Receive Stripe events in your webhook endpoint

You can create an HTTPS webhook endpoint to receive events. After you register a webhook endpoint, Stripe pushes real-time data to it when events happen in your Stripe account. Stripe uses HTTPS to send webhook events to your app as a JSON payload that includes event information.

Receiving webhook events helps you respond to asynchronous events, such as when a customer’s bank confirms a payment, a customer disputes a charge, or a recurring payment succeeds.

You can also consume Stripe events in your AWS or Azure infrastructure by sending events directly to Amazon EventBridge or Azure Event Grid.

Complete the steps below to start receiving webhook events in your app. You can register and create one endpoint to handle several different event types at the same time or set up individual endpoints for specific events.

https://<your-website>/<your-webhook-endpoint>

require 'json'
require 'stripe'

client = Stripe::StripeClient.new(ENV.fetch('STRIPE_API_KEY'))

# Replace this endpoint secret with your unique endpoint secret key
# If you're testing with the CLI, run 'stripe listen' to find the secret key
# If you defined your endpoint using the API or the Dashboard, check your webhook settings for your endpoint secret: https://dashboard.stripe.com/webhooks
endpoint_secret = 'whsec_...';

# Using Sinatra
post '/webhook' do
  payload = request.body.read
  event = nil

  begin
    event = Stripe::Event.construct_from(
      JSON.parse(payload, symbolize_names: true)
    )
  rescue JSON::ParserError => e
    # Invalid payload
    status 400
    return
  end

  # Check that you have configured webhook signing
  if endpoint_secret
    # Retrieve the event by verifying the signature using the raw body and the endpoint secret
    signature = request.env['HTTP_STRIPE_SIGNATURE'];
    begin
      event = Stripe::Webhook.construct_event(
        payload, signature, endpoint_secret
      )
    rescue Stripe::SignatureVerificationError => e
      puts "⚠️  Webhook signature verification failed. #{e.message}"
      status 400
    end
  end

  # Handle the event
  case event.type
  when 'payment_intent.succeeded'
    payment_intent = event.data.object # contains a Stripe::PaymentIntent
    # Then define and call a method to handle the successful payment intent.
    # handle_payment_intent_succeeded(payment_intent)
  when 'payment_method.attached'
    payment_method = event.data.object # contains a Stripe::PaymentMethod
    # Then define and call a method to handle the successful attachment of a PaymentMethod.
    # handle_payment_method_attached(payment_method)
  # ... handle other event types
  else
    puts "Unhandled event type: #{event.type}"
  end

  status 200
end

stripe trigger payment_intent.succeeded
Running fixture for: payment_intent
Trigger succeeded! Check dashboard for event details.

Debug webhook integrations

Multiple types of issues can occur when delivering events to your webhook endpoint:

• Stripe might not be able to deliver an event to your webhook endpoint.
• Your webhook endpoint might have an SSL issue.
• Your network connectivity is intermittent.
• Your webhook endpoint isn’t receiving events that you expect to receive.

View event deliveries

To view event deliveries, open Workbench, select the webhook endpoint under Webhooks, then select the Event deliveries tab. The Event deliveries tab provides a list of events and whether they’re Delivered, Pending, or Failed. Click an event to view metadata, including the HTTP status code of the delivery attempt and the time of pending future deliveries.

You can also use the Stripe CLI to listen for events directly in your terminal.

Fix HTTP status codes

When an event displays a status code of 200, it indicates successful delivery to the webhook endpoint. You might also receive a status code other than 200. View the table below for a list of common HTTP status codes and recommended solutions.

Event delivery behaviors

This section helps you understand different behaviors to expect regarding how Stripe sends events to your webhook endpoint.

Automatic retries

Stripe attempts to deliver events to your destination for up to three days with an exponential back off in live mode. View when the next retry will occur, if applicable, in your event destination’s Event deliveries tab. We retry event deliveries created in a sandbox three times over the course of a few hours. If your destination has been disabled or deleted when we attempt a retry, we prevent future retries of that event. However, if you disable and then re-enable the event destination before we’re able to retry, you still see future retry attempts.

Manual retries

There are two ways to manually retry events:

• In the Stripe Dashboard, click Resend when looking at a specific event. This works for up to 15 days after the event creation.
• With the Stripe CLI, run the stripe events resend <event_id> --webhook-endpoint=<endpoint_id> command. This works for up to 30 days after the event creation.

Manually resending an event that had previous delivery failures to a webhook endpoint doesn’t dismiss Stripe’s automatic retry behavior, even if it results in a 2xx status code. Learn how to process undelivered webhook events to stop future retries.

Event ordering

Stripe doesn’t guarantee the delivery of events in the order that they’re generated. For example, creating a subscription might generate the following events:

• customer.subscription.created
• invoice.created
• invoice.paid
• charge.created (if there’s a charge)

Make sure that your event destination isn’t dependent on receiving events in a specific order. Snapshot events record created in seconds, so distinct events can share a timestamp. Don’t use created to determine event order or whether you’ve already processed an event. Track event IDs to identify duplicate deliveries instead. You can also use the API to retrieve any missing objects. For example, you can retrieve the invoice, charge, and subscription objects with the information from invoice.paid if you receive this event first.

API versioning

The API version in your account settings when the event occurs dictates the API version, and therefore the structure of an Event sent to your destination. For example, if your account is set to an older API version, such as 2015-02-16, and you change the API version for a specific request with versioning, the Event object generated and sent to your destination is still based on the 2015-02-16 API version. You can’t change Event objects after creation. For example, if you update a charge, the original charge event remains unchanged. As a result, subsequent updates to your account’s API version don’t retroactively alter existing Event objects. Retrieving an older Event by calling /v1/events using a newer API version also has no impact on the structure of the received event. You can set test event destinations to either your default API version or the latest API version. The Event sent to the destination is structured for the event destination’s specified version.

Best practices for using webhooks

Review these best practices to make sure your webhook endpoints remain secure and function well with your integration.

Handle duplicate events

Webhook endpoints might occasionally receive the same event more than once. You can guard against duplicated event receipts by logging the event IDs you’ve processed, and then not processing already-logged events.

In some cases, two separate Event objects are generated and sent. To identify these duplicates, use the ID of the object in data.object along with the event.type.

Only listen to event types your integration requires

Configure your webhook endpoints to receive only the types of events required by your integration. Listening for extra events (or all events) puts undue strain on your server and we don’t recommend it.

You can change the events that a webhook endpoint receives in the Dashboard or with the API.

Handle events asynchronously

Configure your handler to process incoming events with an asynchronous queue. You might encounter scalability issues if you choose to process events synchronously. Any large spike in webhook deliveries (for example, during the beginning of the month when all subscriptions renew) might overwhelm your endpoint hosts.

Asynchronous queues allow you to process the concurrent events at a rate your system can support.

Exempt webhook route from CSRF protection

If you’re using Rails, Django, or another web framework, your site might automatically check that every POST request contains a CSRF token. This is an important security feature that helps protect you and your users from cross-site request forgery attempts. However, this security measure might also prevent your site from processing legitimate events. If so, you might need to exempt the webhooks route from CSRF protection.

class StripeController < ApplicationController
  # If your controller accepts requests other than Stripe webhooks,
  # you'll probably want to use `protect_from_forgery` to add CSRF
  # protection for your application. But don't forget to exempt
  # your webhook route!
  protect_from_forgery except: :webhook

  def webhook
    # Process webhook data in `params`
  end
end

Receive events with an HTTPS server

If you use an HTTPS URL for your webhook endpoint (required in live mode), Stripe validates that the connection to your server is secure before sending your webhook data. For this to work, your server must be correctly configured to support HTTPS with a valid server certificate. Stripe webhooks support only TLS versions v1.2 and v1.3.

Roll endpoint signing secrets periodically

The secret used for verifying that events come from Stripe is modifiable in the Webhooks tab in Workbench. To keep them safe, we recommend that you roll (change) secrets periodically, or when you suspect a compromised secret.

To roll a secret:

1. Click each endpoint in the Workbench Webhooks tab that you want to roll the secret for.
2. Navigate to the overflow menu () and click Roll secret. You can choose to immediately expire the current secret or delay its expiration for up to 24 hours to allow yourself time to update the verification code on your server. During this time, multiple secrets are active for the endpoint. Stripe generates one signature per secret until expiration.

Verify events are sent from Stripe

Without verification, an attacker could send fake webhook events to your endpoint to trigger actions like fulfilling orders, granting account access, or modifying records. Always verify that webhook events originate from Stripe before acting on them.

Use both of these protections:

• IP allowlisting: Stripe sends webhook events from a set list of IP addresses. Configure your server or firewall to only accept webhook requests from these addresses.
• Signature verification: Stripe signs every webhook event by including a signature in the Stripe-Signature header. Verify this signature using our official libraries or manually to confirm the event wasn’t sent or modified by a third party.

The following section describes how to verify webhook signatures:

1. Retrieve your endpoint’s secret.
2. Verify the signature.

Retrieving your endpoint’s secret

Use Workbench and go to the Webhooks tab to view all your endpoints. Select an endpoint that you want to obtain the secret for, then click Click to reveal.

Stripe generates a unique secret key for each endpoint. If you use the same endpoint for both test and live API keys, the secret is different for each one. Additionally, if you use multiple endpoints, you must obtain a secret for each one you want to verify signatures on. After this setup, Stripe starts to sign each webhook it sends to the endpoint.

Verify the signature

# Don't put any keys in code. See https://docs.stripe.com/keys-best-practices.
# Find your keys at https://dashboard.stripe.com/apikeys.
client = Stripe::StripeClient.new('sk_test_BQokikJOvBiI2HlWgH4olfQ2')

require 'stripe'
require 'sinatra'

# If you are testing your webhook locally with the Stripe CLI you
# can find the endpoint's secret by running `stripe listen`
# Otherwise, find your endpoint's secret in your webhook settings in
# the Developer Dashboard
endpoint_secret = 'whsec_...'

# Using the Sinatra framework
set :port, 4242

post '/my/webhook/url' do
  payload = request.body.read
  sig_header = request.env['HTTP_STRIPE_SIGNATURE']
  event = nil

  begin
    event = Stripe::Webhook.construct_event(
      payload, sig_header, endpoint_secret
    )
  rescue JSON::ParserError => e
    # Invalid payload
    puts "Error parsing payload: #{e.message}"
    status 400
    return
  rescue Stripe::SignatureVerificationError => e
    # Invalid signature
    puts "Error verifying webhook signature: #{e.message}"
    status 400
    return
  end

  # Handle the event
  case event.type
  when 'payment_intent.succeeded'
    payment_intent = event.data.object # contains a Stripe::PaymentIntent
    puts 'PaymentIntent was successful!'
  when 'payment_method.attached'
    payment_method = event.data.object # contains a Stripe::PaymentMethod
    puts 'PaymentMethod was attached to a Customer!'
  # ... handle other event types
  else
    puts "Unhandled event type: #{event.type}"
  end

  status 200
end

Preventing replay attacks

A replay attack is when an attacker intercepts a valid payload and its signature, then re-transmits them. To mitigate such attacks, Stripe includes a timestamp in the Stripe-Signature header. Because this timestamp is part of the signed payload, it’s also verified by the signature, so an attacker can’t change the timestamp without invalidating the signature. If the signature is valid but the timestamp is too old, you can have your application reject the payload.

Our libraries have a default tolerance of 5 minutes between the timestamp and the current time. You can change this tolerance by providing an additional parameter when verifying signatures. Use Network Time Protocol (NTP) to make sure that your server’s clock is accurate and synchronizes with the time on Stripe’s servers.

Stripe generates the timestamp and signature each time we send an event to your endpoint. If Stripe retries an event (for example, your endpoint previously replied with a non-2xx status code), then we generate a new signature and timestamp for the new delivery attempt.

Quickly return a 2xx response

Your endpoint must quickly return a successful status code (2xx) before any complex logic that could cause a timeout. For example, you must return a 200 response before updating a customer’s invoice as paid in your accounting system.