Async methods fail with ImportError while sync methods work out of the box

[geminimir]

Describe the bug

Noticed small inconsistency in dependency requirements between sync and async methods... Sync methods work immediately after installing the stripe package, while async methods fail with an ImportError unless additional dependencies are installed...

To Reproduce

1. Install stripe: pip install stripe
2. Try to use any async method without installing httpx/aiohttp
3. Observe ImportError

Expected behavior

Both sync and async methods should either:

• Work out of the box with the base installation, OR
• Clearly document that async support requires additional dependencies

Code snippets

import stripe

client = stripe.StripeClient("sk_test_...")

# This works fine
customer = client.customers.retrieve("cus1")  

# This fails with ImportError
customer = await client.customers.retrieve_async("cus1")

OS

all

Language version

3.9+

Library version

Latest

API version

2025-08-29

Additional context

No response

[mbroshi-stripe]

👋 Hi @geminimir! Thanks for reporting this issue! I will start investigating and circle back as needed.

[mbroshi-stripe]

I was able to reproduce the reported issue. Did you see our README section on using async requests: https://github.com/stripe/stripe-python?tab=readme-ov-file#async? I'm wondering if that clarifies the intended usage for you, or if we should be more explicit there about imports?

[meet-vasita]

Hi, I’d like to work on this issue as my first contribution.

[xavdid-stripe]

Hey @meet-vasita - thanks for the offer! Luckily, this is just a small docs update for now, so we'll handle it on our end. There's some other work we may do to make this experience better though!