Take payments on your site

Your site can take payments: a Buy button, a cart, a subscription, a customer portal where people manage their plan. It sells through your own Stripe account, so the money is yours, the fees are Stripe’s, and the customer list is yours. Anela keeps a connection to your account so the site can create checkouts and receive payment events. Card numbers go to Stripe’s hosted checkout page and never through Anela.

Connect Stripe

Open a project, press Files, go to the Integrations tab, choose Stripe, and press Use an API key. Paste a key from your Stripe account. We recommend making a restricted key, which starts with rk_live_ and can only do what you allow (the steps are below). Your account’s Secret key, which starts with sk_live_, works too. A one-click Connect Stripe button is not available yet, so a key is the way in for now.

To make the key in Stripe, open the API keys page, under Developers. Stripe shows that page in one of two versions, and the steps depend on the button you see.

If you see + Create secret key at the top right, click it, choose Building your own integration and click Continue. Stripe then asks you to assign permissions to your key:

• “Full access, except sensitive operations” is what we recommend if you plan to do everything through Anela AI. The key can do everything except move money out of your account: payouts, issuing cards, fund transfers and creating Connect accounts. Everything Anela does with it (checkout, customers, subscriptions, the customer portal, payment links and payment events) works.
• If you don’t see that choice, or you want Anela AI to have limited access, pick Custom permissions. Don’t pick plain Full access: Stripe marks it High risk because it can also move money out. With Custom permissions every permission starts at None; set exactly these ten, leaving every other row at None: Checkout Sessions, Customers, Products, Prices, Customer Portal, Payment Links and Webhook Endpoints to Write; Accounts, Subscriptions and Invoices to Read. If you also see a Connect Permissions column, leave all of it at None. Accounts lets Anela see which account the key belongs to; without it the key cannot be saved. Invoices lets your site match a subscription renewal and its refunds. Webhook Endpoints lets Anela register payment events for you; without it the panel shows a short manual step instead.

Then name the key, click Create key, and click Copy and close. Stripe shows the new key only once. That key starts with rk_.

If you see + Create restricted key in a Restricted keys section, click it, choose Powering an integration you built and click Continue. Tick the One-time payments and Recurring subscriptions and billing templates and click Continue. Name the key, type Webhook in Filter resources and make sure Webhook Endpoints says Write, then type Accounts and make sure it says Read. Click Create key, type the code Stripe sends you if it asks, and copy the key.

The panel’s How do I get one? link walks you through all of it, step by step, including creating a Stripe account. If you already have a Stripe account, it makes a live key, which takes real payments at once. A brand-new account takes real payments once you give Stripe your business details and bank, which Stripe calls activating payments.

Real payments and test mode

A live key (rk_live_ or sk_live_) takes real payments: your published site charges real cards from the first purchase, and the money goes to your Stripe account. You don’t need to go through test mode first. The panel shows whether Stripe has everything it needs from your business to take real charges, with a link to finish that in Stripe if not.

Test mode is there if you want it. A test key (rk_test_ or sk_test_) makes a test-mode connection: the site works end to end, but Stripe charges no real card. You can buy something right in the preview, before you publish, with Stripe’s test card 4242 4242 4242 4242, any future expiry date, any three digits. Stripe’s checkout opens in its own tab and brings you back to your preview. When you’re ready for real money, the panel’s Enable real payments takes a live key from the same account.

Test mode and live mode are two separate connections. The panel names which one a site uses, for example Acme, Test. It never swaps one for the other on its own.

One account, every site

A connected account is saved on your Anela account, not on one project. The next site you build offers it with a Use button instead of asking you to connect again. Each site uses one account, and the panel names it. You can keep several, for example a shop of your own and a client’s shop, and point different sites at different accounts.

Test checkout

In test mode, Test checkout on the panel opens a real test-mode checkout page for this site in a new tab. Pay it with the test card and you have proved the connection works. It does not exercise your own shop pages or what your site does after a payment, so also buy something in your preview. A live connection has no Test checkout.

Payment events

When someone pays, cancels a subscription, or gets a refund, Stripe tells Anela and Anela tells your site, so an order can be marked paid or access can be granted. Anela AI writes that part of your site for you when you ask for payments.

With most keys, nothing else is needed. If your key cannot register events, the panel says so and shows the address to add in Stripe, under Developers and Webhooks, with the list of events to enable. Paste the signing secret Stripe gives you into the panel and events start flowing. The panel lists recent events and lets you retry one that your site did not accept.

Subscriptions

A subscription is made in your Stripe account for your site, with the customer’s record kept there too. The site opens Stripe’s billing portal for each customer, where they change their card, see invoices or cancel. Cancelling stops the renewal at the end of the paid period. Stripe’s portal cannot pause a subscription.

Refunds

A site cannot send a refund by itself. To refund a payment, open it in your Stripe dashboard and choose Refund. Stripe then tells your site, so an order can show it was refunded. When your site has a cancel button, Anela AI can make it mark the refund as due on your owner page, so you know which ones to send.

After you publish

Payments start working on the published site after you publish again. The panel says so while a change is waiting, for example after switching to another account. Until then the published site keeps using the account it had.

Changing or turning it off

Change lets you switch to another saved account, or connect a new one. While a switch is waiting for a publish, the site keeps paying through the account it has.

Disconnecting turns payments off for that site. Checkouts that were still open are closed. Your Stripe account, its customers, its subscriptions and its history are not touched, and the same account stays available for your other sites. Removing an account from your Anela account, on the Integrations page, asks first when sites still use it.

Verified against the product on 2026-10-26.