Stripe announced Payment Links on May 25, 2021, giving merchants a way to create a hosted checkout page from its Dashboard without building a website or app. A shop could share the resulting link in an email, text or social post. The launch had a boundary for software platforms: an application programming interface, or API, that would let them build pay-by-link features for their own customers was still a plan. [S1]

A small business selling through texts or email would not have to build and host its own payment page. Stripe said it would generate and host the page when a user requested a link. Merchants could apply their branding and offer options including subscriptions, coupons and free trials. The seller could then send a customer from that conversation to checkout. [S1]

A software platform had a different decision. Using the merchant Dashboard was not the same as embedding pay-by-link features in a service for other businesses. Stripe placed the platform API on its roadmap alongside additional payment methods, without giving the API a release date. A platform could plan around that promise, but could not count it as a delivered feature of the launch. [S1]

Subscriptions also leave a job after checkout: handling the customer who wants to change a plan or payment method. The Payment Links announcement pointed separately to Stripe Billing’s Customer Portal. In its June 29, 2020 introduction, Stripe described that hosted portal as a place where customers could upgrade, downgrade or cancel a subscription, update payment options and view billing history. Those are account-management tasks, distinct from the page that takes the first payment. [S1][S2]

A merchant selling subscriptions still needs to decide where customers will go to manage them. Stripe’s portal introduction describes configuration, previewing, testing and deployment, and directs businesses to an integration guide. Creating a payment link should not be treated as proof that the subscription-management setup is finished. [S1][S2]

Source documents

  1. Stripe launches Payment Links to enable online sales in minutes without any codehttps://stripe.com/newsroom/news/stripe-launches-payment-links
  2. Introducing the Billing customer portalhttps://stripe.com/blog/billing-customer-portal