Add Stripe to a Fabricate App in 30 Minutes

What you'll ship

A "Buy" button on your Fabricate app that opens a Stripe-hosted checkout page, takes a card, and emails the customer a receipt. You can charge for a one-time purchase, a paid download, or pre-orders for a launch.

Subscriptions and recurring billing use the same flow with one extra prompt — that's the next playbook in this series.

Before you start

You need a deployed Fabricate app on the Pro plan or higher (export + secret management). If you're on Free, this still works in test mode but you can't add live keys.

Step 1 · Stripe account (5 min)

Go to dashboard.stripe.com and sign up (or sign in). Skip the business-info wizard for now — you can complete it after your first test charge.

In the Stripe dashboard, toggle the Test mode switch in the top right. You'll work in test mode first; flipping to live is one config swap at the end.

Open Developers → API keys. Copy the Publishable key (starts with pk_test_) and the Secret key (starts with sk_test_). Keep this tab open.

Step 2 · Tell Fabricate to wire Stripe (5 min)

In your Fabricate chat, paste the prompt below. Replace the product name and price with your own.

Add a Stripe checkout button to the homepage that charges $19 USD for "Indie Founder Toolkit" (one-time purchase). Use STRIPE_SECRET_KEY and STRIPE_PUBLISHABLE_KEY from env. After successful payment, redirect to a /thank-you page with the order id.

Step 3 · Drop in your test keys (5 min)

Open the Settings → Secrets panel for your project. Add two entries:

STRIPE_SECRET_KEY = your sk_test_… key

STRIPE_PUBLISHABLE_KEY = your pk_test_… key

Hit Save. Fabricate redeploys your worker with the new secrets — usually 10–15 seconds. The keys live on the server only; they're never bundled into the client.

Step 4 · Test the checkout (5 min)

Open your deployed app and click the Buy button. Stripe Checkout should open. Use one of these test cards:

• 4242 4242 4242 4242 — succeeds

• 4000 0000 0000 0002 — declines (good for testing the failure path)

• 4000 0027 6000 3184 — requires 3D Secure auth

Any future expiry date and any 3-digit CVC works. After the payment, you should land on /thank-you with the order id, and the charge should appear in the Stripe dashboard under Payments.

Step 5 · Go live (10 min)

Back in the Stripe dashboard, toggle off Test mode and complete the business-info wizard (legal name, country, bank account). Stripe needs this to release real funds to you.

Once approved, copy your live keys (pk_live_… and sk_live_…) and replace them in the Fabricate Secrets panel — same field names. Save.

Click Buy on your live app and run one real $1 test purchase against your own card. Refund it from the Stripe dashboard if you don't want to keep the charge. Done — you can take payments.

When things break

Three common failures, in order of frequency:

1. The Buy button does nothing. → The /api/checkout endpoint is returning 500. Open browser DevTools → Network. The most common cause is a typo in STRIPE_SECRET_KEY or copying the publishable key into the secret slot.

2. Stripe says "No such price". → Fabricate creates the price object on first request. Click Buy once to trigger it; subsequent clicks will work.

3. The /thank-you page says "Order not found". → The success_url query string is missing the session id. Ask Fabricate: "Pass session_id from Stripe Checkout to /thank-you and show the order id from the session." One credit, done.

What's next

You now have a paid app. Three obvious next moves:

• Add subscriptions — one prompt, covered in "Add Stripe Subscriptions to any Fabricate app" (next in this playbook series).

• Add an upsell on the /thank-you page — "Buy another for 50% off" usually lifts cart value 10–20%.

• Wire a webhook so you can fulfil digital downloads automatically. Prompt: "Add a Stripe webhook at /api/stripe/webhook that emails the buyer a download link via Resend on checkout.session.completed."