Sending

17 min

Sending Payments

This guide explains how to send Lightning Network and onchain Bitcoin payments using the Voltage API.

For detailed guides specific to your wallet type:

Sending (USD Line of Credit)Sending (USD Line of Credit) – For USD wallets (requires quotes)

Sending (BTC Line of Credit)Sending (BTC Line of Credit) – For BTC wallets (no quotes needed)

Dashboard cross-check

For the BTC workflow on this page, choose Mutinynet Bitcoin. If you are testing the USD line-of-credit workflow, use Mutinynet USD and follow Sending (USD Line of Credit)Sending (USD Line of Credit). Voltage Cash is the experimental stablecoin test wallet and is not used for either BTC or USD line-of-credit testing.

In the selected Development wallet, select Send, enter a test Lightning invoice, and select Review. The review drawer shows the amount, maximum fee, method, route, and a truncated destination before submission. After sending, confirm the terminal result in All Payments.

Use this dashboard flow to verify an integration manually. Automated systems should continue to read current payment state through the Payments API and webhooks.

Review the amount, maximum fee, method, route, and destination before sending.

Completed test Lightning payment confirmation

Wait for a terminal status before treating the payment as complete.

Outgoing test payment in the sending wallet history

Use All Payments to cross-check the final outgoing state.

Prerequisites

A Voltage account with an active wallet

An API key (get this from the "API Keys" page in your dashboard)

Sending a Payment

Endpoint

POST 
https://voltageapi.com/v1/organizations/{organization_id}/environments/{environment_id}/payments

Headers

x-api-key: your-api-key
Content-Type: application/json

Request Body

Lightning Payment (bolt11)

{
  "id": "68d00852-8dd8-4c71-94d2-91c84695da78",  // UUID created by you
  "wallet_id": "7a68a525-9d11-4c1e-a3dd-1c2bf1378ba2",
  "currency": "btc",
  "type": "bolt11",
  "data": {
    "payment_request": "lntbs1500n1p...",  // Required: Lightning invoice 
to pay (cannot be empty)
    "amount": {
      "currency": "btc",
      "amount": 150000,
      "unit": "msats"   // Optional when payment_request already contains
an amount
                        // Required when payment_request has no amount
                        // If provided with an amount-containing 
payment_request, values must match
                        // Must be greater than 0 (msats)
    },
    "max_fee": {
      "currency": "btc",
      "amount": 1000,
      "unit": "msats"   // Optional: defaults to 1% of payment value or
1,000 msats (whichever is greater)
                        // Must be greater than 0 (msats)
                        // Legacy alias: max_fee_msats is also accepted
    }
  }
}

Onchain Payment

{
  "id": "2ec1e783-19b4-4c10-8181-66336a6232bd",
  "wallet_id": "7a68a525-9d11-4c1e-a3dd-1c2bf1378ba2",
  "currency": "btc",
  "type": "onchain",
  "data": {
    "address": 
"tb1pzkhtj4ld86g9c49du5yagnncfrm0s489t76vmrwmt2ecxfnf7spsvjte49",
    "amount": {
      "currency": "btc",
      "amount": 15000000,
      "unit": "msats"    // 15,000,000 msats = 15,000 sats
    },
    "max_fee": {
      "currency": "btc",
      "amount": 1000000,
      "unit": "msats"
    },
    "description": "test payment"
  }
}

Unified Payment (bip21)

{
  "id": "3e84b6c5-5bbe-4e0f-9fb3-f1198330f6fa",
  "wallet_id": "7a68a525-9d11-4c1e-a3dd-1c2bf1378ba2",
  "currency": "btc",
  "type": "bip21",
  "data": {
    "address":
"bitcoin:tb1pzkhtj4ld86g9c49du5yagnncfrm0s489t76vmrwmt2ecxfnf7spsvjte49?lightning=lntbs1500n1p...",
    "payment_request": "lntbs1500n1p...",   // optional but recommended if 
you already have it
    "amount": {
      "currency": "btc",
      "amount": 150000,
      "unit": "msats"              // optional if you rely purely on the BIP21 URI amount
    },
    "max_fee": {
      "currency": "btc",
      "amount": 1000,
      "unit": "msats"
    },
    "description": "Payment for services"
  }
}

Required fields

id – Unique identifier for the payment (UUID you create).

wallet_id – ID of the BTC wallet sending the payment.

currency – Must be "btc".

type – Must be "bip21".

data.address – BIP21 URI to pay (cannot be empty).

Optional but common

data.payment_request – Optional Lightning invoice (if you want to pass it separately).

data.amount – BTC Amount object in msats.

data.max_fee – BTC Amount object in msats (max Lightning fee).

data.description – Optional description/memo.

Monitoring Payment Status

After sending a payment, monitor its status using:

GET 
https://voltageapi.com/v1/organizations/{organization_id}/environments/{environment_id}/payments/{payment_id}

The payment will transition through these states:

sending: Payment is in progress

completed: Payment was successful

failed: Payment failed (check error field for details)

Processing Fees

Your organization can charge an optional percentage processing fee on payments. Processing fees are off by default and are configured per wallet. See Processing FeesProcessing Fees for how to view and set your rates.

When a rate is configured, send payment responses include a processing_fee object and a payment_breakdown:

{
  "processing_fee": {
    "basis_points": 100,
    "amount": { "currency": "btc", "amount": 1500, "unit": "msats" }
  },
  "payment_breakdown": {
    "principal":      { "currency": "btc", "amount": 150000, "unit": "msats" },
    "network_fee":    { "currency": "btc", "amount": 1000,   "unit": "msats" },
    "processing_fee": { "currency": "btc", "amount": 1500,   "unit": "msats" }
  }
}

processing_fee.basis_points – the configured rate applied to this payment. 100 is 1%, 250 is 2.5%.

processing_fee.amount – the fee calculated for this payment, in the principal's assessment currency. It is available before settlement and stays stable across quote refreshes.

On a send, the processing fee is part of the amount debited from your wallet, alongside the network fee.

payment_breakdown.processing_fee – the authoritative settled fee. Use this for reconciliation.

Both fields are omitted when no processing fee applies, so this does not affect integrations that have no rate configured.

Error Handling

Common HTTP status codes:

200: Success

400: Invalid request (check error message)

403: Authentication error

404: Payment not found

500: Server error

Example Implementation

Lightning Payment (BTC)

# Send Lightning payment (BTC wallet)
curl 
'https://voltageapi.com/v1/organizations/{organization_id}/environments/{environment_id}/payments' 
\
  --request POST \
  --header 'x-api-key: your-api-key' \
  --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data '{
    "id": "68d00852-8dd8-4c71-94d2-91c84695da78",
    "wallet_id": "7a68a525-9d11-4c1e-a3dd-1c2bf1378ba2",
    "currency": "btc",
    "type": "bolt11",
    "data": {
      "payment_request": "lntbs1500n1p...",
      "amount": {
        "currency": "btc",
        "amount": 150000,
        "unit": "msats"
      },
      "max_fee": {
        "currency": "btc",
        "amount": 1000,
        "unit": "msats"
      }
    }
  }'

Onchain Payment (BTC)

# Send onchain payment (BTC wallet)
curl 
'https://voltageapi.com/v1/organizations/{organization_id}/environments/{environment_id}/payments' 
\
  --request POST \
  --header 'x-api-key: your-api-key' \
  --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data '{
    "id": "2ec1e783-19b4-4c10-8181-66336a6232bd",
    "wallet_id": "7a68a525-9d11-4c1e-a3dd-1c2bf1378ba2",
    "currency": "btc",
    "type": "onchain",
    "data": {
      "address": 
"tb1pzkhtj4ld86g9c49du5yagnncfrm0s489t76vmrwmt2ecxfnf7spsvjte49",
      "amount": {
        "currency": "btc",
        "amount": 15000000,
        "unit": "msats"
      },
      "max_fee": {
        "currency": "btc",
        "amount": 1000000,
        "unit": "msats"
      },
      "description": "test payment"
    }
  }'

Check Payment Status

curl 
'https://voltageapi.com/v1/organizations/{organization_id}/environments/{environment_id}/payments/{payment_id}' 
\
  --header 'x-api-key: your-api-key'

curl 'https://voltageapi.com/v1/organizations/{organization_id}/environments/{environment_id}/payments/{payment_id}' \
  --header 'x-api-key: your-api-key'