Create a payment
const url = 'https://api.elephants.inc/api/v1/payments';const options = { method: 'POST', headers: {Authorization: 'Bearer <token>', 'Content-Type': 'application/json'}, body: '{"amount":{"amount":"example","currency":"example"},"internal_notes":"example","payment_contact_id":"2489E9AD-2EE2-8E00-8EC9-32D5F69181C0","payout_reason":"example","statement_description":"example"}'};
try { const response = await fetch(url, options); const data = await response.json(); console.log(data);} catch (error) { console.error(error);}curl --request POST \ --url https://api.elephants.inc/api/v1/payments \ --header 'Authorization: Bearer <token>' \ --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \ --data '{ "amount": { "amount": "example", "currency": "example" }, "internal_notes": "example", "payment_contact_id": "2489E9AD-2EE2-8E00-8EC9-32D5F69181C0", "payout_reason": "example", "statement_description": "example" }'Creates a payment to a payment contact whose destination is an Ele ID:
another Elephants account, paid in USD with no quote and no fee, so the
recipient receives exactly amount.
Only Ele ID contacts are accepted; a bank or crypto contact is refused with
unsupported_rail and is paid through the payment preflight (a quote) and
execute endpoints. The payment is created awaiting approval; funds move
when an approver confirms it through the approvals flow.
An Idempotency-Key header makes a retry return the original payment. A
request without one is not replay-protected.
Authorizations
Section titled “Authorizations”Request Bodyrequired
Section titled “Request Bodyrequired”Payment parameters
object
Coupled amount+currency to send. The recipient receives the same amount; only USD is accepted today
object
Decimal string at the currency’s precision, e.g. “10.50”
Three-letter currency code, e.g. “USD”
Optional notes kept with the payment for your organization only
ID of the payment contact to pay (a contact paid by Ele ID)
Payout reason code, e.g. “PYR001”
What the recipient sees on their transaction
Example generated
{ "amount": { "amount": "example", "currency": "example" }, "internal_notes": "example", "payment_contact_id": "2489E9AD-2EE2-8E00-8EC9-32D5F69181C0", "payout_reason": "example", "statement_description": "example"}Responses
Section titled “Responses”The payment, awaiting approval
object
Whether cancelPayment will be accepted right now. True only while a crypto withdrawal waits for the custody partner’s approval; earlier states resolve on their own and later ones are on-chain.
Coupled amount+currency deducted from the sender
object
Decimal string at the currency’s precision, e.g. “10.50”
Three-letter currency code, e.g. “USD”
object
The domain event’s id
The event stream it was written to, e.g. “payment_contact_events”
The id of the aggregate the event belongs to
The event type, e.g. “payment_contact.created”
Coupled amount+currency delivered to the recipient
object
Decimal string at the currency’s precision, e.g. “10.50”
Three-letter currency code, e.g. “USD”
The payment batch this payment is one row of; pass to getPaymentBatch. Null for a payment sent on its own. A batch row has no approval request of its own: the batch’s request covers it.
The quote the payment was executed from. Null for a payment to an Ele ID, which is created without a quote.
Non-contractual raw rail state for diagnostics
Id of this payment’s row in the transactions feed — pass to getTransaction. Null when the payment has no feed row: legacy payments that predate the feed, or payments whose feed entries have been discarded or archived.
Example
{ "rail": "fiat", "status": "awaiting_approval", "tag": "vendor"}Invalid request parameters or body
Error response. error.type is the machine-readable code — branch on it, never on error.message or the HTTP status. error.message is display-grade prose safe to render to a user; when a failure has no specific copy it falls back to a generic sentence, so it never carries a machine code. Unrecognised failures collapse to the generic unprocessable_entity code, so treat type as an open enum: match the codes you handle and fall through to a default branch for the rest.
object
object
Structured error details (e.g. validation errors), when present
Display-grade message, safe to render verbatim. Never a machine code — do not branch on it.
Correlation ID for this request (also in the x-request-id response header). Include it when contacting support.
object
Method used to deliver this challenge
Challenge expiry
Sudo session ID returned to completeStepUp
3-digit number-matching code. This response is the ORIGINATING surface: display the code; a user approving from the Ele mobile app is asked to enter it. Null only for challenges minted before match codes existed.
Available verification methods
The step-up authentication this challenge was minted from — a DIFFERENT id from id (the sudo session). completeStepUp takes id as sudo_session_id; requestStepUpFallback takes this one.
object
object
Machine-readable error code from a stable vocabulary (open enum — handle unknown values)
Example generated
{ "error": { "details": "example", "message": "example", "request_id": "example", "step_up": { "delivery": "example", "expires_at": "2026-04-15T12:00:00Z", "id": "example", "match_code": "example", "methods": [ "example" ], "step_up_authentication_id": "2489E9AD-2EE2-8E00-8EC9-32D5F69181C0", "webauthn": { "allow_credentials": [ { "id": "example", "transports": [ "example" ], "type": "example" } ], "challenge": "example", "challenge_id": "2489E9AD-2EE2-8E00-8EC9-32D5F69181C0", "rp_id": "example", "timeout": 1, "user_verification": "example" } }, "type": "example" }}Missing, invalid, or expired bearer token
Error response. error.type is the machine-readable code — branch on it, never on error.message or the HTTP status. error.message is display-grade prose safe to render to a user; when a failure has no specific copy it falls back to a generic sentence, so it never carries a machine code. Unrecognised failures collapse to the generic unprocessable_entity code, so treat type as an open enum: match the codes you handle and fall through to a default branch for the rest.
object
object
Structured error details (e.g. validation errors), when present
Display-grade message, safe to render verbatim. Never a machine code — do not branch on it.
Correlation ID for this request (also in the x-request-id response header). Include it when contacting support.
object
Method used to deliver this challenge
Challenge expiry
Sudo session ID returned to completeStepUp
3-digit number-matching code. This response is the ORIGINATING surface: display the code; a user approving from the Ele mobile app is asked to enter it. Null only for challenges minted before match codes existed.
Available verification methods
The step-up authentication this challenge was minted from — a DIFFERENT id from id (the sudo session). completeStepUp takes id as sudo_session_id; requestStepUpFallback takes this one.
object
object
Machine-readable error code from a stable vocabulary (open enum — handle unknown values)
Example generated
{ "error": { "details": "example", "message": "example", "request_id": "example", "step_up": { "delivery": "example", "expires_at": "2026-04-15T12:00:00Z", "id": "example", "match_code": "example", "methods": [ "example" ], "step_up_authentication_id": "2489E9AD-2EE2-8E00-8EC9-32D5F69181C0", "webauthn": { "allow_credentials": [ { "id": "example", "transports": [ "example" ], "type": "example" } ], "challenge": "example", "challenge_id": "2489E9AD-2EE2-8E00-8EC9-32D5F69181C0", "rp_id": "example", "timeout": 1, "user_verification": "example" } }, "type": "example" }}Error response. error.type is the machine-readable code — branch on it, never on error.message or the HTTP status. error.message is display-grade prose safe to render to a user; when a failure has no specific copy it falls back to a generic sentence, so it never carries a machine code. Unrecognised failures collapse to the generic unprocessable_entity code, so treat type as an open enum: match the codes you handle and fall through to a default branch for the rest.
Error response. error.type is the machine-readable code — branch on it, never on error.message or the HTTP status. error.message is display-grade prose safe to render to a user; when a failure has no specific copy it falls back to a generic sentence, so it never carries a machine code. Unrecognised failures collapse to the generic unprocessable_entity code, so treat type as an open enum: match the codes you handle and fall through to a default branch for the rest.
object
object
Structured error details (e.g. validation errors), when present
Display-grade message, safe to render verbatim. Never a machine code — do not branch on it.
Correlation ID for this request (also in the x-request-id response header). Include it when contacting support.
object
Method used to deliver this challenge
Challenge expiry
Sudo session ID returned to completeStepUp
3-digit number-matching code. This response is the ORIGINATING surface: display the code; a user approving from the Ele mobile app is asked to enter it. Null only for challenges minted before match codes existed.
Available verification methods
The step-up authentication this challenge was minted from — a DIFFERENT id from id (the sudo session). completeStepUp takes id as sudo_session_id; requestStepUpFallback takes this one.
object
object
Machine-readable error code from a stable vocabulary (open enum — handle unknown values)
Example generated
{ "error": { "details": "example", "message": "example", "request_id": "example", "step_up": { "delivery": "example", "expires_at": "2026-04-15T12:00:00Z", "id": "example", "match_code": "example", "methods": [ "example" ], "step_up_authentication_id": "2489E9AD-2EE2-8E00-8EC9-32D5F69181C0", "webauthn": { "allow_credentials": [ { "id": "example", "transports": [ "example" ], "type": "example" } ], "challenge": "example", "challenge_id": "2489E9AD-2EE2-8E00-8EC9-32D5F69181C0", "rp_id": "example", "timeout": 1, "user_verification": "example" } }, "type": "example" }}Error response. error.type is the machine-readable code — branch on it, never on error.message or the HTTP status. error.message is display-grade prose safe to render to a user; when a failure has no specific copy it falls back to a generic sentence, so it never carries a machine code. Unrecognised failures collapse to the generic unprocessable_entity code, so treat type as an open enum: match the codes you handle and fall through to a default branch for the rest.
Error response. error.type is the machine-readable code — branch on it, never on error.message or the HTTP status. error.message is display-grade prose safe to render to a user; when a failure has no specific copy it falls back to a generic sentence, so it never carries a machine code. Unrecognised failures collapse to the generic unprocessable_entity code, so treat type as an open enum: match the codes you handle and fall through to a default branch for the rest.
object
object
Structured error details (e.g. validation errors), when present
Display-grade message, safe to render verbatim. Never a machine code — do not branch on it.
Correlation ID for this request (also in the x-request-id response header). Include it when contacting support.
object
Method used to deliver this challenge
Challenge expiry
Sudo session ID returned to completeStepUp
3-digit number-matching code. This response is the ORIGINATING surface: display the code; a user approving from the Ele mobile app is asked to enter it. Null only for challenges minted before match codes existed.
Available verification methods
The step-up authentication this challenge was minted from — a DIFFERENT id from id (the sudo session). completeStepUp takes id as sudo_session_id; requestStepUpFallback takes this one.
object
object
Machine-readable error code from a stable vocabulary (open enum — handle unknown values)
Example generated
{ "error": { "details": "example", "message": "example", "request_id": "example", "step_up": { "delivery": "example", "expires_at": "2026-04-15T12:00:00Z", "id": "example", "match_code": "example", "methods": [ "example" ], "step_up_authentication_id": "2489E9AD-2EE2-8E00-8EC9-32D5F69181C0", "webauthn": { "allow_credentials": [ { "id": "example", "transports": [ "example" ], "type": "example" } ], "challenge": "example", "challenge_id": "2489E9AD-2EE2-8E00-8EC9-32D5F69181C0", "rp_id": "example", "timeout": 1, "user_verification": "example" } }, "type": "example" }}Idempotency_key_reused: the Idempotency-Key already created a payment with other terms
Error response. error.type is the machine-readable code — branch on it, never on error.message or the HTTP status. error.message is display-grade prose safe to render to a user; when a failure has no specific copy it falls back to a generic sentence, so it never carries a machine code. Unrecognised failures collapse to the generic unprocessable_entity code, so treat type as an open enum: match the codes you handle and fall through to a default branch for the rest.
object
object
Structured error details (e.g. validation errors), when present
Display-grade message, safe to render verbatim. Never a machine code — do not branch on it.
Correlation ID for this request (also in the x-request-id response header). Include it when contacting support.
object
Method used to deliver this challenge
Challenge expiry
Sudo session ID returned to completeStepUp
3-digit number-matching code. This response is the ORIGINATING surface: display the code; a user approving from the Ele mobile app is asked to enter it. Null only for challenges minted before match codes existed.
Available verification methods
The step-up authentication this challenge was minted from — a DIFFERENT id from id (the sudo session). completeStepUp takes id as sudo_session_id; requestStepUpFallback takes this one.
object
object
Machine-readable error code from a stable vocabulary (open enum — handle unknown values)
Example generated
{ "error": { "details": "example", "message": "example", "request_id": "example", "step_up": { "delivery": "example", "expires_at": "2026-04-15T12:00:00Z", "id": "example", "match_code": "example", "methods": [ "example" ], "step_up_authentication_id": "2489E9AD-2EE2-8E00-8EC9-32D5F69181C0", "webauthn": { "allow_credentials": [ { "id": "example", "transports": [ "example" ], "type": "example" } ], "challenge": "example", "challenge_id": "2489E9AD-2EE2-8E00-8EC9-32D5F69181C0", "rp_id": "example", "timeout": 1, "user_verification": "example" } }, "type": "example" }}Error response. error.type is the machine-readable code — branch on it, never on error.message or the HTTP status. error.message is display-grade prose safe to render to a user; when a failure has no specific copy it falls back to a generic sentence, so it never carries a machine code. Unrecognised failures collapse to the generic unprocessable_entity code, so treat type as an open enum: match the codes you handle and fall through to a default branch for the rest.
Error response. error.type is the machine-readable code — branch on it, never on error.message or the HTTP status. error.message is display-grade prose safe to render to a user; when a failure has no specific copy it falls back to a generic sentence, so it never carries a machine code. Unrecognised failures collapse to the generic unprocessable_entity code, so treat type as an open enum: match the codes you handle and fall through to a default branch for the rest.
object
object
Structured error details (e.g. validation errors), when present
Display-grade message, safe to render verbatim. Never a machine code — do not branch on it.
Correlation ID for this request (also in the x-request-id response header). Include it when contacting support.
object
Method used to deliver this challenge
Challenge expiry
Sudo session ID returned to completeStepUp
3-digit number-matching code. This response is the ORIGINATING surface: display the code; a user approving from the Ele mobile app is asked to enter it. Null only for challenges minted before match codes existed.
Available verification methods
The step-up authentication this challenge was minted from — a DIFFERENT id from id (the sudo session). completeStepUp takes id as sudo_session_id; requestStepUpFallback takes this one.
object
object
Machine-readable error code from a stable vocabulary (open enum — handle unknown values)
Example generated
{ "error": { "details": "example", "message": "example", "request_id": "example", "step_up": { "delivery": "example", "expires_at": "2026-04-15T12:00:00Z", "id": "example", "match_code": "example", "methods": [ "example" ], "step_up_authentication_id": "2489E9AD-2EE2-8E00-8EC9-32D5F69181C0", "webauthn": { "allow_credentials": [ { "id": "example", "transports": [ "example" ], "type": "example" } ], "challenge": "example", "challenge_id": "2489E9AD-2EE2-8E00-8EC9-32D5F69181C0", "rp_id": "example", "timeout": 1, "user_verification": "example" } }, "type": "example" }}Too many requests
object
object
Structured error details (e.g. validation errors), when present
Display-grade message, safe to render verbatim. Never a machine code — do not branch on it.
Correlation ID for this request (also in the x-request-id response header). Include it when contacting support.
object
Method used to deliver this challenge
Challenge expiry
Sudo session ID returned to completeStepUp
3-digit number-matching code. This response is the ORIGINATING surface: display the code; a user approving from the Ele mobile app is asked to enter it. Null only for challenges minted before match codes existed.
Available verification methods
The step-up authentication this challenge was minted from — a DIFFERENT id from id (the sudo session). completeStepUp takes id as sudo_session_id; requestStepUpFallback takes this one.
object
object
Machine-readable error code from a stable vocabulary (open enum — handle unknown values)
object
Example
{ "error": { "type": "rate_limited" }}Headers
Section titled “Headers”How long to wait before retrying, expressed as delay seconds or an HTTP date
Unexpected server error
Error response. error.type is the machine-readable code — branch on it, never on error.message or the HTTP status. error.message is display-grade prose safe to render to a user; when a failure has no specific copy it falls back to a generic sentence, so it never carries a machine code. Unrecognised failures collapse to the generic unprocessable_entity code, so treat type as an open enum: match the codes you handle and fall through to a default branch for the rest.
object
object
Structured error details (e.g. validation errors), when present
Display-grade message, safe to render verbatim. Never a machine code — do not branch on it.
Correlation ID for this request (also in the x-request-id response header). Include it when contacting support.
object
Method used to deliver this challenge
Challenge expiry
Sudo session ID returned to completeStepUp
3-digit number-matching code. This response is the ORIGINATING surface: display the code; a user approving from the Ele mobile app is asked to enter it. Null only for challenges minted before match codes existed.
Available verification methods
The step-up authentication this challenge was minted from — a DIFFERENT id from id (the sudo session). completeStepUp takes id as sudo_session_id; requestStepUpFallback takes this one.
object
object
Machine-readable error code from a stable vocabulary (open enum — handle unknown values)
Example generated
{ "error": { "details": "example", "message": "example", "request_id": "example", "step_up": { "delivery": "example", "expires_at": "2026-04-15T12:00:00Z", "id": "example", "match_code": "example", "methods": [ "example" ], "step_up_authentication_id": "2489E9AD-2EE2-8E00-8EC9-32D5F69181C0", "webauthn": { "allow_credentials": [ { "id": "example", "transports": [ "example" ], "type": "example" } ], "challenge": "example", "challenge_id": "2489E9AD-2EE2-8E00-8EC9-32D5F69181C0", "rp_id": "example", "timeout": 1, "user_verification": "example" } }, "type": "example" }}