Getting Started

Go from zero to your first payment in 5 minutes. This guide walks you through creating API keys, tokenizing a test card, authorizing a payment, and capturing funds.

1. Get Your API Keys

Key Prefix	Type	Usage
`sk_test_`	Secret (test)	Server-side sandbox requests
`sk_live_`	Secret (live)	Server-side production requests
`pk_test_`	Publishable (test)	Client-side tokenization in sandbox
`pk_live_`	Publishable (live)	Client-side tokenization in production

Secret keys authenticate all server-to-server API calls. Never expose secret keys in client-side code. Publishable keys are safe for browser use and are limited to tokenization operations.

2. Install an SDK

3. Tokenize a Test Card

Before creating a payment, tokenize the card number. This returns a gateway_token that you use in place of the raw card number for all subsequent operations.

Response:


{
  "token": "tok_test_aBcDeFgHiJkLmNoPqRsTuVwX",
  "bin": "424242",
  "last4": "4242",
  "exp_month": 12,
  "exp_year": 2028,
  "card_brand": "visa",
  "created_at": "2026-03-18T12:00:00Z"
}

4. Authorize a Payment

Use the gateway token to authorize a payment. The amount is specified in cents (e.g., 5000 = $50.00).

5. Capture the Payment

Once the authorization succeeds, capture it to settle the funds.

6. Check the Result

Retrieve the PaymentIntent to confirm the final state.

Next Steps

Authentication — Learn about API key types and management.
Payments — Explore all payment operations.
Tokenization — Understand token vaulting and hosted fields.
Webhooks — Set up real-time event notifications.
Error Codes — Handle errors gracefully.