Quickstart: Accept Your First Payment with Accelebit

The Accelebit Payments API is a server-to-server gateway — your backend sends card and billing details directly to the API and receives a payment result in real time. This guide walks you through the full flow: getting your API keys, creating a customer, submitting a test payment, and handling the response.

Get your API keys

Key type	Prefix	Use
Secret key	`smtgw_sk_`	Server-side API calls. Never expose this in client-side code.
Public key	`smtgw_pk_`	Identifies your account in client-side contexts. Not used for API calls.

All API requests require your secret key in the X-API-Key header. During development, use a test key (prefixed smtgw_sk_test_) — it will never trigger real charges.

Create a customer

Before processing payments, create a customer record. The externalId field is your own identifier for this customer — for example, your internal user ID.

curl -X POST https://api.gateway.accelebit.com/v1/customers \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "X-API-Key: smtgw_sk_test_your_secret_key" \
  -H "Idempotency-Key: cust_$(uuidgen)" \
  -d '{
    "externalId": "user_12345",
    "email": "jane@example.com"
  }'

{
  "data": {
    "id": "a1b2c3d4-e5f6-7890-abcd-ef1234567890",
    "externalId": "user_12345",
    "email": "jane@example.com",
    "createdAt": "2026-04-09T12:00:00.000Z"
  }
}

Save the returned id — you will pass it as customerId in the next step.

Create a test payment

Send a POST /v1/payments request with the card details, billing address, and the customer ID from the previous step. Pass amounts as decimal strings (for example, "55.00", not the integer 5500).

curl -X POST https://api.gateway.accelebit.com/v1/payments \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "X-API-Key: smtgw_sk_test_your_secret_key" \
  -H "Idempotency-Key: pay_$(uuidgen)" \
  -d '{
    "amount": "55.00",
    "currency": "EUR",
    "paymentMethod": "card",
    "customerId": "user_12345",
    "card": {
      "number": "4111111111111111",
      "expiryMonth": "12",
      "expiryYear": "28",
      "cvv": "123",
      "holderName": "Jane Doe"
    },
    "billing": {
      "firstName": "Jane",
      "lastName": "Doe",
      "email": "jane@example.com",
      "phone": "+35699123456",
      "country": "MT",
      "address": "123 Main Street",
      "city": "Valletta",
      "postalCode": "VLT 1000"
    },
    "returnUrl": "https://yoursite.com/payment/callback",
    "merchantRef": "order_98765"
  }'

{
  "data": {
    "id": "f47ac10b-58cc-4372-a567-0e02b2c3d479",
    "status": "captured",
    "amount": "55.00",
    "currency": "EUR",
    "provider": "everest",
    "threeDsRequired": false,
    "threeDsData": null,
    "createdAt": "2026-04-09T12:01:00.000Z"
  }
}

A "status": "captured" response means the payment was authorised and captured successfully.

If the response contains "threeDsRequired": true, the cardholder must complete a 3D Secure challenge before the payment can be captured. Follow the redirect instructions in the 3D Secure guide to complete the flow.

Handle webhooks

Configure a webhook endpoint in the Dashboard to receive real-time payment notifications. When a payment completes, Accelebit sends a payment.captured or payment.failed event to your endpoint:

{
  "event": "payment.captured",
  "data": {
    "transactionId": "f47ac10b-58cc-4372-a567-0e02b2c3d479",
    "merchantId": "your_merchant_id",
    "status": "captured",
    "amount": 5500,
    "currency": "EUR"
  },
  "timestamp": "2026-04-09T12:01:01.000Z"
}

Use webhooks rather than polling to update your order state reliably. See Webhooks for signature verification and retry behavior.

Check payment status

You can query the current status of any payment at any time using its id:

curl https://api.gateway.accelebit.com/v1/payments/f47ac10b-58cc-4372-a567-0e02b2c3d479 \
  -H "X-API-Key: smtgw_sk_test_your_secret_key"

This is useful for reconciliation or to confirm a payment’s final state after a webhook event.

Next steps

Authentication

Understand API key types, key management, idempotency, and rate limits.

Server-to-server guide

Complete integration walkthrough including 3D Secure handling.

Webhooks

Set up signature verification and understand retry behavior.

Get Started

Guides

Webhooks

Quickstart: Accept Your First Payment with Accelebit

Next steps

Authentication

Server-to-server guide

Webhooks

​Next steps

Authentication

Server-to-server guide

Webhooks

Next steps