pay

Send USDC payments on the Base network

Defined in the Base Account SDK

The pay function is the core method of Base Pay that lets your users send USDC (digital dollars) on the Base network. No crypto knowledge required - we handle all the complexity. No fees for merchants or users.

Try it out: Test the pay function interactively in our Base Pay SDK Playground.

Parameters

amount · string · required

Amount of USDC to send (e.g., “10.50” or “0.01”).

to · string · required

Ethereum address to send USDC to (must start with 0x).

Pattern: ^0x[0-9a-fA-F]{40}$

testnet · boolean

Set to true to use Base Sepolia testnet instead of mainnet. Default: false

payerInfo · object

Optional payer information configuration for data callbacks.

Show PayerInfo properties

requests · array · required

Array of information requests from the payer.

Show InfoRequest properties

type · string · required

The type of information being requested.

Possible values: 'email' | 'physicalAddress' | 'phoneNumber' | 'name' | 'onchainAddress'

optional · boolean

Whether this information is optional. Default: false

callbackURL · string

Optional callback URL for server-side validation.

Returns

result · PayResult

Payment result on success. The function throws an error on failure.

Show Payment Success properties

id · string

Transaction hash - use this to check payment status.

amount · string

Amount that was sent.

to · string

Address that received the payment.

payerInfoResponses · object

Optional responses from information requests.

Errors

The pay function throws an error when the payment fails. The error object contains a message explaining what went wrong.

Basic Payment

import { pay } from '@base-org/account';

try {
  const payment = await pay({
    amount: "10.50",
    to: "0x1234567890123456789012345678901234567890",
    testnet: false
  });
  console.log(`Payment sent! Transaction ID: ${payment.id}`);
} catch (error) {
  console.error(`Payment failed: ${error.message}`);
}

Basic Success Response

{
  id: "0xabcd1234...",
  amount: "10.50",
  to: "0x1234567890123456789012345678901234567890"
}

Error Handling

The pay function throws errors instead of returning a result. Always wrap calls to pay in a try-catch block to handle errors gracefully:

try {
  const payment = await pay({
    amount: "10.00",
    to: "0xRecipient"
  });
  // Payment succeeded, use payment.id for tracking
  console.log(`Payment sent! Transaction ID: ${payment.id}`);
} catch (error) {
  // Payment failed
  console.error(`Payment failed: ${error.message}`);
}