Integrating Polar Payments with Tinda

Tinda comes with built-in support for Polar payments through the Better Auth plugin, allowing you to accept payments and manage subscriptions with minimal configuration.

What is Polar?

Polar is a developer-first payment infrastructure that provides checkout, subscriptions, and customer management out of the box. It's designed to make payment integration simple and straightforward.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, make sure you have:

• A Polar account (sign up at polar.sh)
• Your Polar Organization Access Token
• Products created in your Polar dashboard

Step 1: Get Your Polar Credentials

1. Log in to your Polar dashboard
2. Navigate to Organization Settings → Access Tokens
3. Create a new Organization Access Token with the required scopes
4. Copy your token and organization ID

Step 2: Configure Environment Variables

Add the following variables to your .env file:

POLAR_ACCESS_TOKEN="your_organization_access_token"
POLAR_WEBHOOK_SECRET="your_webhook_secret"
POLAR_SERVER="sandbox" # or "production"

Step 3: Set Up Your Products

1. In your Polar dashboard, navigate to Products → Catalogue
2. Create your subscription products
3. Copy the Product IDs for each product
4. Update config/plans.ts with your Product IDs:

export const PLANS = [
  {
    id: "pro-monthly",
    name: "Pro",
    description: "For growing teams and businesses.",
    polarProductId: "your_polar_product_id_here",
    // ... other plan details
  },
];

Step 4: Configure Webhooks

Webhooks are handled automatically by the Better Auth Polar plugin.

1. In your Polar dashboard, go to Settings → Webhooks
2. Add a new webhook endpoint:
   • Development: https://your-ngrok-url.ngrok.io/api/auth/webhook/polar
   • Production: https://your-domain.com/api/auth/webhook/polar
3. Copy the webhook secret and add it to your .env file

How It Works

Automatic Customer Creation

When a user signs up in Tinda, the Polar plugin automatically creates a corresponding customer in Polar with the user's email. This happens seamlessly in the background.

Checkout Flow

Users can initiate checkout directly from your app:

await authClient.checkout({
  products: ["your_product_id"],
  referenceId: workspaceId, // Optional: for organization support
});

Customer Portal

Users can manage their subscriptions through the Polar Customer Portal:

await authClient.customer.portal();

Subscription Status

Check a user's subscription status:

const { data: subscriptions } = await authClient.customer.subscriptions.list();
const isSubscribed = subscriptions.some((sub) => sub.status === "active");

Testing Your Integration

1. Set POLAR_SERVER="sandbox" in your .env
2. Start your development server: pnpm dev
3. Navigate to the pricing page
4. Click "Get started" on a plan
5. Complete the checkout in Polar's sandbox
6. Verify the redirect back to your app
7. Check the subscription status in the billing page

Additional Resources

• Polar Documentation
• Polar Better Auth Plugin
• Billing Integration Guide