Configuring email notifications

Introduction

WP Full Stripe and Stripe can send email notifications when certain events occur.

There are notifications that the plugin and Stripe can send as well, but there are notifications that only one system can send.

In this article you’ll learn what kind of email notifications are supported, and how you can customize notifications to suit your needs.

Follow these steps to set up email notifications:

1. Choose the notifications you’d like to send
2. Configure plugin notification settings
3. Configure Stripe notification settings
4. Turn on the notifications you’d like to send
5. Test your configuration
6. Troubleshoot issues

1. Choose the notifications you’d like to send

This table shows all email notification types supported by the plugin and Stripe. Click on the name of the notification to learn more:

Notification	Plugin	Stripe
One-time payment receipt	✅	✅
Subscription receipt	✅	✅
Subscription ended	✅	𐄂
Donation receipt	✅	✅
Card saved	✅	𐄂
Member registered	✅	𐄂
Trial is about to end	𐄂	✅
Upcoming renewal	𐄂	✅
Expiring card	𐄂	✅
Failed payment	𐄂	✅

One-time payment payment receipt

Sent after a successful one-time payment.

Supported by the plugin and Stripe as well:

• The plugin has a dedicated template for this notification.
• Stripe can send a generic payment receipt.

Subscription receipt

Sent after successfully subscribing to a subscription plan. Even if the plan has a trial, this notification is sent right after subscribing to the plan.

Supported by the plugin and Stripe as well:

• The plugin has a dedicated template for this notification.
• Stripe can send a generic payment receipt.

Subscription ended

Sent after a payment-in-installment plan is canceled automatically by the plugin.

This notification is NOT sent when a customer, or an administrator cancels a subscription.

Supported only by the plugin.

Donation receipt

Sent after a successful donation.

Supported by the plugin and Stripe as well:

• The plugin has a dedicated template for this notification.
• Stripe can send a generic payment receipt.

Card saved

Sent after successfully creating/modifying a Stripe customer, and attaching the provided card to the customer.

Supported only by the plugin.

Member registered

Sent after a new member and its Wordpress user are successfully created by the WP Full Stripe Members add-on.

Supported only by the plugin.

Trial is about to end

Sent 7 days before a subscription trial ends.

Supported only by Stripe.

Upcoming renewal

Sent 7 days before an upcoming recurring payment.

Supported only by Stripe.

Expiring card

Sent 1 month before a customer’s card on file expires.

Supported only by Stripe.

Failed payment

Sent each time a payment attempt fails, including retries.

Supported only by Stripe.

2. Configure plugin notification settings

Set the sender’s address

You can set the sender address of plugin notifications on the “Full Stripe / Settings / Email notifications / Options” page in WP admin.

You can select the website’s admin as sender, or you can enter an arbitrary email address:

Add BCC recipients

You can add email addresses which will get a copy of all email notifications as BCC on the “Full Stripe / Settings / Email notifications / Options” page in WP admin.

You can select the website’s admin and/or you can enter any number of email addresses:

Customize email templates

You can customize the email templates sent by the plugin on the “Full Stripe / Settings / Email notifications / Templates” page in WP admin.

For each template, you can set the subject and HTML body, and you can use placeholder tokens to insert the payment-related information into the template:

3. Configure Stripe notification settings

Set the sender’s address

You can set the sender address of Stripe notifications on the Settings / Account details page on the Stripe dashboard.

The email address of the “Support email” field will be used as the sender:

Changing branding

You can change the look and feel of Stripe email notifications on the Settings / Branding page on the Stripe dashboard.

You can change the icon, logo, brand color, and accent color used for email notifications, customer portal, payment links, and hosted invoices:

Customize email templates

Stripe email templates have a fixed layout and content. There are some templates which can be customized by adding custom URLs.

Stripe template for upcoming subscription renewals

This email is sent 7 days before the customer’s subscription renews. You can insert a link into the template pointing to the Customer portal page where customers can update their card.

As a first step, click on the “Preview” icon next to the “Send email about upcoming renewals” toggle on the Settings / Subscriptions and Emails page on the Stripe dashboard:

In the “Upcoming renewal email” dialog, scroll down, and enter the URL of the Customer portal page:

Stripe template for expiring cards

This email is sent one month before the customer’s card on file expires. You can insert a link into the template pointing to the Customer portal page where customers can update their card.

As a first step, click on the “Preview” icon next to the “Send email about expiring cards” toggle on the Settings / Subscriptions and Emails page on the Stripe dashboard:

In the “Expiring card email” dialog, scroll down, and enter the URL of the Customer portal page:

Stripe template for failed payments

This email is sent each time a payment attempt fails, including retries. You can insert a link into the template pointing to the Customer portal page where customers can update their card.

As a first step, click on the “Preview” icon next to the “Send emails when card payments fail” toggle on the Settings / Subscriptions and Emails page on the Stripe dashboard:

In the “Failed payment email” dialog, scroll down, and enter the URL of the Customer portal page:

4. Turn on the notifications you’d like to send

The following table explains where you can turn every type of email notification:

Notification	Plugin	Stripe
One-time payment receipt	“Email notifications” tab of form	“Email notifications” tab of form
Subscription payment receipt	“Email notifications” tab of form	“Email notifications” tab of form
Subscription ended	“Email notifications” tab of form	n.a.
Donation receipt	“Email notifications” tab of form	“Email notifications” tab of form
Card saved	“Email notifications” tab of form	n.a.
Member registered	Always on when WP Full Stripe Members is activated	n.a.
Trial is about to end	n.a.	Settings / Subscriptions and emails page on the Stripe dashboard
Upcoming renewal	n.a.	Settings / Subscriptions and emails page on the Stripe dashboard
Expiring card	n.a.	Settings / Subscriptions and emails page on the Stripe dashboard
Failed payment	n.a.	Settings / Subscriptions and emails page on the Stripe dashboard

Enabling notifications on the “Email notifications” tab of a form

Transactional emails like payment-, donation-, and subscription receipts can be enabled on the “Email notifications tab” of forms:

5. Test your configuration

Testing plugin email notifications

On the “Full Stripe / Settings / Email notifications / Templates” page, select a template, and click on the “Send a test” link:

In the modal dialog, enter the email address(es) to which the test email should be sent, and press “Send test”:

The plugin will resolve all placeholders with sensible test data, and send the test email to the specified email address(es).

Alternatively, you can test plugin email notifications by switching the plugin to test API mode, and make test payments.

Testing Stripe email notifications

Stripe doesn’t send emails in test mode, so there is no easy way to test Stripe email notifications other than making payments in live mode.

6. Troubleshoot issues

Plugin emails are not delivered

WP Full Stripe uses the wp_mail() facility of Wordpress to send emails. On many Wordpress installations, sending emails is not configured properly.

If you experience any issues with sending emails, we’d recommend using an SMTP sender plugin, like the excellent WP Mail SMTP:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-mail-smtp/