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Your software already runs the businesses you serve. Connect lets it run their payments too. Onboard merchants, take payments online and at the counter, and manage refunds with one set of platform keys. Each merchant owns its payments, customers, and saved cards. Use Connect when another business receives the payment. For your own business, start with Payments.

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Start here

Ionic must enable Connect for your platform. Then start in test mode by connecting a merchant:

Connect a new merchant

Send the business to Ionic to sign up and connect, then return it to your app.

Connect an existing merchant

Ask a business that already uses Ionic to approve your platform’s access.
One Account Link can serve both with a New or existing configuration. Read How Connect works for roles, platform keys, merchant selection, and permissions. Or try the Playground to explore the payment experience and its API calls.

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How it works

  1. Save the merchant ID when the business connects to your platform.
  2. Select that merchant when creating its payment, customer, or saved card.
  3. Handle platform webhook events, which identify the merchant that owns the resource.
Each operation needs the appropriate permission on your platform key, the merchant’s connection, and your Platform Program.

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Take payments for your merchants

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After the payment

Manage refunds and captures and each merchant’s customers from your platform. Bill a merchant’s customers with subscriptions and invoices: your platform creates the plan’s product and price, subscribes the customer, invoices one-off charges, and credits paid invoices. It reads payment links, which the merchant creates and changes with its own keys or in the Dashboard.

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Set up and launch

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Availability

  • Ionic enables Connect for your platform. Test mode is available as soon as it is enabled. Live onboarding uses a live configuration with Connect + live application and a pricing plan.
  • A Connect request needs its permission on the platform key, on the merchant’s connection, and within your Platform Program’s permission ceiling.
  • Embedded checkout renders only on websites in the connected account’s own Web domains list. On your platform’s website, take payments with Ionic Blocks or hosted checkout.
  • Tokenization-only card fields take the merchant’s own secret key. Platforms collect new cards with the Payment Block.
  • Your platform creates and changes a merchant’s products, prices, subscriptions, invoices, and credit notes. It reads the merchant’s payment links; the merchant creates and changes those with its own keys or in the Dashboard.
  • The server SDK’s account option covers checkout sessions, payment intents, refunds, customers, payment methods, setup intents, test clocks, products, prices, subscriptions, invoices, invoice items, and credit notes. Products, prices, subscriptions, invoices, invoice items, and credit notes need @ionicfi/sdk 0.4.4 or later. Terminal requests send the Ionic-Account header.
  • The Wallet Block supports one-time payments once Ionic enables it for your environment. Hosted Connect lifecycle events (account.*, connection.*, and account_link.*) require the Connect lifecycle release in your environment and Connect webhooks on your Platform Program. See Hosted Connect lifecycle.

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API reference

Platform endpoints use your platform key without Ionic-Account: Manage wallet setup for a payment domain through the API. These endpoints act for one connected account with Ionic-Account: