How it works

Ringup is the payments layer for AI voice agents. It lets an agent take payment on a phone call the way a good checkout does on the web. The first time, the caller pays through a texted link and saves a card. Every time after, the agent recognizes them and charges that card in one sentence. Charges settle on the merchant’s own payment processor.

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A remembered checkout

The heart of Ringup is memory. An ordinary phone payment makes the caller read a card number aloud on every call; Ringup does it once. A first-time caller gets a texted link, pays on a hosted page, and their card is saved. From then on, any business connected to Ringup recognizes them and charges the saved card on a spoken yes: a checkout that remembers the customer, over the phone.

“That is nineteen dollars on your Visa ending 1111, shall I put it through?” “Yep.” “Done. Your confirmation number is 2PJJZY.”

Capturing a card during a call is table stakes; every platform that offers it makes the caller enter the card every time. Recognizing a returning caller and reusing a saved card is the part nobody else does, and it is the product.

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The core principles

Phone number is the identity. The caller is recognized by the number they are calling from, taken from trusted call metadata, never typed by the model or spoken by the caller. No logins, no account numbers, no passwords. See Caller Identity and Merchant Identity. Recognition happens at the start of the call. The caller’s number arrives the instant the call connects, so Ringup identifies them before payment: the agent greets a returning caller by name and skips re-asking anything recognition already provides. Which cards they can pay with comes later, from the Checkout Session, where the merchant is known. See Recognize at the start of the call. First time by link, every time after by memory. A caller Ringup does not recognize is texted a secure pay link and pays on their phone; the card is saved with their consent. A caller Ringup recognizes is offered their saved card by brand and last four. One path enrolls, the other remembers. Processor-agnostic. Charges settle on the merchant’s own payment processor, at their rates, in their dashboard. Ringup never becomes the merchant of record and never holds the money. Each merchant connects their own processor once. No card number ever touches you. Card entry happens once, on a hosted page served by the processor. The number never appears in audio, transcripts, or your servers, which keeps both you and the merchant out of PCI scope. On the voice path there is no card field at all. The merchant owns the policy. Whether payment is required, optional, or not needed for an order is a merchant setting Ringup serves per purchase, not logic in your agent. A merchant changes the rule with no redeploy and no agent edit, and a merchant who has not connected yet gets their normal, payment-free call. See Payment policy. No model in the money path. The code that moves money is deterministic. The language model asks Ringup to charge; it never computes or moves money itself, and it never sees a card number.

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How a call flows

The same flow runs on every platform: What differs is only how your agent reaches Ringup.

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Two ways to integrate

You add Ringup one of two ways: the same split a web merchant chooses between a hosted checkout and an API-driven one. Both use the same tools, the same identity, and the same off-session charge.

• Hosted. Your agent transfers the call to a Ringup payment line at the payment moment (works on any platform, see Checkout Session), and Ringup runs the whole payment conversation: confirm the amount, charge, handle a decline, text a first-time link, read the confirmation. You write no payment logic and set it up from the dashboard.
• In your agent (API). Your agent stays on the call and calls Ringup’s endpoints: identify at the greeting, a Checkout Session when the order is ready, then charge the card the caller picked, or send_link when the session offers none. Nothing transfers, and because a recognized caller never enters a card, no card data ever touches your agent. The flexible path.

Same payment underneath, same principles. Only the front door changes.

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Next steps