Introduction
Laravel Cashier provides an expressive, fluent interface to Stripe's and Braintree's subscription billing services. It handles almost all of the boilerplate subscription billing code you are dreading writing. In addition to basic subscription management, Cashier can handle coupons, swapping subscription, subscription "quantities", cancellation grace periods, and even generate invoice PDFs.
Note:
If you're only performing "one-off" charges and do not offer subscriptions, you should not use Cashier. Instead, use the Stripe and Braintree SDKs directly.
Configuration
Stripe
Composer
First, add the Cashier package for Stripe to your dependencies:
composer require "laravel/cashier":"~7.0"
Database Migrations
Before using Cashier, we'll also need to prepare the database. We
need to add several columns to your users
table and create a new subscriptions
table
to hold all of our customer's subscriptions:
Schema::table('users', function ($table) {
$table->string('stripe_id')->nullable();
$table->string('card_brand')->nullable();
$table->string('card_last_four')->nullable();
$table->timestamp('trial_ends_at')->nullable();
});
Schema::create('subscriptions', function ($table) {
$table->increments('id');
$table->integer('user_id');
$table->string('name');
$table->string('stripe_id');
$table->string('stripe_plan');
$table->integer('quantity');
$table->timestamp('trial_ends_at')->nullable();
$table->timestamp('ends_at')->nullable();
$table->timestamps();
});
Once the migrations have been created, run the
migrate
Artisan command.
Billable Model
Next, add the Billable
trait to your model
definition. This trait provides various methods to allow
you to perform common billing tasks, such as creating
subscriptions, applying coupons, and updating credit
card information:
use Laravel\Cashier\Billable;
class User extends Authenticatable
{
use Billable;
}
API Keys
Finally, you should configure your Stripe key in your
services.php
configuration file. You can
retrieve your Stripe API keys from the Stripe control
panel:
'stripe' => [
'model' => App\User::class,
'key' => env('STRIPE_KEY'),
'secret' => env('STRIPE_SECRET'),
],
Braintree
Braintree Caveats
For many operations, the Stripe and Braintree implementations of Cashier function the same. Both services provide subscription billing with credit cards but Braintree also supports payments via PayPal. However, Braintree also lacks some features that are supported by Stripe. You should keep the following in mind when deciding to use Stripe or Braintree:
Composer
First, add the Cashier package for Braintree to your dependencies:
composer require "laravel/cashier-braintree":"~2.0"
Plan Credit Coupon
Before using Cashier with Braintree, you will need to
define a plan-credit
discount in your
Braintree control panel. This discount will be used to
properly prorate subscriptions that change from yearly
to monthly billing, or from monthly to yearly
billing.
The discount amount configured in the Braintree control panel can be any value you wish, as Cashier will override the defined amount with our own custom amount each time we apply the coupon. This coupon is needed since Braintree does not natively support prorating subscriptions across subscription frequencies.
Database Migrations
Before using Cashier, we'll need to prepare the database. We
need to add several columns to your users
table and create a new subscriptions
table
to hold all of our customer's subscriptions:
Schema::table('users', function ($table) {
$table->string('braintree_id')->nullable();
$table->string('paypal_email')->nullable();
$table->string('card_brand')->nullable();
$table->string('card_last_four')->nullable();
$table->timestamp('trial_ends_at')->nullable();
});
Schema::create('subscriptions', function ($table) {
$table->increments('id');
$table->integer('user_id');
$table->string('name');
$table->string('braintree_id');
$table->string('braintree_plan');
$table->integer('quantity');
$table->timestamp('trial_ends_at')->nullable();
$table->timestamp('ends_at')->nullable();
$table->timestamps();
});
Once the migrations have been created, run the
migrate
Artisan command.
Billable Model
Next, add the Billable
trait to your model
definition:
use Laravel\Cashier\Billable;
class User extends Authenticatable
{
use Billable;
}
API Keys
Next, you should configure the following options in your
services.php
file:
'braintree' => [
'model' => App\User::class,
'environment' => env('BRAINTREE_ENV'),
'merchant_id' => env('BRAINTREE_MERCHANT_ID'),
'public_key' => env('BRAINTREE_PUBLIC_KEY'),
'private_key' => env('BRAINTREE_PRIVATE_KEY'),
],
Then you should add the following Braintree SDK calls to
your AppServiceProvider
service provider's
boot
method:
\Braintree_Configuration::environment(config('services.braintree.environment'));
\Braintree_Configuration::merchantId(config('services.braintree.merchant_id'));
\Braintree_Configuration::publicKey(config('services.braintree.public_key'));
\Braintree_Configuration::privateKey(config('services.braintree.private_key'));
Currency Configuration
The default Cashier currency is United States Dollars
(USD). You can change the default currency by calling
the Cashier::useCurrency
method from within
the boot
method of one of your service
providers. The useCurrency
method accepts
two string parameters: the currency and the currency's
symbol:
use Laravel\Cashier\Cashier;
Cashier::useCurrency('eur', '€');
Subscriptions
Creating Subscriptions
To create a subscription, first retrieve an instance of
your billable model, which typically will be an instance
of App\User
. Once you have retrieved the
model instance, you may use the
newSubscription
method to create the
model's subscription:
$user = User::find(1);
$user->newSubscription('main', 'premium')->create($stripeToken);
The first argument passed to the
newSubscription
method should be the name
of the subscription. If your application only offers a
single subscription, you might call this
main
or primary
. The second
argument is the specific Stripe / Braintree plan the
user is subscribing to. This value should correspond to
the plan's identifier in Stripe or Braintree.
The create
method, which accepts a Stripe
credit card / source token, will begin the subscription
as well as update your database with the customer ID and
other relevant billing information.
Additional User Details
If you would like to specify additional customer details,
you may do so by passing them as the second argument to
the create
method:
$user->newSubscription('main', 'monthly')->create($stripeToken, [
'email' => $email,
]);
To learn more about the additional fields supported by Stripe or Braintree, check out Stripe's documentation on customer creation or the corresponding Braintree documentation.
Coupons
If you would like to apply a coupon when creating the
subscription, you may use the withCoupon
method:
$user->newSubscription('main', 'monthly')
->withCoupon('code')
->create($stripeToken);
Checking Subscription Status
Once a user is subscribed to your application, you may
easily check their subscription status using a variety
of convenient methods. First, the
subscribed
method returns true
if the user has an active subscription, even if the
subscription is currently within its trial period:
if ($user->subscribed('main')) {
//
}
The subscribed
method also makes a great
candidate for a route
middleware, allowing you to filter access to
routes and controllers based on the user's subscription
status:
public function handle($request, Closure $next)
{
if ($request->user() && ! $request->user()->subscribed('main')) {
// This user is not a paying customer...
return redirect('billing');
}
return $next($request);
}
If you would like to determine if a user is still within
their trial period, you may use the onTrial
method. This method can be useful for displaying a
warning to the user that they are still on their trial
period:
if ($user->subscription('main')->onTrial()) {
//
}
The subscribedToPlan
method may be used to
determine if the user is subscribed to a given plan
based on a given Stripe / Braintree plan ID. In this
example, we will determine if the user's
main
subscription is actively subscribed to
the monthly
plan:
if ($user->subscribedToPlan('monthly', 'main')) {
//
}
Cancelled Subscription Status
To determine if the user was once an active subscriber,
but has cancelled their subscription, you may use the
cancelled
method:
if ($user->subscription('main')->cancelled()) {
//
}
You may also determine if a user has cancelled their
subscription, but are still on their "grace
period" until the subscription fully expires. For
example, if a user cancels a subscription on March 5th
that was originally scheduled to expire on March 10th,
the user is on their "grace period" until
March 10th. Note that the subscribed
method
still returns true
during this time:
if ($user->subscription('main')->onGracePeriod()) {
//
}
Changing Plans
After a user is subscribed to your application, they may
occasionally want to change to a new subscription plan.
To swap a user to a new subscription, pass the plan's
identifier to the swap
method:
$user = App\User::find(1);
$user->subscription('main')->swap('provider-plan-id');
If the user is on trial, the trial period will be maintained. Also, if a "quantity" exists for the subscription, that quantity will also be maintained.
If you would like to swap plans and cancel any trial
period the user is currently on, you may use the
skipTrial
method:
$user->subscription('main')
->skipTrial()
->swap('provider-plan-id');
Subscription Quantity
Note:
Subscription quantities are only supported by the Stripe edition of Cashier. Braintree does not have a feature that corresponds to Stripe's "quantity".
Sometimes subscriptions are affected by
"quantity". For example, your application
might charge $10 per month per user on
an account. To easily increment or decrement your
subscription quantity, use the
incrementQuantity
and
decrementQuantity
methods:
$user = User::find(1);
$user->subscription('main')->incrementQuantity();
// Add five to the subscription's current quantity...
$user->subscription('main')->incrementQuantity(5);
$user->subscription('main')->decrementQuantity();
// Subtract five to the subscription's current quantity...
$user->subscription('main')->decrementQuantity(5);
Alternatively, you may set a specific quantity using the
updateQuantity
method:
$user->subscription('main')->updateQuantity(10);
The noProrate
method may be used to update
the subscription's quantity without pro-rating the
charges:
$user->subscription('main')->noProrate()->updateQuantity(10);
For more information on subscription quantities, consult the Stripe documentation.
Subscription Taxes
To specify the tax percentage a user pays on a
subscription, implement the taxPercentage
method on your billable model, and return a numeric
value between 0 and 100, with no more than 2 decimal
places.
public function taxPercentage() {
return 20;
}
The taxPercentage
method enables you to
apply a tax rate on a model-by-model basis, which may be
helpful for a user base that spans multiple countries
and tax rates.
Note:
ThetaxPercentage
method only applies to subscription charges. If you use Cashier to make "one off" charges, you will need to manually specify the tax rate at that time.
Cancelling Subscriptions
To cancel a subscription, call the cancel
method on the user's subscription:
$user->subscription('main')->cancel();
When a subscription is cancelled, Cashier will
automatically set the ends_at
column in
your database. This column is used to know when the
subscribed
method should begin returning
false
. For example, if a customer cancels a
subscription on March 1st, but the subscription was not
scheduled to end until March 5th, the
subscribed
method will continue to return
true
until March 5th.
You may determine if a user has cancelled their
subscription but are still on their "grace
period" using the onGracePeriod
method:
if ($user->subscription('main')->onGracePeriod()) {
//
}
If you wish to cancel a subscription immediately, call
the cancelNow
method on the user's
subscription:
$user->subscription('main')->cancelNow();
Resuming Subscriptions
If a user has cancelled their subscription and you wish
to resume it, use the resume
method. The
user must still be on their grace
period in order to resume a subscription:
$user->subscription('main')->resume();
If the user cancels a subscription and then resumes that subscription before the subscription has fully expired, they will not be billed immediately. Instead, their subscription will be re-activated, and they will be billed on the original billing cycle.
Updating Credit Cards
The updateCard
method may be used to update
a customer's credit card information. This method
accepts a Stripe token and will assign the new credit
card as the default billing source:
$user->updateCard($stripeToken);
Subscription Trials
With Credit Card Up Front
If you would like to offer trial periods to your
customers while still collecting payment method
information up front, you should use the
trialDays
method when creating your
subscriptions:
$user = User::find(1);
$user->newSubscription('main', 'monthly')
->trialDays(10)
->create($stripeToken);
This method will set the trial period ending date on the subscription record within the database, as well as instruct Stripe / Braintree to not begin billing the customer until after this date.
Note:
If the customer's subscription is not cancelled before the trial ending date they will be charged as soon as the trial expires, so you should be sure to notify your users of their trial ending date.
You may determine if the user is within their trial
period using either the onTrial
method of
the user instance, or the onTrial
method of
the subscription instance. The two examples below are
identical:
if ($user->onTrial('main')) {
//
}
if ($user->subscription('main')->onTrial()) {
//
}
Without Credit Card Up Front
If you would like to offer trial periods without
collecting the user's payment method information up
front, you may set the trial_ends_at
column
on the user record to your desired trial ending date.
This is typically done during user registration:
$user = User::create([
// Populate other user properties...
'trial_ends_at' => now()->addDays(10),
]);
Note: date mutator for
Be sure to add atrial_ends_at
to your model definition.
Cashier refers to this type of trial as a "generic
trial", since it is not attached to any existing
subscription. The onTrial
method on the
User
instance will return true
if the current date is not past the value of
trial_ends_at
:
if ($user->onTrial()) {
// User is within their trial period...
}
You may also use the onGenericTrial
method
if you wish to know specifically that the user is within
their "generic" trial period and has not
created an actual subscription yet:
if ($user->onGenericTrial()) {
// User is within their "generic" trial period...
}
Once you are ready to create an actual subscription for
the user, you may use the newSubscription
method as usual:
$user = User::find(1);
$user->newSubscription('main', 'monthly')->create($stripeToken);
Handling Stripe Webhooks
Both Stripe and Braintree can notify your application of a variety of events via webhooks. To handle Stripe webhooks, define a route that points to Cashier's webhook controller. This controller will handle all incoming webhook requests and dispatch them to the proper controller method:
Route::post(
'stripe/webhook',
'\Laravel\Cashier\Http\Controllers\WebhookController@handleWebhook'
);
Note:
Once you have registered your route, be sure to configure the webhook URL in your Stripe control panel settings.
By default, this controller will automatically handle cancelling subscriptions that have too many failed charges (as defined by your Stripe settings); however, as we'll soon discover, you can extend this controller to handle any webhook event you like.
Webhooks & CSRF Protection
Since Stripe webhooks need to bypass Laravel's CSRF protection, be sure to
list the URI as an exception in your
VerifyCsrfToken
middleware or list the
route outside of the web
middleware
group:
protected $except = [
'stripe/*',
];
Defining Webhook Event Handlers
Cashier automatically handles subscription cancellation
on failed charges, but if you have additional Stripe
webhook events you would like to handle, extend the
Webhook controller. Your method names should correspond
to Cashier's expected convention, specifically, methods
should be prefixed with handle
and the
"camel case" name of the Stripe webhook you
wish to handle. For example, if you wish to handle the
invoice.payment_succeeded
webhook, you
should add a handleInvoicePaymentSucceeded
method to the controller:
<?php
namespace App\Http\Controllers;
use Laravel\Cashier\Http\Controllers\WebhookController as CashierController;
class WebhookController extends CashierController
{
/**
* Handle a Stripe webhook.
*
* @param array $payload
* @return Response
*/
public function handleInvoicePaymentSucceeded($payload)
{
// Handle The Event
}
}
Failed Subscriptions
What if a customer's credit card expires? No worries - Cashier includes a Webhook controller that can easily cancel the customer's subscription for you. As noted above, all you need to do is point a route to the controller:
Route::post(
'stripe/webhook',
'\Laravel\Cashier\Http\Controllers\WebhookController@handleWebhook'
);
That's it! Failed payments will be captured and handled by the controller. The controller will cancel the customer's subscription when Stripe determines the subscription has failed (normally after three failed payment attempts).
Handling Braintree Webhooks
Both Stripe and Braintree can notify your application of a variety of events via webhooks. To handle Braintree webhooks, define a route that points to Cashier's webhook controller. This controller will handle all incoming webhook requests and dispatch them to the proper controller method:
Route::post(
'braintree/webhook',
'\Laravel\Cashier\Http\Controllers\WebhookController@handleWebhook'
);
Note:
Once you have registered your route, be sure to configure the webhook URL in your Braintree control panel settings.
By default, this controller will automatically handle cancelling subscriptions that have too many failed charges (as defined by your Braintree settings); however, as we'll soon discover, you can extend this controller to handle any webhook event you like.
Webhooks & CSRF Protection
Since Braintree webhooks need to bypass Laravel's CSRF protection, be sure to
list the URI as an exception in your
VerifyCsrfToken
middleware or list the
route outside of the web
middleware
group:
protected $except = [
'braintree/*',
];
Defining Webhook Event Handlers
Cashier automatically handles subscription cancellation
on failed charges, but if you have additional Braintree
webhook events you would like to handle, extend the
Webhook controller. Your method names should correspond
to Cashier's expected convention, specifically, methods
should be prefixed with handle
and the
"camel case" name of the Braintree webhook you
wish to handle. For example, if you wish to handle the
dispute_opened
webhook, you should add a
handleDisputeOpened
method to the
controller:
<?php
namespace App\Http\Controllers;
use Braintree\WebhookNotification;
use Laravel\Cashier\Http\Controllers\WebhookController as CashierController;
class WebhookController extends CashierController
{
/**
* Handle a Braintree webhook.
*
* @param WebhookNotification $webhook
* @return Response
*/
public function handleDisputeOpened(WebhookNotification $notification)
{
// Handle The Event
}
}
Failed Subscriptions
What if a customer's credit card expires? No worries - Cashier includes a Webhook controller that can easily cancel the customer's subscription for you. Just point a route to the controller:
Route::post(
'braintree/webhook',
'\Laravel\Cashier\Http\Controllers\WebhookController@handleWebhook'
);
That's it! Failed payments will be captured and handled by the controller. The controller will cancel the customer's subscription when Braintree determines the subscription has failed (normally after three failed payment attempts). Don't forget: you will need to configure the webhook URI in your Braintree control panel settings.
Single Charges
Simple Charge
Note:
When using Stripe, thecharge
method accepts the amount you would like to charge in the lowest denominator of the currency used by your application. However, when using Braintree, you should pass the full dollar amount to thecharge
method:
If you would like to make a "one off" charge
against a subscribed customer's credit card, you may use
the charge
method on a billable model
instance.
// Stripe Accepts Charges In Cents...
$user->charge(100);
// Braintree Accepts Charges In Dollars...
$user->charge(1);
The charge
method accepts an array as its
second argument, allowing you to pass any options you
wish to the underlying Stripe / Braintree charge
creation. Consult the Stripe or Braintree documentation
regarding the options available to you when creating
charges:
$user->charge(100, [
'custom_option' => $value,
]);
The charge
method will throw an exception if
the charge fails. If the charge is successful, the full
Stripe / Braintree response will be returned from the
method:
try {
$response = $user->charge(100);
} catch (Exception $e) {
//
}
Charge With Invoice
Sometimes you may need to make a one-time charge but also
generate an invoice for the charge so that you may offer
a PDF receipt to your customer. The
invoiceFor
method lets you do just that.
For example, let's invoice the customer $5.00 for a
"One Time Fee":
// Stripe Accepts Charges In Cents...
$user->invoiceFor('One Time Fee', 500);
// Braintree Accepts Charges In Dollars...
$user->invoiceFor('One Time Fee', 5);
The invoice will be charged immediately against the
user's credit card. The invoiceFor
method
also accepts an array as its third argument, allowing
you to pass any options you wish to the underlying
Stripe / Braintree charge creation:
$user->invoiceFor('One Time Fee', 500, [
'custom-option' => $value,
]);
Note:
TheinvoiceFor
method will create a Stripe invoice which will retry failed billing attempts. If you do not want invoices to retry failed charges, you will need to close them using the Stripe API after the first failed charge.
Invoices
You may easily retrieve an array of a billable model's
invoices using the invoices
method:
$invoices = $user->invoices();
// Include pending invoices in the results...
$invoices = $user->invoicesIncludingPending();
When listing the invoices for the customer, you may use the invoice's helper methods to display the relevant invoice information. For example, you may wish to list every invoice in a table, allowing the user to easily download any of them:
<table>
@foreach ($invoices as $invoice)
<tr>
<td>{{ $invoice->date()->toFormattedDateString() }}</td>
<td>{{ $invoice->total() }}</td>
<td><a href="/user/invoice/{{ $invoice->id }}">Download</a></td>
</tr>
@endforeach
</table>
Generating Invoice PDFs
From within a route or controller, use the
downloadInvoice
method to generate a PDF
download of the invoice. This method will automatically
generate the proper HTTP response to send the download
to the browser:
use Illuminate\Http\Request;
Route::get('user/invoice/{invoice}', function (Request $request, $invoiceId) {
return $request->user()->downloadInvoice($invoiceId, [
'vendor' => 'Your Company',
'product' => 'Your Product',
]);
});