Going live
Live moves real money, so Payder switches it on for your account after you have tested in the sandbox.
How access works
- Developer account approved. A Payder admin reviews every new account. This unlocks the sandbox.
- Test in the sandbox. Work through the test plan.
- Ask for Live. Contact Payder with your account email and a short description of how you will use payments, refunds and payouts. An admin enables Live on your account.
- Create your live merchant. In the console switch to the Live tab and create the merchant, a live API key and a live webhook secret. These are separate from the sandbox ones.
What changes in live
| Sandbox | Live | |
|---|---|---|
| Base URL | sandbox-api.payder.ng | api.payder.ng |
| Keys | pdr_test_sk_… | pdr_live_sk_… |
| Webhook URL | http or https | https only, publicly reachable |
| returnUrl | http or https | https only |
| Payments | Test cards only | Real cards and bank transfers |
| Payouts | No balance check | Limited to your available balance |
| Payout speed | About 5 seconds | Varies. Some payouts are reviewed by Payder first. |
Your code does not change. Swap the base URL, merchant ID, API key and webhook secret.
Your balance
In live, a payout can only spend what you have actually been paid. Your available balance is every successful payment, minus refunds that did not fail, minus payouts that did not fail. The console shows it, and a payout above it is refused with 422 insufficient_balance.
Pre-launch checklist
- Webhook handler verifies the signature on the raw body, and is idempotent
- Orders are marked paid from webhooks (or a server-side GET), never from the redirect
amountMinorandcurrencyare checked against the order before fulfilment- API keys and webhook secrets are in a secret manager, not in code or the browser
- You handle every error code on the errors page, especially 429 and 5xx with retry and the same idempotency key
- You have reconciliation: a job that GETs any payment, refund or payout still pending after a few minutes
- You ran one small real payment and one small real refund before opening to customers
Suspensions
Payder can suspend a merchant or developer account, for example for suspected fraud. While suspended, API requests return
403 merchant_suspended and the console is locked. Contact Payder to resolve it.