Stripe

Stripe is how all three kits get paid, and the part of a build that takes the longest to get right: the checkout, the webhook that confirms the payment, the subscription that renews or lapses, and the refund that has to undo something. Each kit has all of it.

Local Lab sells featured placements (home page, city, category) as one-off or monthly, and per-city lead subscriptions. Every payment, renewal and refund is a row in an append-only ledger, refunds as negative amounts, so the sales dashboard can be reconciled against Stripe to the penny. A nightly job re-pulls the last week of charges in case a webhook was missed.

Job Lab sells employer plans as subscriptions (the Stripe price is created from the amount you type in the admin), featured jobs and credit bundles as one-off payments, and self-service advertising with eight placements. Rejecting an ad order refunds it automatically. Launch Lab sells seven products set in the admin, from a 14 dollar featured listing to a 45 dollar a month advert, through hosted Checkout with the price sent inline, so there is nothing to create in Stripe's dashboard and the amount charged is always the amount on the page.

Every webhook verifies Stripe's signature and ignores a repeated event. All three kits show "not available" or fall back to free rather than break when Stripe is not connected.

Worth knowing#

• Stripe charges per transaction and has no monthly fee. The kits need the secret key and the webhook secret, both stored encrypted in the admin.

• Local Lab has no refund button: you refund in Stripe and the ledger picks it up. Job Lab reflects refunds it made itself (rejected ads); a refund you make by hand in Stripe for a plan is not noticed. Launch Lab marks full refunds and emails the buyer, but does not remove what was bought.

• Local Lab's featured placements and leads are switched on by default, so connect Stripe or switch them off before opening.