Supabase + Stripe: the fastest way to add subscriptions to your SaaS

Why this combination works so well

Stripe handles money. Supabase handles everything else. They were designed with developers in mind, have excellent TypeScript support, and — crucially — work together without a lot of glue code.

Here's the pattern we use on every SaaS project.

Step 1: Set up Supabase auth (20 min)

Use Supabase's built-in auth. Email/password and magic links are configured in two minutes. For OAuth (Google, GitHub), add the credentials in the dashboard — no extra code needed.

The key table you need:

create table profiles (
  id uuid references auth.users on delete cascade,
  stripe_customer_id text,
  plan text default 'free',
  primary key (id)
);

create table profiles (
  id uuid references auth.users on delete cascade,
  stripe_customer_id text,
  plan text default 'free',
  primary key (id)
);

create table profiles (
  id uuid references auth.users on delete cascade,
  stripe_customer_id text,
  plan text default 'free',
  primary key (id)
);

Create a trigger that auto-creates a profile when a user signs up.

Step 2: Wire up Stripe (30 min)

Install the Stripe SDK and create a webhook handler. The events you care about:

• checkout.session.completed — user paid, activate their plan

• customer.subscription.updated — plan changed

• customer.subscription.deleted — subscription cancelled

Each webhook handler updates the plan column in your profiles table.

Step 3: Row Level Security (20 min)

This is where Supabase shines. Instead of writing permission checks in every API route, you write them once in the database:

create policy "pro users can access premium features"
  on premium_table for select
  using (
    exists (
      select 1 from profiles
      where id = auth.uid()
      and plan = 'pro'
    )
  );

create policy "pro users can access premium features"
  on premium_table for select
  using (
    exists (
      select 1 from profiles
      where id = auth.uid()
      and plan = 'pro'
    )
  );

create policy "pro users can access premium features"
  on premium_table for select
  using (
    exists (
      select 1 from profiles
      where id = auth.uid()
      and plan = 'pro'
    )
  );

Now it's impossible for a free user to access paid features — even with a compromised API key.

Step 4: The Stripe Checkout flow (30 min)

Create a server action that generates a Checkout session:

export async function createCheckoutSession(priceId: string) {
  const session = await stripe.checkout.sessions.create({
    customer: stripeCustomerId,
    line_items: [{ price: priceId, quantity: 1 }],
    mode: 'subscription',
    success_url: `${baseUrl}/dashboard?upgraded=true`,
    cancel_url: `${baseUrl}/pricing`,
  })
  redirect(session.url!)
}

export async function createCheckoutSession(priceId: string) {
  const session = await stripe.checkout.sessions.create({
    customer: stripeCustomerId,
    line_items: [{ price: priceId, quantity: 1 }],
    mode: 'subscription',
    success_url: `${baseUrl}/dashboard?upgraded=true`,
    cancel_url: `${baseUrl}/pricing`,
  })
  redirect(session.url!)
}

export async function createCheckoutSession(priceId: string) {
  const session = await stripe.checkout.sessions.create({
    customer: stripeCustomerId,
    line_items: [{ price: priceId, quantity: 1 }],
    mode: 'subscription',
    success_url: `${baseUrl}/dashboard?upgraded=true`,
    cancel_url: `${baseUrl}/pricing`,
  })
  redirect(session.url!)
}

That's it. The webhook handles the rest.

The result

A fully working subscription system — auth, payments, access control, cancellation — in under 2 hours. We've done this enough times that we have a template. First build from scratch: 2 hours. Subsequent builds: 45 minutes.