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Paystack

Paystack is an African payment processor (acquired by Stripe in 2020) that lets businesses accept payments in Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa, Kenya, Côte d'Ivoire, and Egypt across cards, bank transfers, USSD, QR, EFT, and mobile money channels. Its single REST API covers one-time charges, recurring subscriptions, marketplace splits, dedicated virtual accounts, invoices, transfers (payouts), refunds, disputes, settlements, and KYC/identity verification — all wrapped in a developer experience that has made it one of the most respected public APIs on the continent.

agent native

Reference-quality API operations across every facet — a rich contract, published governance, transparent operations, and machine-readable commercial terms.

Kin Score

API Evangelist profiles Paystack the way a machine reads it — 148 machine-readable artifacts across 21 APIs, pulled from the provider's own public surface and indexed so a developer, an analyst, or an AI agent can evaluate it against every other provider on the network.

Every provider in the network is reduced to the same set of machine-readable artifacts — OpenAPI contracts, event specifications, GraphQL schemas, runnable collections, pricing and rate-limit signals, security posture, OAuth scopes, and the agent surfaces (MCP servers and skills) that let software drive the API on its own. We profile them because the interface is the part of a company you can actually inspect: it is a truer signal of what a provider does than any marketing page. From those artifacts we compute the Kin Score — Paystack scores 72.4/100 (exemplar), with a separate agent-readiness read of 61/100 (agent native). The full breakdown is below, followed by every artifact we hold — each card links through to its machine-readable definition on apis.io.

Kin Score

This is the API Evangelist rating — a single, repeatable read computed from the artifacts on this page. Green fill is points earned; the red track is points possible, so every bar shows earned-versus-possible at a glance.

Kin Score Kin Score How this is scored →
scored 2026-07-27 · rubric v0.5
Composite quality — 72.4/100 · exemplar
Contract Quality 18.7 / 25
Developer Ergonomics 14.3 / 20
Commercial Clarity 15.8 / 20
Operational Transparency 8.9 / 13
Governance 7.9 / 12
Discoverability 8.0 / 10
Regulatory · Payments 9.8 / 15
Agent readiness — 61/100 · agent native
Machine-Readable Contract 18 / 18
Agentic Access Contract 15 / 15
MCP Server 0 / 12
Machine-Readable Auth 10 / 10
Idempotency 0 / 9
Stable Error Semantics 0 / 8
Request/Response Examples 7 / 7
Rate-Limit Signaling 7 / 7
Typed Event Surface 6 / 6
Agent Skills 0 / 5
Well-Known Catalog 0 / 4
Consent & Bot Identity 0 / 3

How we profile Paystack

Each block below is one kind of artifact we hold for Paystack. For each we say what it is and why it earns a place in the profile, then list every one we've indexed — capped at two rows, scroll within the panel for the rest.

APIs 21

Each API is captured as its own OpenAPI definition — every operation, parameter, and response. This is the single most useful machine-readable description of what an API does, and it's what lets us score, lint, mock, and generate against it without asking the provider for anything.

Individual APIs this provider publishes, each with its own machine-readable definition.

Paystack Webhooks

Outbound webhook surface that notifies a single merchant-configured POST endpoint of transaction, dispute, refund, transfer, subscription, invoice, payment request, customer ide...

Paystack Balance API

The Balance API from Paystack — 2 operation(s) for balance.

Paystack Bulk Charge API

The Bulk Charge API from Paystack — 5 operation(s) for bulk charge.

Paystack Charge API

The Charge API from Paystack — 7 operation(s) for charge.

Paystack Customer API

The Customer API from Paystack — 5 operation(s) for customer.

Paystack Dedicated Virtual Account API

The Dedicated Virtual Account API from Paystack — 4 operation(s) for dedicated virtual account.

Paystack Dispute API

The Dispute API from Paystack — 7 operation(s) for dispute.

Paystack Integration API

The Integration API from Paystack — 1 operation(s) for integration.

Paystack Page API

The Page API from Paystack — 4 operation(s) for page.

Paystack Payment Request API

The Payment Request API from Paystack — 7 operation(s) for payment request.

Paystack Plan API

The Plan API from Paystack — 2 operation(s) for plan.

Paystack Product API

The Product API from Paystack — 2 operation(s) for product.

Paystack Refund API

The Refund API from Paystack — 2 operation(s) for refund.

Paystack Settlement API

The Settlement API from Paystack — 2 operation(s) for settlement.

Paystack Split API

The Split API from Paystack — 4 operation(s) for split.

Paystack Subaccount API

The Subaccount API from Paystack — 2 operation(s) for subaccount.

Paystack Subscription API

The Subscription API from Paystack — 6 operation(s) for subscription.

Paystack Transaction API

The Transaction API from Paystack — 12 operation(s) for transaction.

Paystack Transfer API

The Transfer API from Paystack — 10 operation(s) for transfer.

Paystack Transfer Recipient API

The Transfer Recipient API from Paystack — 3 operation(s) for transfer recipient.

Paystack Verification API

The Verification API from Paystack — 7 operation(s) for verification.

Scroll within the panel for all 21 ·

Postman Collections 13

A runnable collection turns the contract into something a developer can execute in seconds. We profile them because the fastest way to trust an API is to make a real call against it.

Ready-to-run Postman collections for exercising this provider's APIs.

Scroll within the panel for all 13 ·

Open Collections 13

Open, tool-agnostic collections carry the same runnable value as Postman without locking you to one client — the portable, forkable form of the same exercise.

Open, tool-agnostic API collections (OpenAPI-derived and Bruno).

Scroll within the panel for all 13 ·

Arazzo Workflows 25

Real integrations are rarely a single call. Arazzo describes the multi-step sequences — auth, then create, then confirm — so both a human and an agent can follow the choreography, not just the endpoints.

Multi-step API workflows described with the Arazzo specification.

Paystack Add a Subaccount to an Existing Split

Create a new subaccount, add it to an existing transaction split, then fetch the split to confirm membership.

ARAZZO

Paystack Blacklist a Customer After a Dispute

List the disputes raised against a transaction, fetch the customer, then blacklist them and deactivate the card authorization.

ARAZZO

Paystack Bulk Recipients and Bulk Transfer

Bulk-create transfer recipients, list them to confirm registration, then initiate a bulk transfer to pay them all.

ARAZZO

Paystack Charge and Refund a Transaction

Initialize and verify a transaction, then create a refund against it and fetch the refund status.

ARAZZO

Paystack Create Charge and Submit OTP

Create a direct charge, branch when an OTP is required, submit the OTP, then check the final charge status.

ARAZZO

Paystack Create Charge and Submit PIN

Create a direct card charge, branch when a PIN is required, submit the PIN, then check the final charge status.

ARAZZO

Paystack Check Authorization and Partial Debit

Check that an authorization can bear a charge, then take a partial debit against it for whatever is available.

ARAZZO

Paystack Create Customer and Charge Authorization

Create a customer, initialize a first transaction, verify it to obtain an authorization, then charge that authorization for a recurring debit.

ARAZZO

Paystack Create Customer and Send Payment Request

Create a customer, raise an invoice-style payment request for them, send the email notification, then verify the request.

ARAZZO

Paystack Provision a Dedicated Virtual Account

Look up an available bank provider, create a customer, assign a dedicated NUBAN virtual account, then fetch its details.

ARAZZO

Paystack Create Customer, Plan and Subscription

Create a customer, define a billing plan, then subscribe the customer to the plan for recurring charges.

ARAZZO

Paystack Create Product and Payment Page

Create a product, check a page slug is available, create a hosted payment page, then attach the product to the page.

ARAZZO

Paystack Create Recipient and Initiate Transfer

Create a transfer recipient from bank details, initiate a transfer to it, then verify the transfer by reference.

ARAZZO

Paystack Create Subaccount and Transaction Split

Create a subaccount, build a transaction split that pays it, then initialize a transaction against the split.

ARAZZO

Paystack Disable and Re-enable a Subscription

Fetch a subscription to read its email token, disable it, then re-enable it using the same code and token.

ARAZZO

Paystack Submit Dispute Evidence and Resolve

Fetch a dispute, attach evidence to it, request an upload URL for supporting files, then resolve the dispute.

ARAZZO

Paystack Finalize and Archive a Draft Payment Request

Create a draft payment request, finalize it to issue the invoice, verify it, then archive it once handled.

ARAZZO

Paystack Initialize and Verify Transaction

Initialize a checkout transaction and then verify its final status by reference.

ARAZZO

Paystack Initiate and Finalize Transfer with OTP

Initiate a transfer, finalize it with the OTP sent to the business phone, then verify the completed transfer.

ARAZZO

Paystack Initiate and Monitor a Bulk Charge

Initiate a bulk charge batch against saved authorizations, fetch the batch, then list the charges in the batch.

ARAZZO

Paystack Resolve Account and Create Transfer Recipient

Resolve a bank account number to confirm the account name, then create a transfer recipient and initiate a transfer.

ARAZZO

Paystack Resolve Card BIN and Charge Authorization

Resolve a card BIN to learn the card brand and country, then charge a saved authorization for that card.

ARAZZO

Paystack Settlement Reconciliation

Fetch settlement records, then list the transactions that make up a chosen settlement payout.

ARAZZO

Paystack Subscribe and Generate a Management Link

Create a subscription, fetch it to read its status, then generate a self-service management link for the customer.

ARAZZO

Paystack Create and Validate Customer (KYC)

Create a customer, resolve their BVN, then submit a bank-account identification to validate the customer.

ARAZZO

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GraphQL 1

Where a provider ships GraphQL, the schema is the contract. We profile it alongside the REST surface so the whole interface is legible in one place.

GraphQL schemas published by this provider.

Paystack GraphQL Schema

This document describes a GraphQL schema that represents the Paystack REST API domain model. Paystack is a Nigerian payments platform (acquired by Stripe in 2020) that provides ...

GRAPHQL

Pricing Plans 1

Pricing is part of the interface. Machine-readable plans tell you what a tier costs and includes before you commit — one of the six things the Kin Score reads for commercial clarity.

Published pricing tiers and plan structures.

Rate Limits 1

Rate limits are the difference between a demo that works and a production integration that doesn't fall over. Publishing them is an operational-transparency signal — and a hard requirement for any agent that plans its own throughput.

Documented rate limits and quota policies.

Paystack Rate Limits

6 limits

RATE LIMITS

FinOps 1

Cost, billing, and metering signals let a buyer model the financial operations of an API before it's live. We profile them for the same reason we profile pricing: the money is part of the contract.

Cost, billing, and metering signals for API financial operations.

Features 19

The notable capabilities this provider advertises, captured as structured features so they can be searched and compared instead of read one landing page at a time.

Notable capabilities this provider offers.

Hosted Checkout

Paystack-hosted authorization URL that handles PCI, SCA, OTP, USSD, QR, and 3DS flows for you.

Direct Charge API

Initiate charges programmatically with structured PIN, OTP, phone, birthday, and address challenge steps.

Recurring Subscriptions

Plans plus subscriptions with self-service customer management and email/SMS invoice notifications.

Transaction Splits

Route a single payment to multiple subaccounts on a percentage or flat basis for marketplaces.

Subaccounts

Vendor or merchant profiles with their own settlement bank and percentage charge.

Dedicated Virtual Accounts

NUBAN virtual accounts assigned to individual customers for bank-transfer-based payments with auto-reconciliation.

Payment Pages

No-code Paystack-hosted pages for selling products or accepting donations.

Payment Requests

Email-based invoices with verification, notification, finalization, and archive flows.

Single and Bulk Transfers

Pay out from balance to bank accounts and mobile money wallets, one at a time or as batches.

Bulk Charge

Charge many stored authorizations in a single batch with pause and resume controls.

Refunds

Partial or full refunds with merchant and customer notes.

Disputes and Chargebacks

Programmatic dispute response with signed evidence-upload URLs and resolution workflow.

Settlements

Read net settlement payouts and drill down into the transactions that composed each batch.

Identity Verification

BVN match, BVN resolution, account number resolution, card BIN lookup, country/bank lookup, and AVS state lists.

Multi-Currency

Accept NGN, GHS, ZAR, KES, XOF, EGP, and USD across supported markets.

Multi-Channel

Card, bank transfer, USSD, QR, mobile money (M-Pesa, MTN MoMo, Orange Money, Wave), EFT, Apple Pay, Visa QR.

Webhooks

Signed webhook deliveries for transaction, dispute, refund, transfer, subscription, and invoice events with 72-hour retries.

Test Mode

A complete test environment with test cards covering success, decline, OTP, PIN, and 3DS flows.

Dashboard

First-class merchant dashboard for transactions, customers, subscriptions, transfers, settlements, and disputes.

Scroll within the panel for all 19 ·

Event Specifications 1

Not every API is request/response. AsyncAPI describes the event-driven and streaming side — the webhooks and channels — so the asynchronous half of the interface is documented the same way the synchronous half is.

AsyncAPI definitions for this provider's event-driven and streaming APIs.

Paystack Webhooks

AsyncAPI 2.6 description of Paystack's outbound webhook surface. Paystack notifies a single merchant-configured POST endpoint (the "webhook URL") whenever an event occurs agains...

ASYNCAPI

Semantic Vocabularies 1

JSON-LD contexts give the data shared meaning across APIs. We profile them because semantics are what let a machine reconcile 'customer' here with 'customer' somewhere else.

JSON-LD contexts and semantic vocabularies used across these APIs.

Paystack Context

41 classes · 4 properties

JSON-LD

Spectral Rules 3

Governance rulesets we run against this provider's specs — the automated checks behind parts of the score. Profiling them makes the quality bar explicit and re-runnable, not a matter of opinion.

Paystack API Rules

5 rules · 1 errors · 4 warnings

SPECTRAL

Paystack API Rules

5 rules · 4 warnings

SPECTRAL

Paystack API Rules

10 rules · 2 errors · 7 warnings

SPECTRAL

JSON Schema 9

Standalone JSON Schema definitions describe the data models behind the API. We profile them so the shapes are validatable on their own — useful long after a single request is forgotten.

Standalone JSON Schema definitions for this provider's data models.

Paystack Customer

11 properties

JSON SCHEMA

Paystack Dispute

13 properties

JSON SCHEMA

Paystack Plan

12 properties

JSON SCHEMA

Paystack Refund

12 properties

JSON SCHEMA

Paystack Transaction Split

12 properties

JSON SCHEMA

Paystack Subaccount

16 properties

JSON SCHEMA

Paystack Subscription

12 properties

JSON SCHEMA

Paystack Transaction

14 properties

JSON SCHEMA

Paystack Transfer

12 properties

JSON SCHEMA

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JSON Structure 5

JSON Structure captures the data shapes in a form built for tooling — a complement to JSON Schema that keeps the model machine-legible.

JSON Structure definitions describing this provider's data shapes.

Paystack Customer Structure

11 properties

JSON STRUCTURE

Paystack Split Structure

12 properties

JSON STRUCTURE

Paystack Subscription Structure

12 properties

JSON STRUCTURE

Paystack Transaction Structure

14 properties

JSON STRUCTURE

Paystack Transfer Structure

12 properties

JSON STRUCTURE

Examples 6

Real request and response payloads are what turn a spec from abstract into obvious — and they're one of the twelve things an agent needs to call an API correctly on the first try.

Example request and response payloads for these APIs.

Security Posture 3

Authentication, domain security, vulnerability disclosure, and trust-center signals — the evidence that a provider takes security seriously enough to document it. We profile it because you can't govern what you can't see.

Authentication, domain security, vulnerability disclosure, and trust-center signals.

Paystack Authentication

http · 1 scheme

SECURITY

Paystack Domain Security

TLSv1.3 · DMARC

SECURITY

Paystack Trust Center

ISO 27001

SECURITY

Agentic Access 1

An x-agentic-access contract marks which operations are safe for an agent to run on its own and which need a human in the loop. It is the difference between an API an agent can use and one it can use safely.

Recommended x-agentic-access execution contracts for AI agents.

Paystack Agentic Access

240 operations · 120 acting · 6 human-in-the-loop

240 operations · 120 acting

AGENTIC

Use Cases 9

What developers actually build with this provider — captured so the catalogue answers 'what is this for', not just 'what does this expose'.

What developers build with this provider.

E-commerce Checkout

Drop-in checkout for online stores accepting cards, USSD, bank transfer, and mobile money across Africa.

SaaS Recurring Billing

Subscription-based revenue with plans, automatic renewal, self-service updates, and dunning.

Marketplaces and Multi-Vendor Platforms

Split-payment routing to vendor subaccounts with platform fee retention.

Cross-Border Payments

Accept cards from international customers while settling locally.

Mobile Money Acceptance

M-Pesa, MTN, Orange Money, Wave acceptance in Ghana, Kenya, Côte d'Ivoire.

Bank Transfer Acceptance

Dedicated virtual accounts auto-reconcile inbound NUBAN transfers.

Payouts and Vendor Disbursement

Single and bulk transfers to bank or mobile money for gig platforms and payroll-light apps.

Invoicing and B2B Collections

Issue payment requests by email with verification and reminders.

Donations and Crowdfunding

Payment Pages for one-off donations or product sales without writing checkout code.

Scroll within the panel for all 9 ·

Integrations 10

Pre-built integrations with other platforms tell you where this provider already fits in a stack.

Pre-built integrations with other platforms and tools.

WooCommerce

Official Paystack payment gateway for WooCommerce stores.

Magento and Magento 2

Official Magento extensions for Paystack acceptance.

PrestaShop

Plugins for PrestaShop 1.6 and 1.7.

OpenCart

OpenCart extensions for Paystack.

WHMCS

Hosting and billing platform integration.

Moodle

Course enrolment via Paystack.

Odoo

Payment gateway integration for Odoo 14.

Omnipay

Paystack gateway driver for the PHP Omnipay payment-abstraction library.

Joomla, Drupal, Ghost, Wordpress

Community and official plugins across major CMS platforms.

Stripe

Paystack is a Stripe subsidiary; merchants can operate in Stripe-aligned multi-region setups.

Scroll within the panel for all 10 ·

Solutions 5

Packaged solutions the provider offers on top of the raw API surface.

Packaged solutions this provider offers.

Online Businesses

Hosted checkout for e-commerce and SaaS.

Marketplaces

Splits + subaccounts for multi-vendor platforms.

Subscription Businesses

Plans, subscriptions, and dunning for recurring revenue.

Platforms and Apps

Transfers, dedicated virtual accounts, and identity verification for fintech and platform builds.

Education and Nonprofits

Payment Pages and Payment Requests for donations and tuition collection.

Resources

Every other property we hold for Paystack — documentation, portals, status pages, policies, and corporate surface — grouped by the job it does, following the integrator's arc from getting started to running in production.

Get Started 3

Portal, sign-up, and the first successful call

Agent Surfaces 1

MCP servers, agent skills, and machine-readable catalogs

Company 2

The organization behind the API

← All providers · Data indexed from github.com/api-evangelist/paystack · machine-readable index on apis.io