receive Stripe webhooks in Node

To receive Stripe webhooks in Node, you need to:

1. Create a webhook endpoint
2. Read the raw request body
3. Verify the Stripe signature
4. Handle the event

Example with Express

1) Install Stripe

npm install stripe express

2) Set up the webhook route

Important: Stripe requires the raw body, not express.json() for this route.

const express = require('express');
const Stripe = require('stripe');

const app = express();
const stripe = Stripe(process.env.STRIPE_SECRET_KEY);

app.post(
  '/webhook',
  express.raw({ type: 'application/json' }),
  (req, res) => {
    const sig = req.headers['stripe-signature'];
    const endpointSecret = process.env.STRIPE_WEBHOOK_SECRET;

    let event;

    try {
      event = stripe.webhooks.constructEvent(req.body, sig, endpointSecret);
    } catch (err) {
      console.error('Webhook signature verification failed:', err.message);
      return res.status(400).send(`Webhook Error: ${err.message}`);
    }

    switch (event.type) {
      case 'payment_intent.succeeded':
        console.log('Payment succeeded:', event.data.object);
        break;

      case 'checkout.session.completed':
        console.log('Checkout completed:', event.data.object);
        break;

      default:
        console.log(`Unhandled event type ${event.type}`);
    }

    res.json({ received: true });
  }
);

app.listen(3000, () => console.log('Server running on port 3000'));

3) Add the webhook secret

From Stripe Dashboard:

• Developers → Webhooks → your endpoint
• Copy the Signing secret
• Put it in STRIPE_WEBHOOK_SECRET

4) If you already use express.json()

Make sure the webhook route is defined before express.json() or exclude that route:

app.post('/webhook', express.raw({ type: 'application/json' }), handler);

app.use(express.json());

5) Test locally with Stripe CLI

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

Then trigger a test event:

stripe trigger payment_intent.succeeded

Common gotchas

• Don’t parse the body before verification
• Use the correct webhook signing secret
• Ensure the request uses the exact raw body Stripe sent

If you want, I can also give you:

• an Express + TypeScript version
• a Next.js webhook example
• a Fastify version