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Docs Home
Dev Essentials
Payments
Commerce
Customers
Staff
Merchants
Publish
Release notes
Get Started
Create an Account and App
Make your First API Call
View the API Logs
Verify the Payment
What's Next
Overview
Versioning Overview
Access Tokens
Frontend and Backend Development
TLS and HTTPS
Using the REST API
Handling Errors
Collecting Information
Language Preferences
Working with Dates
Working with Monetary Amounts
Working with Addresses
Custom Attributes
Idempotency
Pagination
Optimistic Concurrency
Clear Object Fields
Square API Lifecycle
Developer Dashboard
Seller Dashboard
Test in Sandbox
Sandbox Payments
API Explorer
API Logs
Webhook Event Logs
Create a Notification URL
Subscribe to Event Notifications
Verify and Validate an Event Notification
Manage Operations
Move Event Notifications to Production
Webhook Events Reference
Troubleshooting
Authentication
Postman
Quickstart
Project Setup
Using the SDK
Common API Patterns
Stay Current with SDK Version
Quickstart
Project Setup
Using the SDK
Common API Patterns
Stay Current with SDK Version
Quickstart
Project Setup
Using the SDK
Common API Patterns
Stay Current with SDK Version
Quickstart
Project Setup
Using the SDK
Common API Patterns
Stay Current with SDK Version
Quickstart
Project Setup
Using the SDK
Common API Patterns
Stay Current with SDK Version
Quickstart
Project Setup
Using the SDK
Common API Patterns
Stay Current with SDK Version
Sample Applications
GraphQL Basics
Build your First Query
GraphQL Explorer
Query Examples
Create Redirect URL and Authorization Page URL
Receive Authorization and Manage OAuth Tokens
Refresh and Revoke OAuth Tokens
Token Introspection
OAuth Best Practices
OAuth Walkthrough
Migrate to the Square API OAuth Flow
Move OAuth to Production
Permissions Reference
Webhook Subscriptions
Connect v1 Migration
Deprecated Items
v1 Payments API
v1 Refunds API
v1 Settlements API
Square Transactions API
Migrate Employees to Team Members
Migrate from CreateCheckout to CreatePaymentLink
OAuth and Testing
International Payments
Regional Differences for International Development
Compliance with Japan's Tax Invoice System

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Dev Essentials

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Get Started

Make your First API Call

Now that you have a Square account and application, you can make your first API call using API Explorer.

In API Explorer, create a payment using the Square Sandbox environment. Calls in the Sandbox use the connect.squareupsandbox.com domain as the base URL.

Link to section

Create a payment

After you create an account (as described in Create an Account and Application), the Developer Dashboard opens and displays the following blue banner:

An image of the "create your first test payment" banner.

  1. Choose the Open API Explorer link on the banner. This opens API Explorer and populates all the fields that are required to send a CreatePayment request to the Payments API.

    Note

    If you don't see the banner, use this API Explorer link to open the prepopulated view directly.

  2. Choose Run Request.

  3. Review the Request and Response panes:

    • The Request pane shows the request that was sent. You can change the default cURL view to see the request in another programming language.
    • The Response pane shows the response from Square. If the payment is successful, Square returns a Payment object with the status field set to COMPLETED.

An image of API Explorer populated with CreatePayment values.

The source_id in the request is a Sandbox payment token that represents a credit card. In production, payment tokens are generated by the Web Payments SDK or In-App Payments SDK. For more information, see Take Payments.

Did you know?

For this Get Started exercise, API Explorer prefilled the Access token field for you. When you're using API Explorer in the future, choose the Change button and select your application. When selected, the Access token field is filled with your application token.