How to sell via ChatGPT with Stripe: The official way & a better alternative for 2025

There’s a lot of buzz right now about a big shift in how we shop online, and it’s all happening inside a chat window. Picture this: a customer asks a question about one of your products and, a few moments later, buys it without ever leaving the conversation. It sounds a bit like science fiction, but it’s starting to become a reality, thanks to a partnership between OpenAI and Stripe that’s introducing something called "agentic commerce."

This new feature aims to turn ChatGPT into a personal shopper that can actually buy things for you. So, what is it really, how does it work, and can your business actually start using it?

Let’s break down what this integration means, how it functions, and what its current limits are. More importantly, we’ll walk through how your business can set up a similar, and frankly more powerful, conversational sales experience today, without needing to wait for an invitation.

What is agentic commerce? Understanding the OpenAI and Stripe partnership

First things first, let’s cut through the jargon. "Agentic commerce" is really just a way of saying that AI agents, like ChatGPT, can do things for you instead of just finding information. They can take action, like booking a flight, ordering your lunch, or in this case, buying a product.

The new "Instant Checkout" feature, announced by OpenAI and Stripe, is the first major step in this direction. It lets someone ask for a product in ChatGPT and then buy it from certain businesses right there in the chat.

The whole thing is powered by two main components:

• Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP): You can think of this as a special language that lets AI agents and business systems talk to each other safely. It’s an open standard that Stripe and OpenAI worked on together to make sure everyone is playing by the same rules.

• Shared Payment Token (SPT): When you’re ready to buy, Stripe creates a secure, one-time-use token. This token lets the AI tell the merchant, "Hey, this person’s payment is good," without ever sharing your actual credit card details. It’s a smart way to keep your sensitive data private.

From the user’s side, the process feels pretty smooth. A person asks ChatGPT for a product, and the AI brings up a few options. When they pick one, a checkout window powered by Stripe appears directly in the chat. After they confirm the payment, Stripe generates the secure token, which ChatGPT passes to the merchant along with the order details. The merchant processes the order like any other, and the user gets a confirmation. It all happens in one continuous conversation.

The official method: Instant Checkout

So, how can your business get in on this? Well, here’s the catch: you probably can’t, at least not right now.

The official integration is being rolled out very slowly and selectively. According to the announcement, it’s currently only available to US-based Etsy sellers, with plans to eventually expand to over a million Shopify merchants.

This isn’t a feature you can just flip on in your settings. To be part of it, you need to be in one of these large, pre-approved ecosystems. For most businesses, this is an interesting glimpse into the future of e-commerce, but it isn’t a sales channel you can realistically use today. This brings us to the biggest hurdle for anyone trying to figure out how to sell via ChatGPT with Stripe: it’s just not widely available.

Alternative methods: Using automation platforms

With all the excitement around this, it’s no surprise that businesses are looking for a workaround. You might see automation platforms like Zapier, Latenode, or Appy Pie Automate advertising that they can connect ChatGPT and Stripe. The reality, however, is often not as smooth as it sounds.

These setups usually work by having a customer talk to a simple chatbot. When they say they want to buy something, the bot kicks off a workflow in the background. That workflow pings Stripe to create a payment link, and the bot sends that link back to the customer.

It works, technically, but this approach has some real downsides that shatter the seamless dream of "Instant Checkout":

• A clunky user experience: The conversation comes to a dead stop. The customer has to click a link, open a new tab, and fill out a payment form on a separate page. It completely breaks the flow and feels disjointed.

• No real product knowledge: These bots aren’t actually experts on what you sell. They can’t check real-time inventory, look up specific details, or make smart recommendations without a lot of custom coding that’s a pain to maintain.

• Limited abilities: They’re often just simple bots that follow a script. They can’t answer common support questions, pull info from your FAQs, or know when to hand the conversation over to a human if they get stuck.

• A fragile setup: Stringing all these different tools together can be surprisingly time-consuming, and the whole thing can fall apart if one of the apps updates its API.

A more practical approach: Building your own experience

The good news is you don’t have to wait for the official rollout or settle for a clunky workaround. A dedicated AI chatbot platform gives you a much better and more accessible solution that you can set up right now. This is where a tool built specifically for this job really shines.

Unify your sales and support knowledge

Think about it: the best salesperson knows your products inside and out. Instead of relying on generic knowledge, a platform like eesel AI connects directly to all of your business’s knowledge sources. You can train it instantly on your help center articles, FAQs, internal docs, and even past customer chats to make sure it understands your brand voice and common customer questions.

A screenshot showing how eesel AI connects to various business applications to build its knowledge base, a key step in learning how to sell via ChatGPT with Stripe.

Offer 24/7 sales and support

An AI chatbot should be more than just a checkout button. It should act as a helpful sales and support agent that guides the customer through their whole journey.

The eesel AI "AI Chatbot" can handle everything from answering questions before a sale and recommending the right product to helping with order tracking and common support issues after the purchase. And when a question gets too tricky or a customer just wants to talk to a person, the AI can smoothly hand the conversation over to a human agent, complete with the full chat history. No more making customers repeat themselves.

The eesel AI Copilot drafting an email response, demonstrating how to sell via ChatGPT with Stripe by providing instant, knowledgeable support.

Go live in minutes with a customizable AI agent

While the official Stripe and OpenAI feature is locked down for a select few, eesel AI is designed to be completely self-serve. You can sign up, connect your knowledge sources, and have a powerful AI chatbot live on your website in just a few minutes. No waiting lists or long sales calls needed.

You also get full control over the customer experience. A simple prompt editor lets you tweak the AI’s personality, tone of voice, and behavior so it perfectly matches your brand. You get to decide exactly what it knows and how it talks to your customers.

An image of the eesel AI settings interface, where users define rules for their agent, showcasing an important aspect of how to sell via ChatGPT with Stripe effectively.

Comparing the costs

When you’re thinking about how to get started, it’s worth looking at the costs, which can be all over the place.

• Official Instant Checkout: The honest answer is, nobody knows for sure yet. The pricing model isn’t public, and any fees will likely be set by OpenAI and its partners like Etsy or Shopify.

• DIY Automation Platforms: These tools often charge you based on the number of "tasks" in a workflow. A single chat with a customer could easily use up dozens of tasks, making your costs unpredictable. It’s like a taxi meter that’s always running in the background.

• eesel AI: The pricing here is straightforward and predictable. Plans are based on a flat monthly rate for a certain number of AI interactions, with no hidden fees per ticket or resolution. This means your bill won’t suddenly jump after a busy month. You can find a plan that makes sense for you on the pricing page.

This video breaks down how a successful product launch was executed using just a Google Doc, ChatGPT, and a Stripe link.

The future of how to sell via ChatGPT with Stripe

The partnership between OpenAI and Stripe is a pretty clear signpost for where e-commerce is heading. Conversational, AI-driven shopping will likely become a normal part of the online experience. But for now, the official "Instant Checkout" feature isn’t a tool that most businesses can actually use.

Clunky workarounds with generic automation tools might seem like a quick fix, but they often lead to a frustrating experience for customers and don’t have the deep integration needed for real conversational commerce.

The best way to get ready for the future is to start building for it today. By putting a powerful, accessible, and deeply integrated AI chatbot solution in place, you can get ahead of the curve and start offering the kind of seamless experience your customers will soon expect.

Ready to build your own conversational sales and support engine? Start your free eesel AI trial and see how easy it is to launch an AI chatbot that knows your business, helps your customers, and drives revenue, no waiting list required.