Stripe: Use Direct API or PHP/Laravel Package?

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When integrating 3rd-party APIs, you will be lucky if they have a specific PHP/Laravel package. In this lesson, I will show you an example of exactly that.

We will try to integrate Stripe payments with Laravel by building a water park ticket purchasing page.

We'll explore both approaches: using Laravel's HTTP Client directly with Stripe's API and using their official PHP package.

Let me be honest right away: an official package is almost always a better choice than manually using APIs. In this lesson, I will try to demonstrate why.

What You'll Learn

By the end of this lesson, you will understand how to:

• Compare HTTP Client approach vs official PHP packages
• Handle Bearer token authentication in API headers
• Manage dual API keys (public and private) for payment systems
• Implement proper exception handling for payment APIs

Structure of Stripe Payment Intent API

Stripe's Payment Intent API is the modern way to handle payments. Here's what a typical request looks like:

As a result, we should get an object containing the client_secret, which we need to put inside the form for further submission.

Again, we can call this API directly with...