A user completes a payment. Stripe says: successful. But your app says: no access. If you're building a SaaS, this is one of the most frustrating bugs you can hit. The problem This happens more often than you'd think. Because payment and access are not the same thing. Stripe confirms the payment immediately. But your system often relies on: webhooks async processing database updates And that’s where things break. Why it happens There are a few common causes: webhook delays or failures race conditions between events missing idempotency handling inconsistent state between systems So even if the payment is successful, your app might not be ready yet. The impact The result? User pays → success User tries to access → denied That’s a terrible experience. And it can easily break trust with your users. How to fix it To fix this, you need to decouple payment confirmation from access control.…