You can create payment links in your Customer Area, in the Pay by Link iOS app, or using the Pay by Link API. Creating payment links in your Customer Area and the Pay by Link app requires no development work, while creating payment links using the API supports more use cases:
| Use cases | API integration | Customer Area | Pay by Link iOS app |
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| Tokenize for subscriptions |  |
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| Force expiry of payment link | |
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| Reusable payment links | |
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| Customize the payment page | |
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| Show saved card details | |
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| Buy now, pay later | |
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| Email service | |
How it works
When a shopper places an order, you create a payment link by providing information such as amount, currency, and country/region. Next, you send the payment link to your shopper through email or chat. When the shopper selects the link, they see the payment page with all the available payment methods in their country/region.
After the shopper selects a payment method and completes the payment, you receive the payment result in a webhook or email.
Link expiry and reusability
By default, payment links expire after 24 hours. You can extend the expiry of the payment link to a maximum of 70 days from the time you create it. If a shopper makes five unsuccessful payment attempts using the same payment link, the payment link expires before this timeframe.
By default, payment links can only be used to make one successful payment. After a shopper makes a successful payment, anyone accessing the same link will see a You have already paid message. For some use cases, for example when accepting donations, you might want to override the default behavior so that you can give out the same link to multiple shoppers.
You can override the default payment link expiry and non-reusability when you create the link.
Risk and capture settings
Payments made through Pay by Link are standard ecommerce payments—your account settings, such as risk and capture settings, also apply. For example, if you are manually capturing payments, you will also need to capture payments made through Pay by Link.
Similar to a card payment on your own checkout, you also need to use 3D Secure to get a liability shift. Pay by Link supports both 3D Secure 1 and 2 authentication out of the box.
Creation settings for Customer Area
You can configure the options that are available when creating payment links through your Customer Area. For example, if you have employees who create payment links, you can control what information they collect from shoppers and how long payment links are valid.
