New Stripe Billing customer portal, Firebase extensions, and guides

Tags: stripedevdigest, payments, devrel
Published: 2020-07-29 20:13:30

📩 _We're sharing our most recent developer digest here on dev.to! If you're interested in subscribing to monthly developer updates, [enter your email in the footer of stripe.com/docs](stripe.com/docs)._

![divider](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/i/kwi5h27a7elyignm8iie.png)

## July Developer Digest 

We’ve launched the new [Billing customer portal](https://stripe.com/docs/billing/subscriptions/customer-portal?utm_medium=earned-email&utm_source=devto&utm_campaign=global_all_en_general_general_devdigest2020july_2020-07-28_internal%7Cnone) that allows your customers to manage their subscriptions and billing details. In this month’s digest, we’re excited to share some resources for getting started with the customer portal and guides on how to implement common subscription pricing models in Stripe Billing. You’ll also find new extensions for Firebase, API updates, and other resources.

## Getting started with the customer portal
[![Billing customer portal](https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/nl355BXghQT5dzcjG3CZ5_446eVsYhBVN4tfqIAv4k06yneHbsH6yqh4Ho4P7Yvxpq_VmlFlWkRWOxpQCh5BoGqBNX4pxrgWeXknTwheZOCFQblu2UU4qYcTCsbVNubsoAs1nk-I)](https://stripe.com/docs/billing/subscriptions/customer-portal?utm_medium=earned-email&utm_source=devto&utm_campaign=global_all_en_general_general_devdigest2020july_2020-07-28_internal%7Cnone)



The customer portal is a secure, Stripe-hosted page that lets you provide subscription and billing management functionality to your customers without building it yourself. Customers can update payment information, upgrade or downgrade plans, and more. Here are some resources to help you get started: 

- [Learn about the customer portal](https://stripe.com/docs/billing/subscriptions/customer-portal?utm_medium=earned-email&utm_source=devto&utm_campaign=global_all_en_general_general_devdigest2020july_2020-07-28_internal%7Cnone) and [view our integration guide](https://stripe.com/docs/billing/subscriptions/integrating-customer-portal?utm_medium=earned-email&utm_source=devto&utm_campaign=global_all_en_general_general_devdigest2020july_2020-07-28_internal%7Cnone). 
- Watch how to [integrate the customer portal](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8H6awDJVpM) into a Ruby on Rails application.
{% youtube u8H6awDJVpM %}
- [Build a complete subscription management system](https://www.netlify.com/blog/2020/07/13/manage-subscriptions-and-protect-content-with-stripe/) with the customer portal and Netlify Identity.
- Learn how to [implement Stripe Checkout and the customer portal](https://hoist.earth/build/2020-07-06-adding-payments-with-stripe/) for subscription management in a Gatsby app, plus integrate with Auth0.
- Use a new Firebase extension (see below) to quickly [create and manage customer subscriptions](https://firebase.google.com/products/extensions/firestore-stripe-subscriptions).

## Stay updated with new features
- **Firebase Extensions**: We rolled out two official Firebase extensions for Stripe Billing that allow you to quickly [send one-off branded invoices](https://firebase.google.com/products/extensions/firestore-stripe-invoices) and [run subscription payments](https://firebase.google.com/products/extensions/firestore-stripe-subscriptions) to your web apps. Google’s Firebase lets you develop mobile and web apps without managing infrastructure and Firebase Extensions can automate common tasks to save you time.  
- **Expanded API responses**: You can now reduce the number of API requests you make to Stripe by using the `expand` feature to retrieve linked objects in a single call, effectively replacing the object ID with all its properties and values. For example, you can [see the fees for a given payment](https://stripe.com/docs/expand/use-cases?utm_medium=earned-email&utm_source=devto&utm_campaign=global_all_en_general_general_devdigest2020july_2020-07-28_internal%7Cnone#stripe-fee-for-payment), [list the charges bundled in a payout](https://stripe.com/docs/expand/use-cases?utm_medium=earned-email&utm_source=devto&utm_campaign=global_all_en_general_general_devdigest2020july_2020-07-28_internal%7Cnone#charges-in-payout), and [more](https://stripe.com/docs/expand?utm_medium=earned-email&utm_source=devto&utm_campaign=global_all_en_general_general_devdigest2020july_2020-07-28_internal%7Cnone).
- **PHP SDK updates**: We’ve added a new `StripeClient` class that lets you interact with the API without using static methods or having to retrieve a resource before using it. [Learn more about this PHP client library update](https://github.com/stripe/stripe-php/wiki/Migration-to-StripeClient-and-services-in-7.33.0).

You can always [check the details of the most recent API version](https://stripe.com/docs/upgrades?utm_medium=earned-email&utm_source=devto&utm_campaign=global_all_en_general_general_devdigest2020july_2020-07-28_internal%7Cnone#2020-03-02) (2020-03-02) in our [API changelog](https://stripe.com/docs/upgrades?utm_medium=earned-email&utm_source=devto&utm_campaign=global_all_en_general_general_devdigest2020july_2020-07-28_internal%7Cnone#api-changelog).

## Learn with videos, demos, and guides
- **Developer Office Hours**: Follow along as [@matthewling](https://twitter.com/matthewling) shows how to [take a payment with SEPA direct debit](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUQoKit6XTM). 
{% youtube tUQoKit6XTM %}
- **SaaS platform demo app**: Roastery is a sample app that demonstrates how to build a SaaS platform like Shopify or Squarespace. You’ll see how you can provide e-commerce capabilities to connected accounts and collect a fee. [Clone the demo on GitHub](https://github.com/stripe/stripe-demo-connect-roastery-saas-platform).
{% github stripe/stripe-demo-connect-roastery-saas-platform no-readme %}
- **Stripe Billing subscription guides:** Modeling payments on Stripe depends on knowing how your business operates. We’ve created step-by-step instructions on how to create subscriptions for the most common revenue models:
    - [Per-seat subscriptions](https://stripe.com/docs/billing/subscriptions/per-seat?utm_medium=earned-email&utm_source=devto&utm_campaign=global_all_en_general_general_devdigest2020july_2020-07-28_internal%7Cnone): Charge customers based on how many units they purchase.
    - [Metered billing subscriptions](https://stripe.com/docs/billing/subscriptions/metered?utm_medium=earned-email&utm_source=devto&utm_campaign=global_all_en_general_general_devdigest2020july_2020-07-28_internal%7Cnone): Charge customers based on how much they use.
    - [Fixed-price subscriptions](https://stripe.com/docs/billing/subscriptions/fixed-price?utm_medium=earned-email&utm_source=devto&utm_campaign=global_all_en_general_general_devdigest2020july_2020-07-28_internal%7Cnone): Offer multiple pricing options and product tiers.

## Community resources
- [Headless Commerce](https://headlesscommerce.org/) is a directory of frameworks, libraries, tools, and resources for online store builders built by the [JAMstack](https://jamstack.wtf/) community.
- Learn how to [integrate Stripe Checkout and webhooks](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwhEjEqG43M) into a Django project with [Pretty Printed]
(https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-QDfvrRIDB6F0bIO4I4HkQ).
{% youtube JwhEjEqG43M %} 
- [Sumit Kumar](https://twitter.com/TweetsOfSumit) shows [how to integrate the customer portal]
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_n2AV0epI6Q) in just 30 minutes.
{% youtube _n2AV0epI6Q %}
- [Romy Misra](https://twitter.com/romymisra) covers [how to debug when building with Stripe](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgg2S2ddQiw).
{% youtube xgg2S2ddQiw %}
- We’ve launched a new social media account dedicated to developer updates. [Follow us at @StripeDev on Twitter](https://twitter.com/stripedev).
{% twitter 1288508169531121664 %}

![divider](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/i/kwi5h27a7elyignm8iie.png)

What would you like to see more (or less) of? We’d love to hear your feedback at [dev-digest@stripe.com](mailto:dev-digest@stripe.com). If you have questions, comments, or need help with code, we’re here to help [via email](https://support.stripe.com/contact/login), on IRC at #stripe on freenode, on Twitter at [@StripeDev](https://twitter.com/StripeDev), or on Stack Overflow at the [stripe-payments](https://stackoverflow.com/tags/stripe-payments/info) tag. 

– Your friends at Stripe