Is Stripe Down? Developer's Guide to Handling Payment Outages (2026)

TLDR: Check if Stripe is down at apistatuscheck.com/api/stripe. Learn how to detect Stripe payment outages, implement webhook retry logic, and queue failed transactions so you never lose a sale during downtime.

TLDR: When Stripe goes down, check status.stripe.com and apistatuscheck.com/api/stripe immediately. Protect revenue with webhook retry logic, idempotency keys, queue-based payment processing, and multi-processor fallbacks (PayPal, Square) so failed payments can be recovered automatically when Stripe recovers.

A customer just tried to pay you and got an error. Then another. Then your support inbox starts filling up. Stripe might be down — and unlike most API outages, this one is costing you money every second.

Payment outages are uniquely painful because the impact is immediate and measurable: every failed charge is lost revenue, and every frustrated customer at checkout might never come back. Here's how to detect Stripe issues fast, handle them gracefully, and build payment flows that survive outages.

Is Stripe Actually Down Right Now?

Before you start debugging your integration, confirm it's a Stripe-side issue:

1. API Status Check — Stripe — Independent monitoring with response time history
2. Is Stripe Down? — Quick status check with 24h timeline
3. Stripe Official Status — From Stripe directly
4. Downdetector — Stripe — Community-reported outages

Understanding Stripe's Architecture

Stripe isn't a single service. Different components can fail independently:

Component	What Fails	Business Impact
Payments API	Charges, PaymentIntents fail	Direct revenue loss
Checkout	Hosted checkout pages error	Customers can't pay
Billing	Subscription renewals fail	Churn risk, MRR impact
Connect	Marketplace payouts fail	Seller/vendor complaints
Webhooks	Events not delivered	Fulfillment breaks
Dashboard	Can't view transactions	Operations blind
Identity/Radar	Verification/fraud checks fail	Increased fraud risk

Critical distinction: Stripe's webhook delivery has its own reliability. Your payment might succeed but the webhook never arrives — so your app thinks it failed. This is the most common "Stripe is down" that isn't actually Stripe being down.

Common Stripe Error Codes During Outages

Error	Meaning	Action
429	Rate limited	Retry with backoff
500	Internal error	Retry, transient issue
502 / 503	Service unavailable	Full or partial outage
api_connection_error	Can't reach Stripe	Network issue or outage
idempotency_key_in_use	Duplicate request processing	Previous request still in-flight
lock_timeout	Resource contention	Retry after delay

Monitoring Stripe Proactively

Payment Health Dashboard

Track these metrics to catch issues before users report them:

// Instrument your payment flow
const metrics = {
  async trackPayment(result: 'success' | 'failure' | 'timeout', durationMs: number) {
    // Send to your metrics provider (Datadog, Grafana, etc.)
    await reportMetric('stripe.payment.result', 1, { result })
    await reportMetric('stripe.payment.duration_ms', durationMs)
  }
}

// Alert rules:
// - stripe.payment.failure_rate > 5% for 2 minutes → page on-call
// - stripe.payment.duration_ms p99 > 5000 → warning
// - stripe.payment.success count drops to 0 for 5 min → critical

Status Page Monitoring

Set up automated alerts:

1. API Status Check — Discord/Slack notifications when Stripe status changes
2. status.stripe.com — Subscribe to email/RSS updates
3. Your own health check — Verify the API responds by pinging /v1/charges with a minimal request

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The "Stripe Is Down" Checklist

When you suspect a Stripe outage, work through this in order:

1. Check apistatuscheck.com/api/stripe — Is it actually down?
2. Check your error logs — Is it 5xx (Stripe's problem) or 4xx (your problem)?
3. Test with a minimal API call:

   curl https://api.stripe.com/v1/charges \
     -u sk_live_YOUR_KEY: \
     -d amount=100 -d currency=usd \
     -d source=tok_visa
   

4. Check your webhook endpoint — Is YOUR server accepting webhooks? Stripe marks endpoints as disabled after repeated failures.
5. Check Stripe Dashboard — Can you access dashboard.stripe.com?
6. If confirmed outage:
   • Switch to degraded mode (show "processing" instead of instant confirmation)
   • Hold orders in queue
   • Post status to your own status page
   • Do NOT disable your checkout — queued payments will process when Stripe recovers

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What NOT to Do During a Stripe Outage

• ❌ Don't switch payment processors mid-outage. You'll create reconciliation nightmares.
• ❌ Don't retry without idempotency keys. You'll double-charge customers.
• ❌ Don't hide the checkout page. Queue orders and process them when Stripe recovers.
• ❌ Don't ignore webhook backlogs. After recovery, Stripe sends a flood of delayed events. Make sure your webhook handler can process them.
• ❌ Don't panic-refund. Wait for the dust to settle and reconcile before issuing refunds.

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Get Notified Before Your Customers Do

Every minute of a Stripe outage costs money. Set up monitoring now, not during the next incident:

1. Bookmark apistatuscheck.com/api/stripe for real-time status
2. Set up instant alerts via API Status Check integrations — Discord, Slack, webhooks
3. Subscribe to status.stripe.com for official updates
4. Instrument your payment flow — your own metrics are the fastest signal

The best payment architecture isn't one that never fails — it's one that fails gracefully and recovers automatically. Build the queue, add the idempotency keys, and stop losing revenue to outages.

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API Status Check monitors Stripe and 100+ other APIs in real-time. Set up free alerts at apistatuscheck.com.