Introduction

Paayed's public payments API lets a developer take a card payment against a Paayed merchant, using credentials created entirely by them — no onboarding call required to get started. The API is shaped like Stripe's, so an integrator moving from Stripe should find the translation mechanical. The acquirer behind it is never visible.

How it works

1. Create a secret key in the Paayed dashboard. It is shown once and stored hashed. To try the API first, the Quickstart has a shared sandbox key you can use without signing up.
2. Send one request to POST /v1/payments with the customer, the order items, the card and an idempotency key.
3. Receive a payment object whose status is succeeded, declined, failed, or requires_action when 3-D Secure is needed, with a challenge to complete it. Failed and declined results return HTTP 402 with the payment object.
4. Receive later changes — authentication completing, a refund settling, a subscription charge — as signed webhooks, and read them back from the events endpoint if a delivery is missed.

curl -X POST 'https://gateway.uk.paayed.com/v1/payments' \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer pyd_secret_live_...' \
  -H 'Idempotency-Key: 5f1e6a6c-9d3f-4a2f-9a1e-2b7c1d9e4f88' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{
    "amount": 42.50,
    "currency": "GBP",
    "reference": "ORDER-10023",
    "payment_method": {
      "type": "card",
      "card": { "number": "4242424242424242", "expiry_month": 12, "expiry_year": 2029, "cvc": "123" }
    }
  }'

{
  "id": "pay_01JBQ7X2F9KDNW3M8T",
  "object": "payment",
  "status": "succeeded",
  "amount": 42.50,
  "currency": "GBP",
  "livemode": true
}

No SDK required. Any HTTP client will do.

What you can do

Why it's shaped this way

Get started