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Payment Sessions is the recommended integration for payment collection: rather than integrating separately with different payment methods and payment flows, merchants integrate once, and the session manages the underlying payment experience. Whether collecting a once-off payment, establishing a recurring payment, verifying a payment method, or completing a deferred capture, the integration remains consistent.

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Why Payment Sessions?

Payment Sessions is designed to optimise for simplicity, consistency, and broad payment method support, not direct control over payment execution. Different payment methods often require different customer interactions, including redirects, QR codes, mobile app approvals, payment instructions, and asynchronous confirmation. The session manages these execution details behind a managed Checkout experience, allowing merchants to support many payment methods through a single, consistent integration without implementing payment-method-specific execution logic. This reduces implementation effort, lowers ongoing maintenance, and allows merchants to focus on building their customer experience rather than payment execution flows. Underneath every Payment Session is a Payment: the record of collecting money, which may involve more than one attempt before it succeeds or fails. The session handles this for you, managing the back-and-forth of redirects, approvals, and status checks so you don’t have to. Today, you can look up a payment’s current status directly, and take action on a payment created through a session, such as capturing or voiding a previously authorised payment. See Authorisation and Capture for the full flow.
Refunding a captured payment is coming soon.

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Payment Flows

Payment Sessions supports a wide range of payment collection scenarios through the same API.
  • One-time payments: Collect immediate customer payments, optionally saving the payment method for future customer-present use.
  • Recurring payments: Authorise a mandate once, then collect future payments yourself or automate collection with a subscription.
Authorisation and capture, payment method verification, and payment allocation aren’t separate flows; they’re capabilities that apply on top of either one-time or recurring payments.
  • Authorisation and capture: Authorise funds now and capture or void them later, whether on a one-time or a recurring payment.
  • Payment method verification: Verify and save a payment method without charging the customer, ahead of a future one-time or recurring payment.
  • Payment allocation: Declare the purpose and target of a payment for compliance enforcement and automated settlement, on either flow.
Each flow builds upon the same Payment Sessions model, enabling merchants to adopt additional capabilities without introducing new integration patterns.

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How It Works

1

Create a Payment Session

Start by creating a payment session with all necessary details like amount, currency, and payment type.
2

Redirect if Required

For payments where the customer is present, redirect them to the checkout page provided in the session_url to complete the payment. For recurring payments where the customer is not present, use the customer’s saved payment method to process the payment without any customer interaction.
3

Track Payment Status

Monitor the status of your payments in real time using webhooks or API calls.

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Getting Started

Choose the quickstart that matches your first integration:

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Explore Further

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Core Concepts

Go deeper on how a Payment Session behaves once created.

Session Types

Compare the session types and what each one supports.

Use Cases

See how Payment Sessions map to common business scenarios.

Lifecycle

Understand the states a payment session moves through from creation to completion.

Webhooks

React to session events in real time.

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Recurring Payments

Authorise a customer once, then collect future payments yourself or automate them on a schedule.

Overview

How mandates, subscriptions, and payment methods work together to support recurring payments.

Mandates

Authorise future merchant-initiated payments on behalf of the customer.

Subscriptions

Automate recurring collections on a schedule.

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Additional Flows

Capture, verification, and allocation cut across both one-time and recurring payments rather than standing alone.

Authorisation and Capture

Reserve funds at checkout and capture or void them later.

Payment Method Verification

Verify and save a customer’s payment method without charging them.

Payment Allocation

Declare the purpose and target of a payment for compliance enforcement and automated settlement.