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Introduction

Subthingy API

The Subthingy API powers airtime, data, electricity, and pay-TV purchases for your customers. All routes live under a single base URL:

https://api.subthingy.io/v1

There is no separate staging host — live and test traffic share the same base URL. Which environment a request runs in is determined entirely by the X-Merchant-Key / X-Merchant-Secret pair you send: every merchant is provisioned with both a live credential and a test credential, and the API resolves environment from whichever one is presented. See Environments.

Quick start

  1. Contact your account manager for your live and test API keys and onboarding.
  2. Send X-Merchant-Key and X-Merchant-Secret on every request (see Authentication) — use your test key while integrating, and your live key for real customer traffic.
  3. Complete production IP whitelisting before go-live.
  4. Create a purchase with a sync route (recommended) — see Transactions or Bill payments.
  5. If you use async, poll the matching status endpoint with the same request_ref you submitted.
  6. Provide reconciliation email addresses for T+1 reports.

What you can do

ActionGuide
Buy airtime or dataTransactions
Pay electricityBill payments
Pay cable TV (DStv, GOtv, StarTimes, Showmax)Bill payments
Check outcomeTransactions · Bills
List purchasesTransactions
MTN wallet balanceWallet balance
Data bundle catalogData plans
Live vs. test keysEnvironments

Networks (airtime & data)

Use lowercase network names: mtn, glo, airtel, 9mobile.

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