Payments
Stripe
Stripe payment integration for headless storefronts and SaaS billing in Dubai
Stripe is a payments platform that handles card processing, digital wallets, recurring billing and payouts through developer-first APIs. Rather than a hosted checkout you're stuck with, it gives you primitives — Payment Intents, the Payment Element, Billing and Connect — that you compose into exactly the flow your store or product needs.
- 01Developer-first APIs let us build the exact checkout a project needs, not a fixed hosted flow
- 02Available to UAE merchants with local settlement, and supports 135-plus currencies for cross-border selling
- 03One integration covers one-off payments, saved cards, subscriptions and marketplace payouts
- 04Webhooks and idempotency give reliable, event-driven order state that holds up under load
- 05Mature tooling for fraud (Radar), tax and billing means less bespoke code to maintain
Stripe is the payments layer most custom commerce and SaaS products are built on. It abstracts the messy parts — card networks, 3D Secure, wallets, currency conversion, fraud screening and payouts — behind a consistent API, so a checkout that would otherwise take months of bank integration work becomes a focused engineering task. For a business in the UAE selling online, that means accepting Visa, Mastercard, Apple Pay and Google Pay through one integration instead of stitching together a separate gateway, tokenisation vault and reconciliation process.
Stripe is available to UAE merchants with a valid trade licence, and it settles into a local bank account. The products that matter for a typical build — Checkout, Payment Links, Billing, Connect, Radar and Tax — all operate here, alongside support for 135-plus currencies for businesses selling across borders. There is a minimum charge of 2.00 AED, which only matters for micro-transaction models, and the practical card mix in the region is Visa and Mastercard plus the wallets buyers actually reach for at the till.
Where Stripe fits a custom build
The reason teams reach for Stripe over a drop-in gateway is control. A hosted checkout dictates the flow; Stripe lets us own it. We mount the Payment Element directly in a headless storefront so the payment step looks and behaves like the rest of the site, keep the customer on-domain, and handle confirmation, retries and 3D Secure challenges without a redirect that leaks conversions. The same API underpins one-off orders, saved cards, subscriptions and marketplace payouts — so a single integration grows with the product instead of being ripped out when requirements change.
Webhooks are the contract
A correct Stripe integration is event-driven, not request-driven. We treat the webhook — not the browser redirect — as the source of truth for whether an order is paid, a subscription renewed or a payout cleared, with signature verification and idempotency so a retried event never double-charges or double-fulfils. That discipline is what keeps order state, inventory and your accounting in agreement when traffic spikes or a network call drops mid-flight.
How Karve integrates Stripe:
- Custom checkout with the Payment Element embedded in a headless Next.js storefront — on-domain, no redirect, with Apple Pay and Google Pay enabled.
- Subscription and metered billing for SaaS products, including trials, proration, plan changes, invoices and dunning through Stripe Billing.
- Server-side Payment Intents wired to your commerce backend (Medusa, a custom API or a Shopify headless setup) with webhook-driven order and fulfilment state.
- Marketplace and multi-vendor payouts with Stripe Connect, including split payments, onboarding and per-seller settlement.
- Fraud and tax handling via Radar rules and Stripe Tax, plus reconciliation feeds into your finance tooling.
Whether you're launching a single-brand store, a multi-vendor marketplace or a subscription product, we treat payments as core engineering — built into the architecture, tested against real edge cases, and owned end to end rather than bolted on at the end.
What it does
Embedded custom checkout
The Stripe Payment Element mounted inside a headless storefront — on-domain, styled to match, with Apple Pay and Google Pay and no conversion-leaking redirect.
SaaS subscription billing
Recurring and usage-based plans on Stripe Billing: trials, proration, upgrades, invoices and automated dunning, wired to your product's entitlement logic.
Headless commerce payments
Server-side Payment Intents connected to a Medusa, custom or Shopify headless backend, with webhook-driven order and fulfilment state as the source of truth.
Marketplace payouts with Connect
Split payments, seller onboarding and per-vendor settlement for multi-vendor platforms, so each party gets paid without manual reconciliation.
Fraud, tax and reconciliation
Radar rules tuned to your risk profile, Stripe Tax for correct collection, and clean reconciliation feeds into your finance stack.
About Stripe
Can you integrate Stripe for a UAE online store?
Yes. Stripe is available to UAE businesses with a valid trade licence and settles into a local bank account, so it's a solid choice for a Dubai or wider-GCC store. We integrate it into headless and custom storefronts — embedding the Payment Element on-domain, enabling Visa, Mastercard, Apple Pay and Google Pay, and wiring webhooks so your order state stays correct. For many UAE stores we pair Stripe for cards with BNPL providers like Tabby or Tamara so local buyers get the instalment options they expect at checkout.
Stripe versus a hosted payment gateway — which should we use?
A hosted gateway is faster to switch on but dictates the checkout flow and usually forces a redirect off your site. Stripe is the better fit when you want to own the experience: the Payment Element lives inside your storefront, keeps the customer on-domain, and the same API extends from one-off orders to subscriptions and marketplace payouts. If your requirements are standard and speed-to-launch is everything, a hosted gateway can be enough; if checkout is part of the product and you expect it to evolve, Stripe pays off. We'll pressure-test the choice against your actual flows before committing.
Can you build SaaS subscription billing with Stripe?
Yes — this is one of the most common things we build with Stripe. Using Stripe Billing we set up recurring and usage-based plans with trials, proration, plan changes, invoicing and automated dunning, then connect it to your product so access and entitlements update the moment a subscription changes. The integration is event-driven: we listen to Stripe webhooks rather than trusting the browser, with idempotency so a retried event never grants access twice or double-charges.
How does Stripe work with a headless storefront?
In a headless setup, the frontend and commerce backend are decoupled, and Stripe slots in cleanly. We create Payment Intents on the server next to your commerce logic — a Medusa backend, a custom API or a headless Shopify setup — and mount the Payment Element in the frontend so the payment step matches the rest of the site. Webhooks then drive order and fulfilment state, which keeps payments, inventory and accounting in agreement instead of relying on a fragile redirect.
Does Stripe support marketplaces and multi-vendor payments?
Yes, through Stripe Connect. We use it to onboard sellers, split a single customer payment across vendors and Karve's commission, and settle each party separately — so a multi-vendor marketplace pays everyone correctly without manual reconciliation. Connect handles the compliance and payout mechanics, and we build the seller onboarding and dashboards around it to fit how your platform actually operates.