How to get PaymentIntent next_action.type = redirect_to_url instead of use_stripe_sdk for Subscription

Question

I am working on the implementing Subscription*(which is SCA ready) using Stripe. I try to handle https://stripe.com/docs/billing/subscriptions/payment#handling-action-required. After the subscription is created on Stripe side, I have got the answer like in documentation above:

{
  "id": "sub_XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX",
  "object": "subscription",
  "status": "incomplete",
  ...
  "latest_invoice": {
    ...
    "payment_intent": {
      "status": "requires_action",
      ...
      "next_action": {
        "type": "use_stripe_sdk",
        ...
      },
      ...
    }
  }
}

According to the documentation https://stripe.com/docs/api/payment_intents/object#payment_intent_object-next_action-type next_action.type can have two values redirect_to_url and use_stripe_sdk

So my question is how to get next_action.type = redirect_to_url(instead of use_stripe_sdk) and how to force stripe to fill next_action.redirect_to_url(Because I want to handle it on my own in my UI)?

*There is already a similar question on SO: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/56490033/how-to-handle-use-stripe-sdk-through-php but my case is to create Subscription where I don't have control over PaymentIntent

Answer 1

Please read https://stripe.com/docs/payments/3d-secure-iframe - it gives more details about the "return_url" flow - and describes also posibilities to customize it inside "iframe" etc

Probably this document is fairly recent - so at the time of this question (July) it was not existing yet

Answer 2

In my understanding, the next_action.type will be equal to redirect_to_url only if you choose to manually handle 3D Secure authentication https://stripe.com/docs/payments/payment-intents/verifying-status#manual-3ds-auth

As per documentation:

To handle 3D Secure authentication manually, you can redirect the customer. This approach is used when you manually confirm the PaymentIntent and provide a return_url destination to indicate where the customer should be sent once authentication is complete. Manual PaymentIntent confirmation can be performed on the server or on the client with Stripe.js.

Example using Stripe.js:

stripe.confirmPaymentIntent(
  '{PAYMENT_INTENT_CLIENT_SECRET}',
  {
    payment_method: '{PAYMENT_METHOD_ID}',
    return_url: 'https://example.com/return_url'
  }
).then(function(result) {
  // Handle result.error or result.paymentIntent
});

Example using Stripe Python:

intent = stripe.PaymentIntent.confirm(
  '{PAYMENT_INTENT_ID}',
  payment_method='{PAYMENT_METHOD_ID}',
  return_url='https://example.com/return_url'
)

EDIT: as per @karllekko's comment the {PAYMENT_INTENT_ID} will in your case be latest_invoice.payment_intent.id.