Saving cards with the Charges API

When you collect a customer’s payment information, a Stripe token is created. This token can only be used once, but that doesn’t mean you have to request your customer’s card details for every payment.

Stripe provides a Customer object so you can save this—and other—information for later use. You can use Customer objects for creating subscriptions or future one-off charges.

Saving credit card details for later

To make a card available for later charging, including subscriptions, create a new Customer instead of a Charge by providing their email address and tokenized card information.

Be certain to store the customer ID on your side for later use. You can subsequently charge that customer by passing the customer ID—instead of a card representation—in the charge request.

# Create a Customer:
curl https://api.stripe.com/v1/customers \
  -u 
sk_test_BQokikJOvBiI2HlWgH4olfQ2: \
  -d source=tok_mastercard \
  -d email="paying.user@example.com"

# Charge the Customer instead of the card:
curl https://api.stripe.com/v1/charges \
  -u 
sk_test_BQokikJOvBiI2HlWgH4olfQ2: \
  -d amount=1000 \
  -d currency=usd \
  -d customer=cus_7sqFSKcBzzYEAf

# YOUR CODE: Save the customer ID and other info in a database for later.

# When it's time to charge the customer again, retrieve the customer ID.
curl https://api.stripe.com/v1/charges \
  -u 
sk_test_BQokikJOvBiI2HlWgH4olfQ2: \
  -d amount=1500 \
  -d currency=usd \
  -d customer=cus_7sqFSKcBzzYEAf

Charges using saved card details can be customized in the same ways as one-time charges.

Automatic card updates

Saved payment method details can continue to work even if the issuing bank replaces the physical card. Stripe works with card networks and automatically attempts to update saved card details whenever a customer receives a new card (for example, replacing an expired card or one that was reported lost or stolen). This allows your customers to continue using your service without interruption and reduces the need for you to collect new card details whenever a card is replaced.

Automatic card updates require card issuers to participate with the network and provide this information. It’s widely supported in the United States, allowing Stripe to automatically update most American Express, Visa, Mastercard, and Discover cards issued there. International support varies from country to country. It isn’t possible to identify cards that support automatic updates.

You can listen for Stripe webhooks to learn of card update activity:

• The payment_method.updated event notifies you of updates to a card through an API call.
• The payment_method.automatically_updated event notifies you of automatic card updates from the network.

These events include the card’s new expiration date and last four digits, so you can update your own records as needed. If the card update includes a new card number, the fingerprint changes.

Changing the default payment method

Although many of the cards you save can be automatically updated, you should still adopt a process that allows customers to update or replace the cards on file (for example, a customer wants to change the card being billed or their card can’t be automatically updated). The end of the process requires an update customer call, providing a new token for the source parameter.

curl https://api.stripe.com/v1/customers/cus_V9T7vofUbZMqpv \
  -u "
sk_test_BQokikJOvBiI2HlWgH4olfQ2
:" \
  -d source=tok_visa

This sets the new card as the default payment method for future payments. It also deletes the previously saved card.

Multiple payment methods

Customers can also store multiple payment methods. The first one saved to a customer is set as the default_source. This is used for subscription payments and whenever a charge request is made with just a customer ID.

You can manage the payment methods saved to a customer (for example, create or remove cards) and you can update the customer to change default_source to another stored payment method at any time.