Stripe integration for OTT platform

The admin holds your Stripe publishable key and secret key, plus a test or live mode switch. Keys are stored on the platform side and used only from the server; the viewer's browser never sees the secret key. You can run test mode against Stripe test cards while the rest of the site is live, then switch keys when you are ready to take real money.

When a viewer picks a subscription plan and confirms, the platform creates or reuses a Stripe Customer for that viewer, then creates a Checkout Session in subscription mode with the plan's price and interval. Stripe hosts the card form. After payment, Stripe holds the Subscription object and charges renewals on the plan interval you configured. The viewer's card details never touch the Flicknexs database.

For pay-per-view, the Checkout Session is created in payment mode with the per-title price, and the per-quality prices you set on the title decide the amount. Once the session is paid, the platform records a purchase against that viewer and that title and applies the rental window you set, such as a start date, an expiry and a view count, on the video paywall.

A subscriber on a lower plan who chooses a higher one is not given a second subscription. Flicknexs creates a Stripe subscription schedule that ends the current phase and starts the new plan's phase at the boundary, so the subscriber is billed once per period at the new price. The admin shows the active plan, and Stripe shows the schedule and its phases.

Each plan and each pay-per-view price in the admin carries a currency. That currency is passed to Stripe on the Checkout Session, so you can run a euro plan and a dollar plan on the same service. Which currencies your Stripe account can present and settle is defined by Stripe for your account country, and the platform does not override it.

Stripe redirects the viewer back to your site with a session identifier. The platform does not trust that redirect. It calls Stripe with the identifier, retrieves the Checkout Session, checks that payment status is paid, and only then writes the subscription or purchase and grants access. A viewer who edits the return URL gets nothing, because the server re-check fails.

Verification happens when the viewer returns from Checkout, by re-fetching the session on the server. The platform does not consume Stripe's background event notifications. In practice that means a failed renewal, a refund or a cancellation made inside the Stripe dashboard is not pushed to the platform automatically; the operator reads those in Stripe and adjusts the subscriber's status in the admin.

Because the record is written on return, a viewer who pays in Stripe and then closes the browser before the redirect completes may have a paid session that the platform never recorded. Stripe still has the money and the session. The operator can see it in the Stripe dashboard and grant access from the subscriber's record in the admin.

Promotion codes and the global coupon setting work at Stripe checkout only. They are not applied on other gateways and not inside the apps that bill through the app stores, because those stores run their own pricing. If you sell the same plan through Stripe on the web and through a store on mobile, a code will discount only the web purchase.

The admin does not offer a free-trial-days field on a subscription plan, so a Stripe subscription created by Flicknexs starts billing on day one. If you want viewers to sample content before paying, use the free-preview minutes per title or per episode on the video paywall, which needs no card and no Stripe object at all.

Which card brands, wallets and currencies appear on the Checkout page, what Stripe charges per transaction, and whether your account can accept a given currency are all decided by Stripe for your account and are documented on Stripe's own site. Flicknexs passes the price and currency you set; it does not change what Stripe accepts.