How PaymentIntents and SetupIntents work
Learn how PaymentIntents and SetupIntents work within the payment flow.
The main difference between the Payment Intents API and Setup Intents API is their purpose:
- Payment Intents API: Used to collect payment and charge a customer immediately. It creates a charge and processes a transaction to collect funds.
- Setup Intents API: Used to collect and save payment method details for future use without creating a charge. Sets up payment credentials without processing any payment.
| Payment Intent API | Setup Intents API |
|---|---|
| Creates an immediate charge | Creates no charge |
| Tracks a payment’s lifecycle | Tracks the progress of setting up a payment method |
| Uses 3D secure to authenticate the customer for the applicable transaction | Uses 3D secure to authenticate a payment method without charging it, and creates a mandate or agreement for future charges |
Asynchronous payments can be challenging to manage because they can depend on customer actions that happen outside of your application. For example, a user might need to confirm a payment using 3D Secure.
To simplify payment management, Stripe uses a state machine that allows you to track the state of a payment flow. To learn the states for each API, select the applicable tab below:
When the PaymentIntent is created, it has a status of requires_1 until a payment method is attached.
We recommend creating the PaymentIntent as soon as you know how much you want to charge, so that Stripe can record all the attempted payments.
After the customer provides their payment information, the PaymentIntent is ready to be confirmed.
In most integrations, this state is skipped because payment method information is submitted at the same time that the payment is confirmed.
If the payment requires additional actions, such as authenticating with 3D Secure, the PaymentIntent has a status of requires_1.
After required actions are handled, the PaymentIntent moves to processing for asynchronous payment methods, such as bank debits. These types of payment methods can take up to a few days to process. Other payment methods, such as cards, are processed more quickly and don’t go into the processing status.
If you’re separately authorizing and capturing funds, your PaymentIntent can instead move to requires_. In that case, attempting to capture the funds moves it to processing.
A PaymentIntent with a status of succeeded means that the payment flow it is driving is complete.
The funds are now in your account and you can confidently fulfill the order. If you need to refund the customer, you can use the Refunds API.
If the payment attempt fails (for example due to a decline), the PaymentIntent’s status returns to requires_ so that the payment can be retried.
You can cancel a PaymentIntent at any point before it’s in a processing2 or succeeded state. Canceling it invalidates the PaymentIntent for future payment attempts, and can’t be undone. If any funds have been held, cancellation releases them.
PaymentIntents might also be automatically transitioned to the canceled state after they have been confirmed too many times.
1 Versions of the API before 2019-02-11 show requires_ instead of requires_ and requires_ instead of requires_.
2 You can cancel a PaymentIntent in the processing state when the associated Payment Method is US Bank Account. However, it might fail due to a limited and varying cancellation time window.