At Giselle, which we develop, we have implemented subscription payments using Stripe. Recently, while working on Pricing plan subscriptions, we had the opportunity to investigate Stripe’s Customer Portal feature.

In conclusion, while Stripe’s Customer Portal is a convenient feature, it was not sufficient for our use case. Therefore, we reviewed the specifications of the Customer Portal for traditional Stripe Subscriptions using the demo site, and decided to implement the parts not covered by the Customer Portal feature ourselves using the Stripe API.

In this article, we share our research on the Customer Portal demo site officially provided by Stripe during that investigation process. We hope this will be helpful for those considering adopting the Customer Portal or comparing it with custom implementations.

What is Stripe Customer Portal?

Stripe Customer Portal is a secure page where customers can perform the following operations in a self-service manner:

• Change, update, or cancel subscription plans
• Add, remove, or change payment methods
• View billing history and download invoices
• Update customer information (email address, address, etc.)

These features can be enabled with just a few clicks from the Stripe dashboard, and developers can integrate them into their services with minimal code. This significantly reduces development effort while improving customer satisfaction and reducing support costs.

Key Features Available on the Stripe Demo Site

Seeing is believing. Let’s start by exploring the official demo site.

Stripe Customer Portal Demo

Let’s take a detailed look at the main features available on this demo site.

1. Subscription Management

This is the most central feature of the Customer Portal.

Update subscription

You can upgrade or downgrade from your current plan to a different plan. On the demo site, you can try changing from the $10/month “Typographic Starter” to the $20/month “Typographic Growth” or the $30/month “Typographic Enterprise”. You can also switch the billing cycle from “every month” to “every year”.

Cancel subscription

Customers can initiate the cancellation process at any time. You can also configure a cancellation reason survey form to be displayed, which provides an opportunity to gather valuable feedback for product improvement.

When cancellation is executed, it clearly states that the service remains available until the end of the billing period, at which point the subscription officially stops.

Additionally, if a customer changes their mind about canceling, they can see a “Don’t cancel subscription” option until the end of the billing period, making it easy to continue the subscription.

2. Payment Method Management

Customers can manage their registered credit card information themselves.

• Add new payment method: Securely add a new credit card.
• Change default payment method: If multiple cards are registered, change the primary card used for billing.
• Remove payment method: Delete card information that is no longer needed.

This eliminates the need to handle customer inquiries such as “I want to update my card because it has expired.”

3. Billing History

Past payment history is displayed in a list, and each invoice can be downloaded in PDF format. This is a very convenient feature for corporate customers and others who need receipts or invoices for expense reimbursement.

4. Customer Information Updates

Customers can update their profile information (email address, name, address, phone number, etc.) at any time. This makes it easy to maintain up-to-date customer information.

No-Code Customization

One of the excellent aspects of the Customer Portal is that you can customize the design and features from the Stripe dashboard without any code.

• Branding: Set your company logo and brand colors (background color, button color, etc.) to provide a design consistent with your service.
• Feature visibility: Control which operations are allowed on the portal, such as “customer information updates” or “plan changes”.
• Policy settings: Display links to refund policies and privacy policies in the footer.

The demo site can be considered an example customized using these settings. It’s a good idea to check in advance how much customization is possible to meet your company’s requirements.

Pricing plan subscriptions Support Status

While we’ve looked at the Customer Portal features so far, the features supporting Pricing plan subscriptions are still insufficient.

For example, the Cancel subscription and Don't cancel subscription features are not yet available for Pricing plan subscriptions.

Therefore, at Giselle, we implemented our own solution using the Stripe API, implementing the process to cancel the subscription at the end of the current billing period.

Summary

Stripe Customer Portal is a powerful tool that makes it easy to implement customer management for subscription businesses. By exploring the official demo site, you can get a concrete idea of its functionality and user experience.

• Pros: Can be implemented with minimal code, Stripe handles maintenance and updates, security is assured
• Cons: Limited UI customization, difficult to control detailed business logic, requires navigation to a different domain

For startups in their early phases or simple subscription models, the Customer Portal should be sufficient. On the other hand, if you prioritize user experience or need custom business logic, we recommend considering a custom implementation using the Stripe API.

Whichever you choose, it’s important to first experience the Customer Portal features on the official demo site and compare them against your company’s requirements.

That’s all from the Gemba, where we’re eager to make full use of Stripe.

References

• Customer Portal features | Stripe Docs
• Stripe Customer Portal Demo