Payment Links
Collect money from a URL you share, with no integration and no page of your own.
A payment link is a URL that takes money. You describe what you are selling once, Wajub hosts the page, and you share the address wherever your customers already are: a WhatsApp conversation, an Instagram bio, an SMS, a QR code on a poster.
It is the only one of the four payment modes with no code in it at all. Nothing to deploy, nothing to maintain, and no server of yours involved at any point.
When a link beats an integration
Reach for a link when the thing you are selling does not justify a checkout, or when there is no site to put a checkout on.
A shop that sells on WhatsApp and has no storefront. A one-off invoice to a single client. Tickets for an event next month. A fundraising campaign that needs a progress bar and a donor wall. A consultant taking a deposit before a booking.
Reach for Hosted Checkout instead as soon as the payment is the end of a flow your software controls: a cart, an order, a subscription. A link knows nothing about your order, and cannot be created at the moment a customer needs it unless you call the API.
Four kinds of link
The type is not a label, it changes the page. Pick the one that matches what you are collecting.
| Type | The page renders | Reach for it when |
|---|---|---|
product | A fixed price and a buy button | You sell one thing at one price |
event | A date, a venue, a ticket count | You sell entry to something happening |
fundraising | A goal, its progress, optionally the contributors | You are collecting toward a total |
donation | A free amount, within bounds you can set | The payer decides what to give |
A product link also carries a product_type, one of physical, digital or service, which is
what brings stock, shipping or booking fields onto the page.
Two ways to make one
The Dashboard is the normal route. Links → New link walks the fields with a live preview, generates the QR code, and publishes when you are ready. Nothing on this page requires a developer.
The API is for when links are produced by your own software: one per client, one per campaign, one per order. Same object, same page.
https://api.wajub.com/linksThe full field list, the required ones per type, and the traps worth knowing are in the Quickstart.
Two things that will catch you
Links are production only. There is no sandbox equivalent, so the first link you make takes
real money: a test key gets 403 on every /links call, with
This feature is only available in live mode. And a link goes live the moment you create it: is_public defaults to true,
so the URL that comes back is open to payers straight away. Send is_public: false to stage a
link and publish it when you are ready.
What it costs you in plan
Payment links need the Payment Links feature. Pay as you go includes them, capped at 25 live
links; Growth and above lift the cap entirely. Creating past your cap answers 403 with an upgrade
message rather than failing silently. Archived links count toward the cap: delete a link, rather
than archive it, to free its place.
By default a link is served from wajub.link. On Scale, a verified custom domain serves it instead,
so the address the payer sees is yours.
What you get back
A link produces ordinary payments, on the same channels as everything else: MTN, Orange, Wave, Airtel, Moov, M-Pesa, and cards where the country supports them. The full matrix is in Payment methods.
So there is no separate reconciliation. The payment lands in your Payments list, fires
payment.succeeded, settles into your balance and can be refunded like any other. What the link
adds on top is the page, the sharing, and per-link analytics.
| Need | Where |
|---|---|
| Make your first link | Quickstart |
| Change how the page looks | Customization |
| See views, conversions and the link's life | Tracking |
| Every field on the resource | API reference |
Related pages
- Payment Links QuickstartCreate a link, publish it, share it, get told when someone pays.
- CustomizationBrand colours, logo, and the fields on the page.
- Tracking and conversionsViews, conversion rate, and the life of a link.
- Choose your integrationThe four modes compared, and when a link is the wrong one.
- Payment methodsWhich operators your payers see, country by country.
- WebhooksListen for payment.succeeded and fulfil automatically.