API Monitoring Guide

Monitor Stripe API

Get alerted when Stripe has issues before your customers notice failed payments. Learn which endpoints to monitor and how to set up proactive alerting.

For any business that processes payments, a Stripe outage is a revenue emergency. This guide covers why you need external monitoring, which endpoints to track, and how to configure alerts.

Why Monitor Stripe Externally?

Stripe maintains their own status page at status.stripe.com. So why set up external monitoring?

The problem with vendor status pages

  • • Delayed updates: Status pages often lag 5-15 minutes behind actual issues while the team investigates
  • • Partial outages: Regional or feature-specific issues may not be reflected immediately
  • • Degraded performance: Slow API responses (latency) often aren't reported until severe
  • • No alerts: You have to actively check the page — you're not notified proactively

External monitoring catches issues in 1-2 minutes, not 10-15. That's the difference between proactively informing customers and scrambling to respond to complaints.

Which Stripe Endpoints to Monitor

You don't need to monitor every Stripe endpoint — focus on the ones critical to your business:

GET https://api.stripe.com/v1/charges

Core payments endpoint. If this is down, payments fail.

Critical
GET https://api.stripe.com/v1/payment_intents

Modern payments API. Used by Stripe Checkout and Elements.

Critical
GET https://api.stripe.com/v1/customers

Customer data. Critical if you store payment methods on file.

High
GET https://api.stripe.com/v1/subscriptions

Subscription billing. Essential for SaaS businesses.

High
GET https://api.stripe.com/v1/invoices

Invoice management. Monitor if you send Stripe invoices.

Medium

Security note: Always use your Stripe test mode API key (sk_test_...) for monitoring. Never expose your live key. Test mode keys can verify API availability without risking production data.

How to Set Up Stripe Monitoring

1

Get your test mode API key

In Stripe Dashboard, go to Developers → API Keys. Copy your test mode secret key (starts with sk_test_).

2

Create a monitor in UptimeSignal

Add a new HTTP monitor with these settings:

URL: https://api.stripe.com/v1/charges
Method: GET
Header: Authorization: Bearer sk_test_your_key_here
Expected status: 200
3

Configure alerting

Set up your preferred alert channels:

  • • Email — Immediate notification to your inbox
  • • Slack — Alert your team's ops channel
  • • Webhook — Trigger your incident management system
4

Add additional endpoints (optional)

Repeat for any other critical Stripe endpoints your application depends on.

What to Watch For

Configure your monitors to alert on these conditions:

HTTP Status

  • 200 — API healthy
  • 429 — Rate limited (reduce request frequency)
  • 500, 502, 503 — Stripe issue, alert immediately

Response Time

  • < 500ms — Normal
  • 500-2000ms — Degraded, monitor closely
  • > 2000ms — Severe latency, may indicate issues

Response body validation

Optionally check for valid JSON response containing "object": "list" to verify the API is returning real data, not an error page.

When Stripe Goes Down: Response Playbook

When your monitoring alerts you to a Stripe issue, here's how to respond:

1. Verify the outage

Check status.stripe.com and @stripestatus on Twitter. Your monitoring may catch issues before they're publicly acknowledged.

2. Communicate proactively

Update your status page and notify affected customers. "We're aware of a payment processing issue and are working on it" is better than silence.

3. Enable fallbacks (if available)

Some businesses maintain backup payment processors. If you have one, this is when to enable it.

4. Queue failed transactions

If possible, save payment intents and retry them once Stripe recovers, rather than losing the sale entirely.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why monitor Stripe instead of just using their status page?
Stripe's status page can lag 5-15 minutes behind actual issues while their team investigates. External monitoring catches problems in real-time, typically within 1-2 minutes. You'll know about outages before Stripe publicly acknowledges them, giving you time to alert customers or enable fallback payment methods.
Which Stripe endpoints should I monitor?
For most businesses: 1) api.stripe.com/v1/charges or /v1/payment_intents (core payments), 2) api.stripe.com/v1/customers (if you store customer data), 3) api.stripe.com/v1/subscriptions (for SaaS billing). Use your test mode API key for authentication.
Can I monitor Stripe API for free?
Yes. UptimeSignal's free tier includes 25 monitors with 5-minute check intervals. You can monitor multiple Stripe endpoints plus your own API and website. Commercial use is allowed on the free tier.
How do I authenticate when monitoring Stripe API?
Add your Stripe test mode API key as a Bearer token in the Authorization header. In UptimeSignal, add a custom header: Authorization: Bearer sk_test_.... Never use your live API key for monitoring.
What response indicates a healthy Stripe API?
A healthy Stripe API returns HTTP 200 with a JSON response in under 2 seconds. For GET requests to /v1/charges, you'll receive a list response. Watch for 429 (rate limiting), 500, 502, or 503 errors — these indicate problems.

Start monitoring Stripe in 60 seconds

Add Stripe to your monitors and get alerted on issues instantly. Free tier includes 25 monitors.

Start monitoring free →

No credit card required. Commercial use allowed.

Monitor Other APIs

GitHub API OpenAI API Slack API Twilio API AWS API SendGrid API

Related resources

API Monitoring Guide 502 Bad Gateway 503 Service Unavailable