Payment link purchase

Notice: This article provides a general description of processing payment link purchases in the ecommpay payment platform and covers information about operations utilised to execute a payment of this type and statuses that are assigned to the payment and the operations performed within it.

In addition, use the following materials to gain a fuller understanding of payment link purchases:

  • Payment link purchases—an article that covers processing payment link purchases via Gate and describes requests and callbacks that are used in case of card payments.
  • Step-by-step instructions on how to perform payment link purchases via Dashboard.
  • articles of the Payment methods section containing a description of processing purchases via Payment Page with the focus on the specific processing scenarios and interaction workflows.

General information

Payment link purchase is a payment type which uses initial request to generate a web link that customers can simply click to make purchases that involve a one-time transfer of funds from customer to merchant with or without authorisation hold and, if necessary, with registration of a COF purchase.

This payment type is useful when you need to accept online payments which are not attached to any physical POS or online site. You can either have the ecommpay payment platform send payment link to customer through email or you can share it through SMS, messenger, social media, or use any other delivery media.

Payment model

You initiate payment link creation by sending a invoice/create request to the payment platform. Once the payment platform receives the request, it creates an invoice operation which eventually results in creating a payment link and delivering it to your web service. You can also have the payment platform to send the payment link to customer email. Here is a sample email with a payment link.

Figure 1. Sample email with a payment link


If required, you can cancel the payment link you recently sent, but only before the customer confirms the purchase. To deactivate a payment link, you need to send an invoice/cancel request to the payment platform.

By clicking payment link, you customers open Payment Page where they can enter their payment information and complete the purchase. Then, the purchase follows one of the following scenarios depending on the card_operation_type parameter value:

  • One-time one-step purchase   In this purchase type, the payment platform creates a sale operation that eventually debits customer account.
  • One-time two-step purchase   On the first step of this purchase type, the payment platform creates an auth operation that results in authorisation hold of funds on customer account. The second step may be initiated in one of the following ways:
    • by request from merchant's web service
    • by merchant employees that use Dashboard for this purpose
    • by the payment platform after a timeout.

For each of these purchase types that use payment link, the payment platform may perform some auxiliary procedures, though no additional input from the web service is required because all operations are performed by Payment Page.

Refund is supported for all successful purchases completed by using payment links. To initiate a refund, you need to submit a refund request to the payment platform. The request initiates one of the following operations in the payment platform:

  • reversal operation is created, if the refund is initiated before the current business day closing.
  • refund operation is created, if the refund is initiated after the current business day is closed.

If you need to register a recurring payment while taking the payment link purchase, you can choose either the on-demand COF purchase or the COF purchase with automatic debiting. The COF purchase type is determined by the value of the type parameter in the recurring object passed in the request to create a payment link. To perform each subsequent debiting, the platform uses the recurring operation. This operation's statuses are listed in the payment models of COF purchase types.

Figure 2. State diagram for two-step payment link purchase


The sections below describe possible statuses of payment link purchase and related operations. For more information about payment link purchases, see Payment link purchases.

Payment statuses

The following table included statuses payment link purchase can use.

error Payment not initiated because of request verification error Final status. The request can be resent with the same payment identifier and reattempt to perform the payment.
awaiting payment Payment processing initiated, waiting for payment link submission Intermediate status
expired Payment declined because of payment link expiry Final status
invoice canceled Payment declined by merchant Final status
invoice sent Payment processing initiated, payment link sent Intermediate status
processing Payment is being processed Intermediate status
awaiting 3ds result Payment processing is suspended until the web service submits a 3ds_result request with the authentication result. If the payment platform does not receive this request within 30 minutes, then the payment status is set to decline. Intermediate status
awaiting redirect result Operation processing is suspended until the payment system submits a message with the result. Depending on the result the payment system submitted, the status is set either to success or to decline. Intermediate status
awaiting clarification Operation processing is suspended until the web service submits a clarification request—to continue the payment processing—with the required data. If the payment platform does not receive the request within 30 minutes, the status is set to decline. Intermediate status
awaiting customer Payment processing is suspended until one of additional customer attempts to perform the payment is successfully completed—the status is set to success—or the maximum amount of the additional attempts is exceeded—the status is set to decline. (For more information, see Payment retries.) Intermediate status
awaiting capture Payment processing is suspended until the web service submits a capture or a cancel request. Intermediate status
canceled Authorisation hold previously placed by a auth request has been cancelled. Final status
decline Payment declined Final status
success Payment completed Final status. Also, refund is supported.
partially reversed Partial refund performed before closing the business day the initial payment was completed Final status
reversed Full refund performed before closing the business day the initial payment was completed Final status. Also, refund can be reversed.
partially refunded Payment partially refunded Final status. Also, refund can be reversed.
refunded Full refund performed after closing the business day when the initial payment was completed. The refund is performed in a lump sum or in several sums that in total equal to the initial purchase amount. Final status. Also, refund can be reversed.

The statuses of the invoice operation

The following table describes the statuses of the invoice operation.

awaiting payment Operation initiated, waiting for payment link delivery Intermediate status
expired Operation completed, payment link expired Final status
invoice canceled Operation cancelled by merchant Final status
invoice sent Operation completed, payment link sent Final status

The statuses of the sale and auth operations

The following table describes the statuses for the sale and auth operations.

processing Operation is being performed Intermediate status
awaiting 3ds result Operation processing is suspended until the web service submits a 3ds_result request with the authentication result. If the payment platform does not receive this request within 30 minutes, the payment status is set to decline. Intermediate status
awaiting redirect result Operation processing is suspended until the payment system submits a callback with the result to the payment platform. Depending on the result returned by the payment system, the status is set to success or decline. Intermediate status
awaiting clarification Operation processing is suspended until the web service submits a clarification request—to continue the payment processing—with the required data. If the payment platform does not receive this request within 30 minutes, the status is set to decline. Intermediate status
decline Operation declined Final status
success Operation completed Final status

The statuses of the capture and cancel operations

The following table describes the statuses for the capture and cancel operations.

processing Operation is being processed Intermediate status
awaiting clarification Operation processing is suspended until the web service submits a clarification request—to continue the payment processing—with the required data. If the payment platform does not receive this request within 30 minutes, the status is set to decline. Intermediate status
decline Operation declined Final status
success Operation completed Final status

The statuses of the reversal and refund operations

The reversal and refund operations use the same statuses as the capture and cancel operations.

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