Use cases

Below are common patterns we see from PayMongo merchants. Use them as a starting point — most merchants combine more than one channel.

Hosted Checkout

Digital goods and online stores with an existing app. Merchants who already have their own product catalog, user accounts, and order fulfillment — typically selling top-ups, gift cards, or digital subscriptions — use Hosted Checkout to offload the payment flow.

The merchant's app handles everything customer-facing up to checkout. At checkout, the app calls the Checkout Session API, redirects the customer to PayMongo's hosted page, and waits for the checkout_session.payment.paid webhook to fulfill the order. PayMongo owns the payment UI, payment method updates, and PCI compliance.

Payment Links

Restaurant reservations. A restaurant takes booking deposits over chat. When a customer DMs to reserve a table, the host generates a Payment Link from the dashboard and sends it in the same conversation. The customer pays without leaving the chat, and the booking is locked in.

Freelancer invoicing. A freelancer sends a Payment Link with each invoice email. Clients pay directly from the link — no portal login, no bank transfer instructions, no follow-up.

Payment Pages

Transport operator booths. A bus or ferry operator prints the QR code for their Payment Page and posts it at the ticket booth. Walk-up customers scan the QR, choose their fare, and pay. The same page works for every customer, every day.

Clinics taking appointment fees. Appointment fees are the same across patients, so the clinic creates one Payment Page and reuses it for every booking. No regenerating links per appointment.

Building management collecting utilities. Tenants bookmark the building's Payment Page and pay their utility bill from it each month. The page stays live; only the amount and reference vary per payment.

E-commerce plugins

Local clothing brand on Shopify. The merchant already runs their store on Shopify but wants to support local Philippine payment methods like GCash and QR Ph alongside cards. Installing the PayMongo Shopify plugin adds the local methods at checkout — no replatforming required.

Storefront

Merchants without a website. A small business owner wants to start selling online but doesn't want to design and build a store from scratch. Storefront takes a prompt describing the store and generates the storefront with PayMongo payments wired in by default.