How to send an itemized receipt for a one-time Stripe payment

The short answer on Flint

When a payment covers the whole order, Flint builds its receipt from the order: each line item with its quantity and price, the options and modifiers you mark for the receipt, discounts, shipping and service charges, tax, tip, total, the order number, and the payment method, with a link back to the order. A deposit or a split leg paid on its own gets a receipt with the amount paid and the order number. It goes out when the order is paid, as part of payments, with no per-receipt fee. Resend it with one call, or turn Flint's receipts off and send your own from the order.paid webhook. Card processing runs on Stripe underneath. The details are below.

What Stripe's receipts docs offer

Stripe creates a receipt for every successful payment and refund. You turn on automatic emails under Settings, Business, Customer emails, or send one by hand from a payment's page in the Dashboard. You can brand them and set the business details they show.

For more detail, Stripe's docs point to paid invoices, which include more detail than standard receipts. Subscriptions get one automatically. For a one-time payment, you enable it on each Checkout Session:

const session = await stripe.checkout.sessions.create({
  mode: "payment",
  line_items: cart.lineItems,
  invoice_creation: { enabled: true }, // 0.4% of the total, up to $2 per invoice
  customer_creation: "always",          // post-purchase invoices need a Customer
  success_url: "https://example.com/thanks?session_id={CHECKOUT_SESSION_ID}",
});

Stripe prices post-purchase invoices separately from Invoicing: 0.4% of the transaction total, up to $2 per invoice. On a $50 average order that is $0.20 an order, or $200 a month at 1,000 orders; the $2 cap applies from $500 up. The option exists on Checkout Sessions and Payment Links. A PaymentIntent you create directly has an amount, an optional description, and optional amount_details line items, which Stripe documents for card-network data, reconciliation, and Klarna and PayPal approvals.

The workaround: send your own receipt

Stripe's fulfillment guide lists a custom receipt email as something your fulfillment function might send. It reads the session's line items and totals and renders them:

async function sendReceipt(sessionId) {
  const session = await stripe.checkout.sessions.retrieve(sessionId, {
    expand: ["line_items", "line_items.data.price.product"],
  });
  if (session.payment_status !== "paid") return; // ACH: wait for async_payment_succeeded

  // Runs from the webhook and the landing page, even at the same time. A unique
  // index on session_id makes the insert the guard: only the caller that
  // inserts the row sends the email.
  const claimed = await db.receipts.insertIfAbsent(sessionId); // false on conflict
  if (!claimed) return;
  await email.send({
    to: session.customer_details.email,
    template: "receipt",
    data: {
      items: session.line_items.data.map((li) => ({
        name: li.description,
        quantity: li.quantity,
        amount: li.amount_total,
      })),
      discount: session.total_details.amount_discount,
      shipping: session.total_details.amount_shipping,
      tax: session.total_details.amount_tax,
      total: session.amount_total,
      orderNumber: await db.orders.numberFor(sessionId), // yours to assign
    },
  });
}

That is an email template, a provider, an order number scheme, a record of what was sent, and a resend path for the buyer who lost it. These are the places it goes wrong:

Where hand-built receipts go wrong