How to verify proper setup with Stripe

This article outlines techniques you can use to verify that Churn Buster and Stripe are interacting properly.

This level of verification is not normally needed, but it can be a way for you to gain assurance that everything is working the way it should.

How to test capture forms

Here is a method for testing how capture forms work:

  • Go to your Stripe customers page (in live mode) and create a new sample customer. (Make sure to include an email.)
  • Copy the customer id and search for it in Churn Buster (on either the Dashboard or Customers page). Click into the customer in the search results.
  • Click the card update page URL and add a card on the capture page.
  • Now go back to Stripe to verify the new card has been added to the customer.

How to test campaign creation

Once connected to Stripe, Churn Buster starts a campaign for any customer who fails a recurring payment.

If you have a customer who has recently failed a payment but doesn't have an active campaign, go into Stripe and manually retry their payment. If the payment fails again, a campaign will start in Churn Buster.

How to test campaign ending

If you have cancellations enabled (a Churn Buster account setting that we configure for you), a customer subscription will be cancelled in Stripe when a customer reaches the end of a campaign without a successful recovery.

  • If this setting is not enabled, the customer subscription remains in the same state after a campaign as it was during the campaign.

You can set up notifications (or other campaign actions) when campaigns end in the Slack integration or the webhooks integration.

  • The "campaign lost" and "campaign recovered" events fit well for this scenario.

If you have automation tied to the “customer.subscription.deleted” webhook in Stripe, this continues to work. The automation takes place later after the original failed payment, according to the length of your campaigns.

How to identify Stripe events initiated by Churn Buster

When investigating a potential issue with a customer's subscription, billing, or general experience with your company, the event log is usually a good place to start.

Find the successful payment event in Stripe, click it, and see if the Source says API.

Click "API," and you will see this if it is a Churn Buster initiated event:

Event source:

  • Churn Buster = Churn Buster initiated
  • Dashboard = Stripe dashboard initiated
  • Other = Initiated in-app or elsewhere