10 Stripe Webhook Best Practices for Production

Introduction

Stripe webhooks are the backbone of reliable payment integrations. They notify your application about events like successful payments, subscription renewals, and failed charges. Here are 10 best practices for handling Stripe webhooks in production.

1. Always Verify Webhook Signatures

Never trust incoming webhooks without verification. Stripe signs every webhook with your endpoint secret.

const sig = request.headers['stripe-signature'];
const event = stripe.webhooks.constructEvent(
  request.body,
  sig,
  process.env.STRIPE_WEBHOOK_SECRET
);

Using Hookbase? Signature verification is automatic for all Stripe sources.

2. Return 200 Quickly

Stripe expects a response within 10 seconds. If your processing takes longer, return 200 immediately and process asynchronously.

// Bad: Processing before responding
app.post('/webhook', async (req, res) => {
  await processPayment(req.body); // Might timeout!
  res.json({ received: true });
});

// Good: Respond first, process later
app.post('/webhook', (req, res) => {
  res.json({ received: true });
  processPayment(req.body);
});

3. Handle Idempotency

Stripe may send the same webhook multiple times. Use the event ID to ensure you only process each event once.

const eventId = event.id;
if (await alreadyProcessed(eventId)) {
  return res.json({ received: true });
}
await markAsProcessed(eventId);
// Process the event

4. Listen for the Right Events

Don't listen for more events than you need. Each event type has specific use cases:

• payment_intent.succeeded - One-time payments completed
• invoice.paid - Subscription payments completed
• customer.subscription.updated - Plan changes
• customer.subscription.deleted - Cancellations

5. Use Test Mode for Development

Always test webhooks in Stripe's test mode first. Use test API keys and the Stripe CLI to send test events to your local server.

stripe listen --forward-to localhost:3000/webhook

Or use Hookbase tunnels to receive real test webhooks locally.

6. Log Everything

Log every webhook you receive, even if you don't process it. This helps debug issues later.

console.log({
  eventId: event.id,
  type: event.type,
  timestamp: new Date().toISOString(),
  processed: true
});

7. Handle Failures Gracefully

If processing fails, throw an error so Stripe retries the webhook.

try {
  await processEvent(event);
  res.json({ received: true });
} catch (error) {
  console.error('Processing failed:', error);
  res.status(500).json({ error: 'Processing failed' });
}

8. Set Up Alerts

Monitor your webhook endpoint health. Set up alerts for:

• High error rates
• Increased latency
• Queue backlog (if using async processing)

9. Use a Webhook Relay Service

Services like Hookbase add reliability layers:

• Automatic retries with exponential backoff
• Dead letter queue for failed deliveries
• Real-time monitoring and alerting
• Payload transformation for downstream services

10. Keep Secrets Secure

Never commit webhook secrets to version control. Use environment variables or a secrets manager.

# .env (never commit this file)
STRIPE_WEBHOOK_SECRET=whsec_xxx

Conclusion

Reliable Stripe webhook handling requires verification, idempotency, proper error handling, and good observability. Using a webhook relay service like Hookbase simplifies many of these challenges.

Ready to improve your Stripe webhook handling? Try Hookbase free.