How to build a sales funnel with Stripe on your own server

The classic funnel hasn't changed much in ten years because it works:

1. Landing page that makes one promise
2. Checkout that asks for the card
3. Order bump, a small add-on ticked at checkout
4. One-click upsell after payment, without re-entering the card
5. Follow-up emails that deliver, onboard and sell the next thing

Hosted funnel builders charge $97–300/month for this. Here's how to run the same flow on your own server with your own Stripe account.

What you need

• A running Launchtic instance. If you don't have one yet, install it in about 10 minutes.
• A Stripe account (PayPal works too)
• An email provider such as Amazon SES, Mailgun, Resend or any SMTP

Step 1: Connect Stripe

Go to Settings → Integrations → Payment Settings and connect Stripe. The payments guide covers keys, webhooks and test mode.

Payments go straight to your Stripe account. Launchtic never sits in the money flow, so there's no platform percentage and no payout delay.

Start in test mode. You'll run the whole funnel with Stripe's test cards before going live.

Step 2: Create the funnel

Funnels → New Funnel, then add steps in order:

Step	Purpose
Landing	Headline, proof, one call to action
Checkout	Card form, price, order bump
Upsell	One-click offer after payment
Downsell	Shown if the upsell is declined (optional)
Thank you	Confirms purchase, sets expectations

Each step starts from a template, which you edit in the drag-and-drop builder. Check the mobile breakpoint before publishing, because most funnel traffic is on phones.

Tip: if you've connected an AI key (OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini or DeepSeek), use the built-in AI tools to draft headline variants. Then A/B test two of them instead of guessing.

Step 3: Set up the checkout and order bump

On the checkout step:

• Add a price plan: one-time, or a recurring subscription
• Add an order bump: a low-priced, closely related add-on, such as a checklist, templates or an extra module. The buyer ticks a box and it's added to the same charge.
• Enable coupons if you run launch promos

A good bump is cheap compared to the main offer and obviously useful right now. It should never be a second main product.

Step 4: Add a one-click upsell

The upsell page appears after payment succeeds. The buyer clicks one button and the payment method they just used is charged again, with no second card form.

Rules of thumb that hold up:

• Offer something that makes the first purchase work faster or better
• One offer per page, with a clear "No thanks" link
• If they decline, a downsell step can offer a smaller version

Step 5: Automate the follow-up

Go to Workflows and create a workflow with the New sale trigger:

1. Immediately: delivery or access email
2. Day 1: "how to get the most out of it"
3. Day 3: a case study or result
4. Day 7: your next offer

You can also tag buyers automatically, for example bought-course-x. That lets you exclude them from sales broadcasts for the same product and target them for the next one. To track deals by hand, add them to a pipeline in the CRM.

Step 6: Test, then go live

With Stripe in test mode, run through the funnel as a buyer:

• Buy with and without the order bump
• Accept the upsell once, then decline it once
• Confirm the order shows in the orders dashboard, the contact is tagged and the emails arrive

Then switch Stripe to live keys, connect your custom domain (each funnel can have its own, with automatic SSL; see custom domains) and publish.

Step 7: Watch the numbers

Funnel analytics shows drop-off at each step, conversion rates and revenue per funnel without any external analytics setup. The two numbers that matter most early on:

• Landing → checkout rate. If it's low, the problem is the offer or the headline.
• Checkout completion rate. If it's low, the problem is price, trust or friction on the form.

Fix the worst step first, A/B test one change at a time, and let the significance indicator tell you when there's a winner.

What this costs

	Hosted funnel builder	Self-hosted Launchtic
Software	$97–297/mo	$0 (Free tier)
Server	Included	~$5–20/mo
Platform cut on sales	Varies by platform	0%
Stripe fees	Standard	Standard
Contact limit	Plan-based	None set by the software