Sofort

Start accepting payments using Sofort, a favorite payment method in Europe.

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To start accepting Sofort payments, please contact your customer success manager.

Process a Sofort payment

You process a Sofort payment in two steps:

1. Request a Sofort payment
2. Redirect the customer

Step 1: Request a Sofort payment

The request

Use the details below to set up your request.

Endpoint live

POSThttps://api.checkout.com/payments

Endpoint sandbox

POSThttps://api.sandbox.checkout.com/payments

Header parameters

Body parameters

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The table below describes the minimum recommended fields. You can find the full list, as well as complete request and response examples, in our API reference.

Request example

{
  "source": {
    "type": "sofort"
  },
  "amount": 1000,
  "currency": "EUR"
}

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If a customer ID or email is not provided in the request, we automatically create a customer profile and return the customer id in the response.

The response

If a payment ID is returned, your request was successful.

Example response

{
  "id": "pay_ylcikkxovyjunekfu7a444mmvy",
  "status": "Pending",
  "customer": {
    "id": "cus_izfg7cwguvxuhaquys6qtof2f4"
  },
  "_links": {
    "self": {
      "href": "https://api.sandbox.checkout.com/payments/pay_ylcikkxovyjunekfu7a444mmvy"
    },
    "redirect": {
      "href": "https://sandbox.checkout.com/LP.Core/api/payment/108689"
    }
  }
}

Step 2: Redirect the customer

Redirect your customer to the redirect link’s href in the response to Step 1. The redirect transfers the customer to their bank's website where they will be asked to enter their authorization details; if successful, the payment can be approved.

Once completed, the customer is transferred to your predefined success or failure URL. Confirmation of a Sofort payment is communicated only through webhooks. When you receive a payment_captured webhook notification, the transaction has been completed successfully. Until the payment_captured webhook is received (response code 10000), all payments are labeled as Pending.

Get details about a Sofort payment

You can retrieve details about an existing Sofort payment with the following request.

The request

Use the details below to set up your request.

Endpoint live

GEThttps://api.checkout.com/payments/{payment_id}

Endpoint sandbox

GEThttps://api.sandbox.checkout.com/payments/{payment_id}

Header and path parameters

The response

If the payment has been approved by a customer on the banking page, the response will include the bic, iban, and account_holder_name fields, and you will have received a payment_capture_pending webhook.

Example responses

{
  "id": "pay_ylcikkxovyjunekfu7a444mmvy",
  "requested_on": "2018-11-22T15:58:35Z",
  "source": {
    "type": "sofort"
    },
  "amount": 100,
  "currency": "EUR",
  "payment_type": "Regular",
  "status": "Pending",
  "risk": {
    "flagged": false
  },
  "customer": {
    "id": "cus_izfg7cwguvxuhaquys6qtof2f4"
  },
  "_links": {
    "self": {
      "href": "https://api.sandbox.checkout.com/payments/pay_ylcikkxovyjunekfu7a444mmvy"
    }
  }
}

{
  "id": "pay_ylcikkxovyjunekfu7a444mmvy",
  "requested_on": "2018-11-22T15:58:35Z",
  "source": {
    "type": "sofort",
    "bic": "SFRTDE20XXX",
    "iban": "DE06000000000023456789",
    "account_holder_name": "Max Mustermann"
  },
  "amount": 100,
  "currency": "EUR",
  "payment_type": "Regular",
  "status": "Pending",
  "risk": {
    "flagged": false
  },
  "customer": {
    "id": "cus_izfg7cwguvxuhaquys6qtof2f4"
  },
  "_links": {
    "self": {
      "href": "https://api.sandbox.checkout.com/payments/pay_ylcikkxovyjunekfu7a444mmvy"
    }
  }
}

{
  "id": "pay_ylcikkxovyjunekfu7a444mmvy",
  "requested_on": "2018-11-22T16:04:35Z",
  "source": {
    "type": "sofort",
    "bic": "SFRTDE20XXX",
    "iban": "DE06000000000023456789",
    "account_holder_name": "Max Mustermann"
  },
  "amount": 100,
  "currency": "EUR",
  "payment_type": "Regular",
  "approved": true,
  "status": "Captured",
  "risk": {
    "flagged": false
  },
  "customer": {
    "id": "cus_izfg7cwguvxuhaquys6qtof2f4"
  },
  "_links": {
    "self": {
      "href": "https://api.sandbox.checkout.com/payments/pay_ylcikkxovyjunekfu7a444mmvy"
    },
    "actions": {
      "href": "https://api.sandbox.checkout.com/payments/pay_ylcikkxovyjunekfu7a444mmvy/actions"
    },
    "refund": {
      "href": "https://api.sandbox.checkout.com/payments/pay_ylcikkxovyjunekfu7a444mmvy/refunds"
    }
  }
}

Refund a Sofort payment

Sofort supports both partial and full refunds. You can refund a payment through the Hub or using the refund API.

Cancel a Sofort payment

If the customer cancels or fails to complete the transaction at any point after the payment is created, it will automatically be canceled, and we’ll send you a payment_canceled webhook.

Webhooks

When using Sofort, you may receive the following webhooks.

Testing Sofort

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To start testing, you'll need to:

• Create a test account.
• Contact your customer success manager or integrations engineer to activate Sofort payments in the sandbox environment.
• Also, if you want to test capturing a Sofort payment, you will need to contact us so we can manually trigger it in sandbox.

1. Create a Sofort transaction as above, and then follow the redirect link to Sofort/Klarna's website.
2. Into the 'Bank name, BLZ, IBAN or BIC' field enter 88888888, and then click 'Next' to continue.
3. Enter 88888888 in the 'Account number' field, and 123456 in the 'PIN' field. Click 'Next'.
4. Select any account on the next page and then click 'Next'.
5. Enter 12345 in the 'TAN' field and click 'Next'.
6. You should then be redirected to your predefined success URL.

Can we help?

Thanks for using Checkout.com. If you need any help or support, then message our support team at [email protected].