Create Charge

Create a one-time payment charge without requiring a product in Khaime’s catalog. Ideal for WooCommerce or custom integrations where products live on the merchant’s platform.

This is the recommended endpoint for plugin integrations. Use Create Session if you need Stripe Checkout hosted pages instead.

Request Body

amount

integer

required

Charge amount in smallest currency unit (cents, kobo) — the customer’s payment currency. Must be calculated using /pricing/calculate when currency conversion is involved — we validate it matches our calculation.

currency

string

required

3-letter ISO currency code for what the customer pays. Example: USD, NGN, GBP

total_amount

integer

required

The full amount the merchant is collecting, in smallest currency unit of total_currency. This is inclusive of all fees (shipping, handling, etc.) — not just the base product price.Why required: This field is the source of truth for what gets credited to the merchant’s wallet, and anchors our server-side conversion when multicurrency is involved.

No conversion: Pass the same value as amount
Multicurrency: Pass the total in the merchant’s baseline currency (e.g. 8500 for $85.00 USD)
Marketplace: Pass the total in the sub-merchant’s baseline currency

Example: merchant prices a service at

85 USD with

5 shipping = $90 total, customer pays ₦144,000 NGN — set total_amount: 9000, total_currency: "USD".

original_product_amount is accepted as a deprecated alias and will continue to work.

total_currency

string

required

ISO 4217 currency code for total_amount. This is the merchant’s (or sub-merchant’s) pricing currency.

No conversion: Pass the same value as currency
Multicurrency / Marketplace: Pass the merchant’s baseline currency

original_product_currency is accepted as a deprecated alias and will continue to work.

converted_total_amount

integer

Your pre-computed conversion of total_amount into currency (the customer’s payment currency). Optional — but strongly recommended when total_currency differs from currency.When provided, we cross-validate:

converted_total_currency must equal currency
converted_total_amount must equal amount (within 1% tolerance)

This lets us catch discrepancies before hitting the exchange-rate API and gives you an explicit paper trail of what rate you applied.Must be provided together with converted_total_currency.

converted_total_currency

string

The currency of converted_total_amount. Must match currency. Required when converted_total_amount is provided.

description

string

Human-readable description of the charge. Shown on payment receipts.

reference

string

Your unique reference for this charge. Used for idempotency and reconciliation.

callback_url

string

Canonical redirect URL after payment.

Paystack: customer returns here after hosted checkout
StartButton: sent through as redirectUrl during payment initialization
Stripe: use return_url in confirmPayment() on the client

redirectUrl

string

Camel-case alias for callback_url. Useful for StartButton-oriented integrations.

redirect_url

string

Snake-case alias for callback_url.

customer

object

required

Show Customer fields

string

required

Customer’s email address.

first_name

string

Customer’s first name.

last_name

string

Customer’s last name.

country

string

Customer country code or country name. Recommended for reporting, fee detection, and customer geography analytics. Examples: GH, NG, United States.

country_code

string

Alias for customer.country. Use this if your checkout already stores ISO-2 country codes as country_code.

user_country

string

Alias for customer.country. Accepted as a top-level field for storefronts that already send user_country.

customer_country

string

Alias for customer.country. Accepted as a top-level field and inside metadata.

country_code

string

Alias for customer.country. Accepted as a top-level field.

billing_country

string

Billing country fallback when customer.country is absent. Accepted as a top-level field and inside metadata.

shipping_country

string

Shipping country fallback when customer.country is absent. Accepted as a top-level field and inside metadata.

Send any country value you already have. Khaime normalizes common country names and ISO-2 codes, then stores the resolved value on the transaction for customer geography reports. If no country is provided, Stripe/Paystack card country may be used after payment; otherwise the transaction may appear as Unknown in geography analytics.

metadata

object

Custom key-value pairs attached to the charge. Values must be strings, numbers, or booleans — no nested objects.

Show Example

{
  "wc_order_id": "123",
  "source": "woocommerce",
  "line_items": "[{\"name\":\"Widget\",\"qty\":2}]"
}

preview

boolean

default:"false"

When true, returns a fee and conversion breakdown without creating any database records or calling any payment gateway. Use this to show the customer exactly what they’ll pay before initiating the real charge.All validation still runs — amount mismatch, currency conversion, sub-merchant, etc. — so a successful preview response means your actual charge will go through.See Preview Mode below for the response shape.

Marketplace Fields

This field is only relevant if your account is set up as a marketplace operator. See Setup Marketplace to enable marketplace mode.

sub_merchant_id

integer

The Khaime educator ID of the sub-merchant this charge is being collected for. Must have active status in your marketplace.When present, the webhook additionally credits the sub-merchant’s wallet for total_amount minus your marketplace commission, in total_currency. Your marketplace wallet is still credited as normal.

How the split works

On webhook receipt after a successful payment:

Your marketplace wallet is credited for amount minus the Khaime platform fee — same as a standard charge.
The sub-merchant wallet is additionally credited for total_amount minus your commission, in total_currency. No additional platform fee is deducted from the sub-merchant — it was already taken on the full charge.

Commission is resolved in this order:

Per-merchant commission_rate set via Update Commission
Your portfolio default marketplace_commission_rate
0 if neither is set

The sub-merchant wallet transaction stores the full breakdown in conversion_details:

{
  "source": "marketplace_split",
  "marketplace_id": 15,
  "charge_currency": "NGN",
  "gross_product_amount": 140000,
  "commission_rate": 0.05,
  "commission_amount": 7000,
  "net_credited": 133000,
  "cart_identifier": "intent_abc123"
}

The sub-merchant must have status: active in your marketplace. Pending or suspended sub-merchants will be skipped — your marketplace wallet will still be credited normally.

Response

The response varies based on which gateway Khaime routes to:

Stripe
Paystack
StartButton

{
  "success": true,
  "data": {
    "charge_id": "charge_a1b2c3d4",
    "payment_gateway": "stripe",
    "client_secret": "pi_3Abc_secret_Xyz",
    "publishable_key": "pk_test_...",
    "stripe_account_id": "acct_1ABC...",
    "transaction_id": "456",
    "fee_details": {
      "base_amount": 5000,
      "transaction_fee": 320,
      "total_amount": 5320,
      "customer_pays_fees": true
    }
  }
}

Use client_secret and publishable_key to mount Stripe Payment Element.

{
  "success": true,
  "data": {
    "charge_id": "charge_e5f6g7h8",
    "payment_gateway": "paystack",
    "payment_url": "https://checkout.paystack.com/abc123",
    "paystack_reference": "intent_a1b2c3d4",
    "transaction_id": "789",
    "fee_details": {
      "base_amount": 750000,
      "transaction_fee": 48000,
      "total_amount": 798000,
      "customer_pays_fees": true
    }
  }
}

Redirect the customer to payment_url. They return to your callback_url after payment.

{
  "success": true,
  "data": {
    "charge_id": "intent_0abc2d3c-558e-4db8-80bf-b2c267203f64",
    "payment_gateway": "startbutton",
    "payment_url": "https://pay-sandbox.startbutton.tech/#/shc-arw6qxtuxa",
    "startbutton_reference": "sb_1776282522145_2lgw9sczh",
    "amount": 25563,
    "currency": "GHS",
    "status": "pending",
    "mode": "live",
    "payment_type": "one_time",
    "description": "Order #2496 from testing-khaime-woocommerce",
    "partner_reference": "wc_2496_xHzrUp9r",
    "transaction_id": 6815,
    "transaction_v2_id": 32875,
    "fee_details": {
      "base_amount": 25563,
      "transaction_fee": 1534,
      "total_amount": 25563,
      "customer_pays_fees": false,
      "is_international": true
    }
  }
}

Redirect the customer to payment_url. If you supplied callback_url, redirectUrl, or redirect_url, Khaime forwards the resolved redirect to StartButton and stores it in metadata for downstream processing.

Gateway Routing

The currency field determines which gateway processes the payment:

Currency	Gateway
NGN	Paystack
GHS, KES, ZAR, TZS, XAF, XOF	StartButton
USD, EUR, GBP, CAD, AUD	Stripe

Preview Mode

Pass "preview": true in the request body to calculate fees and FX conversion without creating a charge. The response is identical in structure to a normal charge response except:

preview: true is set at the top level
No charge_id, client_secret, payment_url, or transaction_id — no gateway was called
No database records are created

{
  "success": true,
  "message": "Charge preview calculated successfully",
  "data": {
    "preview": true,
    "payment_gateway": "paystack",
    "mode": "sandbox",
    "is_international": true,
    "business_country": "US",
    "customer_country": "NG",
    "customer": {
      "currency": "NGN",
      "base_amount": 1440000,
      "transaction_fee": 92160,
      "total_charged": 1440000,
      "pays_fees": false
    },
    "business": {
      "currency": "USD",
      "priced_amount": 9000
    },
    "conversion": {
      "original_amount": 9000,
      "original_currency": "USD",
      "converted_amount": 1440000,
      "converted_currency": "NGN",
      "exchange_rate": 1600
    }
  }
}

customer and business are always in different currencies when multicurrency is involved — do not compare customer.base_amount with business.priced_amount directly. Use the conversion.exchange_rate to relate them. conversion is only present when currency differs from total_currency.

Typical workflow:

1. POST /payments/charge  { preview: true, ...fields }
   → Show breakdown to customer
2. Customer confirms
3. POST /payments/charge  { ...same fields, no preview }
   → Actual charge created, payment URL / client secret returned

Amount Validation (Double Check)

Both you and Khaime calculate the charge amount independently — they must match. Your workflow:

Call /pricing/calculate with total_amount and target_currency
Use the returned local.amount as your amount in the charge request
Optionally, pass converted_total_amount and converted_total_currency to make your pre-computed conversion explicit
We recalculate using the same conversion service and verify they match (1% tolerance for rounding)

Why double validation? This ensures both parties agree on the conversion. If there’s a mismatch, something is wrong — either a bug, stale rate, or manipulation attempt.

# Step 1: Get the converted amount
curl "https://api.khaime.com/api/v1/partner/pricing/calculate?amount=9000&target_currency=NGN" \
  -H "X-API-Key: pk_sandbox_your_key"
# Returns: { "local": { "amount": 1440000, "currency": "NGN" } }

# Step 2: Use that amount in your charge
curl -X POST "https://api.khaime.com/api/v1/partner/payments/charge" \
  -H "X-API-Key: pk_sandbox_your_key" \
  -d '{
    "amount": 1440000,
    "currency": "NGN",
    "total_amount": 9000,
    "total_currency": "USD",
    "converted_total_amount": 1440000,
    "converted_total_currency": "NGN",
    ...
  }'

Error Codes

Status	Error	Fix
`400`	`Amount mismatch`	Your `amount` doesn’t match our calculation. Use `/pricing/calculate` to get the correct amount.
`400`	`converted_total_amount does not match amount`	Your pre-computed conversion differs from `amount`. Ensure both represent the charge total in the same currency.
`400`	`converted_total_currency must match the charge currency`	`converted_total_currency` must equal `currency`.
`400`	`Both converted_total_amount and converted_total_currency must be provided together`	Supply both fields or neither.
`422`	`"amount" is required`	Include `amount` — use `/pricing/calculate` to convert `total_amount` to the customer’s currency.
`422`	Missing `total_amount` / `total_currency`	Include `total_amount` and `total_currency` (or their aliases `original_product_amount` / `original_product_currency`).
`400`	`Unable to convert from X to Y`	Currency conversion failed — try again or use a supported currency.
`400`	Missing required fields	Include `amount`, `currency`, `customer.email`.
`401`	Invalid API key	Check your `X-API-Key` header.
`422`	Metadata validation failed	Ensure metadata values are scalar (no nested objects).

curl -X POST https://api.khaime.com/api/v1/partner/payments/charge \
  -H "X-API-Key: pk_sandbox_your_key" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "preview": true,
    "amount": 1440000,
    "currency": "NGN",
    "total_amount": 9000,
    "total_currency": "USD",
    "description": "Design consultation",
    "customer": {
      "email": "jane@example.com",
      "first_name": "Jane",
      "last_name": "Doe",
      "country": "NG"
    }
  }'

Documentation Index

​Create Charge

​Request Body

​Marketplace Fields

​How the split works

​Response

​Gateway Routing

​Preview Mode

​Amount Validation (Double Check)

​Error Codes

Create Charge

Request Body

Marketplace Fields

How the split works

Response

Gateway Routing

Preview Mode

Amount Validation (Double Check)

Error Codes