Taking Payments

How payments work on a Looops site today. Your own Stripe or PayPal account, wired into your site by the AI, with payment links as the simplest route.

Looops does not process payments itself and does not take a cut of your sales. Your site connects to a payment provider you own, most often Stripe or PayPal, and the money goes straight to your account.

The simplest route: payment links

Create a payment link in your Stripe or PayPal dashboard, then:

"Add a 'Buy now' button under the premium package that opens this payment link: [link]"

Works on every plan, needs no backend, and is the right choice for a handful of products, deposits, donations or a single subscription.

Checkout wired into your site (paid plans)

On Personal and Pro with the database switched on, the agent can build a store or a checkout flow against your own Stripe account: a product catalogue in your CMS, a cart or a buy button per product, Stripe Checkout for the payment, and an order recorded in your database when Stripe confirms it.

"Sell the three prints from the gallery with Stripe Checkout. Record each order in the database and email me when one comes in."

The agent asks for your Stripe keys through a card in the chat (see how connections work); it never puts a secret key in the code and you never paste one in the chat. Stripe's fees apply as on any Stripe account; Looops adds nothing.

Find your Stripe keys

You will be asked for two values, and a third one after you publish.

Secret key and publishable key

  1. Log in at dashboard.stripe.com and open the API keys page (search "API keys" in the top bar, or go to dashboard.stripe.com/apikeys).
  2. Start in a sandbox: the toggle at the top of the page switches between sandbox (test) and live. Sandbox keys start with pk_test_ and sk_test_; nothing real is charged with them.
  3. Under Standard keys, copy the Publishable key and paste it into the Stripe publishable key field in Looops.
  4. Copy the Secret key (click it to reveal, then copy) and paste it into the Stripe secret key field. Click Save.

The agent checks the key against Stripe and tells you what it found, for example "key valid, sandbox mode". Then it builds the checkout and you can try it with Stripe's test card, 4242 4242 4242 4242, any future date, any three digits.

Webhook signing secret, after you publish

Stripe tells your site that a payment went through by calling an address on your published site. That call is signed, and your site needs the signing secret to check it.

  1. Publish your site, then open Webhooks in your Stripe dashboard (dashboard.stripe.com/webhooks) and click Create an event destination.
  2. Choose Your account, keep the default API version, and select the events the agent named (for a checkout, checkout.session.completed). Click Continue.
  3. Choose Webhook endpoint as the destination, click Continue, and paste the address the agent gave you (it looks like https://your-site.com/api/stripe/webhook/).
  4. On the endpoint's page, click Reveal under Signing secret, copy the value starting with whsec_, and paste it into the Stripe webhook secret field in Looops.

Going live

When you are ready to take real money, switch the toggle on the API keys page to live, copy the pk_live_ and sk_live_ keys, and update both values under Website settings, Environment variables. Create the webhook endpoint again in live mode (sandbox and live have separate ones) and update the signing secret too. Then make one small real purchase and refund it from Stripe.

Subscriptions and memberships

Recurring billing is a Stripe feature. The agent can connect a membership area (member logins are part of the backend features) to a Stripe subscription, so paying members get access. Describe the flow and the agent builds it against your account.

Good to know

  • Test first with sandbox keys, go live only after a real test purchase. Sandbox and live keys never mix: a site published with sandbox keys shows a checkout that takes no real money.
  • Keys are private. If one leaks, expire it on the API keys page in Stripe, create a new one, and update it under Website settings, Environment variables.
  • Refunds, disputes and payouts happen in your Stripe or PayPal dashboard, not in Looops.
  • Looops has no built-in shopping cart product of its own; everything above is built for your site by the agent, from your description.

Next steps