Getting started
How Paybob works
Brands, gateways, themes, transactions and SMS verification: the ideas the rest of the docs build on.
A few ideas come up on almost every page of these docs. This page explains each one and how a payment moves through Paybob from start to finish.
The building blocks
Installation
One copy of Paybob running on your server, at one address such as https://pay.example.com. The installation has one database, one license, one set of administrators and one admin panel.
Brands
A Brand is one business inside your installation. Each Brand has its own gateways, customers, transactions, invoices, payment links, API keys, staff roles and settings, and none of it is visible from another Brand. Most installations start with one Brand and add more later. See Brands.
Gateways
A gateway is a package that knows how to take a payment through one provider: a card processor, a wallet, a bank transfer. You install gateway packages, then add and configure them per Brand. See Gateways and, to build your own, Gateway development.
Themes
A theme decides how your customer-facing pages look: the checkout page where a customer picks how to pay, the invoice page, and the payment-link page. Each Brand picks its theme and its colours. See Themes.
Transactions
Every payment attempt is a transaction. A transaction carries the amount, currency, customer details and the gateway used, and moves through statuses such as Pending, Completed and Refunded. See Transactions.
Addons
Addons add features to Paybob, such as sending email through your own SMTP server. They can bring their own pages, settings and permissions. See Addons.
How a payment flows through Paybob
A payment starts
A payment starts in one of three ways: your website or app calls the Payment API, a customer opens one of your invoices, or a customer opens a payment link. Paybob creates a transaction for it.
The customer picks how to pay
The customer lands on your checkout page, rendered by your Brand's theme, and chooses one of the gateways you've enabled.
The gateway takes the payment
The gateway package sends the customer to the provider, shows payment instructions, or collects details such as a wallet transaction ID. When the provider confirms the payment, the gateway marks the transaction Completed.
Paybob verifies what the gateway can't
Some payment methods, such as personal mobile wallets and bank transfers, have no way to confirm a payment except the SMS you receive. For those, the transaction waits as Pending until Paybob finds the matching payment SMS, then completes it automatically. See SMS verification.
Your systems are told
When a payment completes, Paybob sends a webhook to your website or app, fires events that addons can react to, and (if you set it up) reports the purchase to Meta. The customer is sent back to your site.
What runs in the background
Some work happens on a schedule rather than when someone clicks a button: matching payment SMS to pending payments, delivering webhooks, syncing exchange rates, checking for updates and validating your license. On a standard installation all of this is handled for you. See Cron jobs.
Where your data lives
Everything stays on your server: the database, uploaded files and settings. Paybob's own services are only contacted to download releases and updates and to validate your license. See Requirements for every outside service your server talks to.