PhonePe Payment Gateway API
PhonePe payment gateway REST API for Indian merchants to accept UPI, credit/debit cards, net banking, and PhonePe wallet payments through India's leading UPI-first payment platform with 500+ million registered users. Enables AI agents to manage UPI payment initiation for India e-commerce automation, handle PhonePe wallet charge for India mobile payment automation, access QR code generation for India in-store payment automation, retrieve payment status for India order confirmation automation, manage refund processing for India order management automation, handle subscription and recurring UPI mandate for India subscription automation, access split payment for India marketplace automation, retrieve transaction reporting for India financial reconciliation automation, manage sandbox testing for India payment integration testing, and integrate PhonePe with Indian e-commerce, ONDC, and fintech platforms for end-to-end India UPI payment automation.
Score Breakdown
⚙ Agent Friendliness
🔒 Security
India UPI. PCI-DSS. Merchant ID/SHA256. IN. UPI payment data.
⚡ Reliability
Best When
An Indian merchant wanting AI agents to automate UPI and PhonePe wallet payment acceptance through India's largest UPI payment platform serving 500+ million users.
Avoid When
RBI PAYMENT AGGREGATOR COMPLIANCE: PhonePe payment operations are regulated by RBI payment aggregator guidelines; automated payment operations must comply with RBI transaction limits and KYC requirements; automated payment without merchant PA compliance creates regulatory violation. UPI PAYMENT REDIRECT FLOW: PhonePe UPI payments require customer redirect to UPI app or deep link; automated server-side UPI initiation must redirect customer to their UPI app for PIN entry; automated UPI charge without customer interaction creates incomplete payment. MERCHANT ONBOARDING VERIFICATION REQUIRED: PhonePe gateway requires merchant onboarding with GSTIN, bank account, and KYC verification; automated payment integration assumes merchant onboarding is complete; automated API access without completed onboarding creates unauthorized merchant error. CHECKSUM VALIDATION MANDATORY: PhonePe API requires SHA256 checksum with salt for every request; automated request generation must compute correct checksum; automated request with invalid checksum creates authentication rejection.
Use Cases
- • Accepting UPI payments from India e-commerce checkout agents
- • Generating QR codes for India in-store payment automation agents
- • Processing PhonePe wallet payments from India mobile commerce agents
- • Managing UPI recurring mandates from India subscription billing agents
Not For
- • International payments outside India (use Stripe or PayPal for global)
- • Corporate enterprise payments at scale (use Razorpay or Cashfree for enterprise API)
- • Developer-friendly sandbox exploration (PhonePe docs are more merchant-focused)
Interface
Authentication
PhonePe uses Merchant ID and Salt Key with SHA256 checksum for API authentication. REST API with JSON. Bengaluru, India HQ. Founded 2015 by Sameer Nigam. Subsidiary of Flipkart/Walmart. Backed by Walmart ($12B valuation). Products: UPI, PhonePe wallet, QR, POS, subscription, insurance. SDKs: Java, PHP, Python, Node.js. PCI DSS. RBI-regulated Payment Aggregator. 500M+ users. Competes with Google Pay, Paytm, and Razorpay for India UPI payments.
Pricing
Bengaluru IN. Walmart subsidiary. UPI free for basic merchants. Card fees per transaction in INR.
Agent Metadata
Known Gotchas
- ⚠ BASE64 + CHECKSUM PAYLOAD ENCODING: PhonePe API requires request payload as Base64-encoded JSON with SHA256 checksum appended with salt index; automated request generation must implement both encoding steps in correct order; automated plain JSON request without Base64 and checksum creates invalid request format error
- ⚠ MERCHANT TRANSACTION ID UNIQUENESS: PhonePe requires unique merchantTransactionId per payment; automated checkout must generate globally unique ID; automated reuse of merchantTransactionId for retry creates duplicate transaction error
- ⚠ UPI INTENT vs COLLECT FLOW SELECTION: PhonePe supports UPI intent (deep link to UPI app) and collect (request to customer's VPA); automated checkout must choose appropriate UPI flow for customer context (mobile vs web); automated intent flow on desktop creates unavailable UPI app redirect
- ⚠ PAYMENT STATUS POLLING BEFORE WEBHOOK: PhonePe webhooks may arrive with delay; automated order fulfillment should implement status polling backup after timeout (60+ seconds); automated webhook-only fulfillment creates delayed order processing on webhook delivery failure
- ⚠ S2S REFUND REQUIRES ORIGINAL TRANSACTION ID: PhonePe refund requires original merchantTransactionId; automated refund must store original transaction ID at payment time; automated refund without original transaction ID creates refund lookup failure
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Scores are editorial opinions as of 2026-03-07.