Create and track charges

A charge is a request for a fixed amount, payable once. The Charges page lists every charge of the current mode.

Create a charge

Use this to bill a customer by hand.

Go to Charges and select Create charge

Enter the amount

Enter the amount in sats. To price the charge in fiat, select the arrows next to sats, enter the amount, and select USD or EUR in the Currency field. The sats amount locks at creation.

Add a reference and a description

Reference is for you, for example your order number. Bark Pay shows Description to the customer at checkout. Both are optional.

Leave Rails on Automatic

Bark Pay then offers every payment method that fits the amount. Select Lightning, On-chain, or Ark to restrict the charge instead.

Select Create charge at the bottom of the drawer

The charge detail opens with its payment details and checkout link.

Screenshot of the Create charge drawer, with the Amount, Reference, Description, and Rails fields filled in and the Create charge button — Automatic rails offer every payment method that fits the amount

The charge expires after the Invoice TTL set in Settings, 15 minutes by default. Lightning starts at 1 sat, and Ark and on-chain at 546 sats. The Ark server’s maximum VTXO size also caps Lightning and Ark from above. On Automatic, Bark Pay offers only the methods the amount fits. If you restrict the rails yourself, Bark Pay refuses the charge and names the limit. Two ways to get paid:

Checkout link: Select Open checkout to preview the hosted checkout page, or copy its URL and send it to your customer.
Payment rails: Select the Lightning, Ark, or On-chain tab to show that method’s QR code and copy its invoice or address, for example to display at a counter.

Screenshot of the charge detail sheet, with the amount, the details rows, the checkout link, and the payment rails tabs showing the Ark address QR code — The charge detail carries the checkout link and one QR code per payment method

Follow a charge’s status

While any charge on the page is pending, underpaid, or expired, the list refreshes itself every ten seconds. Filter it with the All statuses dropdown, and select a row to reopen its payment details:

Status	Meaning
Pending	Created, no payment received yet.
Paid	The full amount arrived before expiry.
Paid late	The full amount arrived after expiry, in one payment or as a top-up on an underpaid charge.
Underpaid	Less than the amount arrived. The payment details stay open until expiry so your customer can top up, and a later top-up still counts.
Overpaid	More than the amount arrived, including an extra payment on a charge that was already paid.
Expired	The charge reached its expiry without receiving anything. Bark Pay closes its Lightning invoice, but an Ark or on-chain payment that arrives afterwards still settles it.
Cancelled	Your server cancelled the charge through the API. Bark Pay records any bitcoin that arrives on it afterwards, but the status stays cancelled.

Lightning and Ark payments settle within seconds. An on-chain payment settles once its transaction has one confirmation, so expect a wait of about ten minutes on that method.

The dashboard has no cancel button. To cancel a pending or underpaid charge, use the cancel endpoint with a secret API key.

To accept a payment that lands a few sats off the amount, set an amount tolerance. Payments within it count as paid instead of underpaid or overpaid.

​Create a charge

​Share the payment details

​Follow a charge’s status

Create a charge

Share the payment details

Follow a charge’s status