Stripe released their upgraded payment links last week, and I finally tried them this morning. What struck me wasn't the feature itself—it was how close they came to making payment links truly magical.
For context, payment links let you create a checkout page with just a URL. No code, no integration, just a link you can drop into an email or social post. Stripe's been offering this for years, but the 2.0 version adds something subtle: post-purchase customization. After someone pays, you can redirect them anywhere, pass purchase data to your analytics, and trigger automations in tools like Zapier.
This sounds incremental, but it fundamentally changes what payment links can do. Before, they were digital tip jars—good for quick donations or simple products, but isolated from your actual business systems. Now they're entrypoints that connect directly to your existing workflows.