How do I open the customer portal from my account?

Most card management in Valid Email Checker happens inside the app on the Payment Methods sub-tab. The customer portal is the processor-hosted escape hatch for tasks that need to happen directly at Stripe or Paddle — for example, replacing the card behind a Paddle anchor subscription. Opening a portal session is a single click, but knowing when to use it saves you a few wrong turns.

Opening the portal — step by step

1. Go to Account Settings → Billing & Payments.
2. Switch to the Payment Methods sub-tab.
3. Find the Manage at Stripe button (or Update payment method if your account is on Paddle).
4. Click it. VEC creates a one-time portal session via the create-customer-portal-session edge function and redirects you to the processor-hosted page.
5. Complete the action you came for (add a card, replace the anchor card, update billing address).
6. Return-to-app link at the top of the portal brings you back to /account-settings?tab=billing-payments.

What happens behind the scenes

On click, VEC stamps a card_attach_intent_at timestamp on your user metadata. That stamp tells the payment_method.attached webhook that any card attached during this window is an intentional save — without the stamp, our webhook would treat the attach as a PAYG side-effect and detach the card again. The portal session itself expires after a short window, so finish the flow without leaving it open for hours.

When you actually need the portal

• Your account is on Paddle and you need to replace the renewal card. Paddle requires the swap to happen on the anchor subscription, which is what the portal handles.
• Your bank requires a billing-address rewrite on the existing card. AVS-tied issuers sometimes block charges when the address on file does not match — the portal exposes that field.
• You want to enable processor-side 3DS pre-authorisation on a saved card.
• You need to review processor-stored history outside of VEC (Stripe charges, Paddle invoices). VEC mirrors most of this, but the portal is the canonical source.

When you do not need the portal

• Adding a new card for normal use → use the in-app Add Payment Method button (the how-to).
• Setting a default card → in-app star/checkbox on the saved-cards list (see setting a default).
• Removing a card → in-app trash icon (see removing a card).
• Cancelling the VEC subscription → in-app Subscription tab. The portal will not cancel anything on VEC.
• Paying a pending invoice → in-app Pay button or the invoice page directly.