Stripe is an industry leader for simplicity and security in payment gateways. You can use Stripe to accept payments for products that you’re selling on Spaces.
Step 1: Activate your Stripe account
To use Stripe as your payment gateway, you’ll first need an active Stripe account.
Before you activate your Stripe account, make sure you have the following information:
- Bank account details (transit number, institution number, and account number), which can be found on the bottom of a check
- Either your Social Insurance Number, or Business Number (Tax ID) if you’re a corporation.
When you have the required banking and identification information ready, you can activate your Stripe account.
To activate your Stripe account:
- Go to https://stripe.com/global#signup-form.
- Choose the country where you’re doing business (where you hold your bank account), and then enter a username and password.
- After you’ve signed up for Stripe, log in to your account, and then use the toggle in the top-left of the screen to change your account from TEST to LIVE. This activates your account so that it can accept payments:
- In the Account Not Activated dialog, click Activate Account:
- In the form that appears, enter your banking and identification information (the form will ask for slightly different information depending on what country you are in). After you’ve filled out the form, you’ll be able to turn your account from test to live.
- Now that you have an active Stripe account, you need to connect it with your Spaces account using a set of unique identifiers called API Keys. From your Stripe account, click Your Account, and then select Account Settings from the drop-down menu.
- In the Account Settings section, select API Keys:
- Copy the Live Secret Key and the Live Publishable Key so that you can paste them in your Spaces account. Live keys will start with pk_live_ or sk_live.
Step 2: Connect your Stripe account in Spaces
After you’ve activated your Stripe account, you need to connect it with your Spaces account:
- In new browser tab, open gospaces.com/settings/gateways. This displays your payment gateway settings.
- From here, select Stripe from the dropdown menu, and then click Add New Gateway.
- In the dialog that appears, paste the Live Secret Key and Live Publishable Key from your Stripe account into the matching fields (see step 1, above).
- When you’re done, click Add.
After you add the payment gateway in your Spaces account, you can accept payments online using Stripe.
Troubleshooting:
The most common error merchants see with their Stripe account is the following:
X currency is not available in X country.
There are a few different reasons why this error appears.
Currency settings
If your store’s currency isn’t a common business currency in your country, then you might need to change your Space’s currency to match the currency you’re using in your Stripe account.
API keys
If your API keys aren’t being recognized by Stripe, then you need to re-enter them in your Spaces account. Make sure that:
- The API key isn’t in the wrong field (for example, the key starting with PK_Live should be in the Secret Key field).
- There aren’t any extra characters or spaces either at the beginning or end of your API key.
- There isn’t an invalid key in any of the API key fields (all API keys provided by Stripe follow the format pk_live or sk_live).
- You haven’t entered a test API key (your API key should have the word liveat the beginning).