Quickstart
Create your first payment in under five minutes.
1. Get an API key
Log in to your TchokoPay merchant dashboard and go to Developers.
Click Generate API Key. It's shown once — copy it somewhere safe. TchokoPay never stores the plaintext key and can't show it to you again.
Your key looks like tchoko_live_8f3a9c2e1b7d4f6a0e5c3b8d7a2f1e9c.... Treat it like a
password.
2. Create a payment
curl -X POST https://connect.tchokopay.com/v1/payments \
-H "Authorization: Bearer tchoko_live_..." \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"amount": 5000,
"currency": "XAF",
"description": "Order #4821",
"reference": "order_4821"
}'3. Read the response
{
"reference": "REQ-1785296850838-A5303B",
"status": "PENDING",
"amount": 5000,
"currency": "XAF",
"requestedAmount": 5000,
"requestedCurrency": "XAF",
"description": "Order #4821",
"merchantReference": "order_4821",
"checkoutUrl": "https://tchokopay.com/pay/REQ-1785296850838-A5303B",
"expiresAt": "2026-07-30T10:00:00.000Z",
"createdAt": "2026-07-30T09:00:00.000Z",
"failureCategory": null
}4. Redirect your customer
Send them to checkoutUrl. They pick their own payment method and complete the payment
on TchokoPay's hosted page — no payment UI for you to build.
5. Find out what happened
Either poll GET /v1/payments/:reference, or set up a
webhook once and get notified automatically.
Every field in this response is documented in full on the
POST /v1/payments reference page.