Custom Amount Payment Link

Overview

Meaning and scope

A custom amount payment link is a shareable payment page that lets the payer enter or select the amount instead of using a fixed merchant-defined total. The merchant can set currency, accepted assets, minimum and maximum, description, customer fields, expiration, and settlement rules. It is suitable for donations, tips, variable invoices, and balances due but can weaken order matching when the payment lacks a unique commercial reference.

Mechanism and operation

Systems should use link ID, purpose, payer-entered amount, limits, currency, order or reference field, asset, network, transaction, and receipt. For Custom Amount Payment Link, the operational boundary with Open Amount Payment Link and Fixed Amount Payment Link should be explicit. Identifiers for Custom Amount Payment Link should connect those records without allowing either linked status to overwrite its own state. For Custom Amount Payment Link, shareability and reusability must be defined explicitly. When Custom Amount Payment Link interacts with Open Amount Payment Link, a single-use link should reject or safely reconcile repeated attempts, while a reusable link needs a rule for creating separate payment sessions and associating each payer or order.

Practical payment example

A donor chooses an allowed amount on a payment page; the system creates a distinct request and stores the final quoted asset amount.

Operational checks

In the relationship between Custom Amount Payment Link and Fixed Amount Payment Link, links embedded in email, chat, social media, or QR codes should be treated as public and must not contain API secrets or sensitive customer data. For Custom Amount Payment Link, the merchant should monitor link creation, opens, valid payment attempts, payment completion, expiry, duplicate use, refunds, and campaign or order attribution.

Distinctions and limits

Risk review should cover incorrect amounts, abuse of open links, duplicate payments, unsupported currencies, stale pages, fraud, and reconciliation without a clear invoice.

Related reading

Related definitions: Open Amount Payment Link, Fixed Amount Payment Link.