyjWDarjtT1zdp7dc
: \
  -d "expand[]"="latest_attempt"