Stripe is an industry leader for simplicity and security in payment gateways. You can use Stripe to accept payments for subscriptions, classified submissions, events & more.
Step 1: Activate your Stripe account
To use Stripe as your payment gateway, you’ll first need an active Stripe account.
Before you activate your Stripe account, make sure you have the following information:
- Bank account details (transit number, institution number, and account number), which can be found on the bottom of a check
- Either your Social Insurance Number, or Business Number (Tax ID) if you’re a corporation.
When you have the required banking and identification information ready, you can activate your Stripe account.
To activate your Stripe account:
- Go to https://stripe.com/global#signup-form.
- Choose the country where you’re doing business (where you hold your bank account), and then enter a username and password.
- After you’ve signed up for Stripe, log in to your account, and then use the toggle in the top-left of the screen to change your account from TEST to LIVE. This activates your account so that it can accept payments:
- In the Account Not Activated dialog, click Activate Account:
- In the form that appears, enter your banking and identification information (the form will ask for slightly different information depending on what country you are in). After you’ve filled out the form, you’ll be able to turn your account from test to live.
- Now that you have an active Stripe account, you need to get your set of unique identifiers called API Keys. From your Stripe account, click Your Account, and then select Account Settings from the drop-down menu.
- In the Account Settings section, select API Keys:
- Copy the Live Secret Key and the Live Publishable Key so that you can send them to us or insert them where they are needed on your Our Hometown site.
- Live keys will start with pk_live_ or sk_live.
