Being able to take payments on your website is step #1 when it comes to selling digital products online; whether it's an ebook or a paid newsletter. There are a lot of options to choose from when it comes to processing credit card payments on your website.

In this blog post, I'm going to assume you're already sold on using Stripe as your payment processor. The only thing you have to decide next is what type of implementation to use; Stripe Checkout or Stripe Elements?

The ultimate 'no-code' solution is to simply use Stripe's new Payment Links. This makes it easy to set up Stripe Checkout without having to touch the code on your website.

There are a couple downsides to this:

1. The checkout page is not hosted on your website, it's hosted on Stripe's website.
This may not be a big deal for you but for some businesses want payments to be handled on their website for branding and marketing purposes. You also don't have as much control over the design of your checkout when using Stripe Checkout.

UPDATE: This is no longer true for Stripe Checkout. For $10/mo Stripe will let you attach a custom domain to their hosted checkout, see more details here. Unfortunately, it doesn't work with their Payment Links.

2. Conversion tracking and attribution in Google Ads and Google Analytics might be off due to the visitor leaving your site for the stripe payment form.

That's where Stripe Elements comes in. It basically gives you full control on the look and feel of your checkout form and it also allows you to embed the form directly into your website to give your checkout a more premium feel.

This also makes it easier for tracking conversions and leads to better attribution.

So how are you supposed to set up Stripe Elements? Check out this blog post to read more about it.