How do I test Stripe webhooks in production without real payments?

In Stripe Dashboard > Developers > Webhooks > your endpoint, click 'Send test webhook'. Select the event type and click Send. This sends a test event directly to your production endpoint so you can verify it's receiving and processing correctly without a real transaction.

How do I see failed Stripe webhook deliveries in production?

Stripe Dashboard > Developers > Webhooks > your endpoint > Webhook attempts. This shows every attempted delivery, the response code, response body, and whether Stripe is retrying. Failed deliveries show the error that caused the failure.

What's the complete checklist to debug a Stripe webhook that works locally but not in prod?

1. Confirm the production endpoint is registered in Dashboard. 2. Verify the correct whsec_ signing secret is in your production env vars. 3. Check that raw body parsing is configured correctly in your production handler. 4. Confirm the endpoint URL is HTTPS. 5. Verify the correct event types are selected. 6. Send a test webhook from the Dashboard and check the response.

Stripe · Problem Fix

Stripe Webhook Works Local Not Prod

stripe listen works perfectly in dev. Production returns errors or silently drops events. The gap between local and production Stripe webhooks is almost always one of four things — and you can check all of them in under 10 minutes.

1. Production webhook not registered in Stripe Dashboard

Stripe webhooks working locally but failing in production in 2026 almost always come down to one of four environment differences: the signing secret in production is different from the one in your local .env file, your production deployment has a middleware or proxy that modifies the raw request body before it reaches the webhook handler (breaking signature verification), the production endpoint URL does not match what is registered in the Stripe Dashboard, or your production server has a timeout shorter than Stripe's 30-second delivery window.

2. Wrong webhook secret in production environment

The most common culprit: a reverse proxy (Nginx, Cloudflare, AWS API Gateway) that parses and re-serializes the JSON request body. Stripe's signature is computed over the exact raw bytes of the body — any transformation (even adding/removing whitespace) invalidates the signature. Your webhook handler must receive the raw, unmodified request body. In Express.js, this means using `express.raw({type: 'application/json'})` instead of `express.json()` on the webhook route specifically.

3. Raw body parsing works locally but not on serverless

Local Express servers often have consistent middleware ordering. Serverless environments (Vercel, Netlify, AWS Lambda) may apply different middleware or parsing depending on the runtime. Explicitly configure raw body parsing in your production handler — don't rely on framework defaults.

4. HTTPS required for production webhook delivery

Stripe only sends webhooks to HTTPS endpoints in production. Your local stripe listen tunnel provides HTTPS. If your production URL is HTTP (non-SSL), Stripe rejects the endpoint registration entirely. Ensure your production domain has a valid SSL certificate.

5. Events not selected match what you're sending

Your Stripe Dashboard webhook endpoint configuration specifies which events to send. If you registered the endpoint with only payment_intent.created but your code handles payment_intent.succeeded, production events never arrive. Check the endpoint's event selection and add all required event types.

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