> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.ringup.dev/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# What is Ringup

> Identity and payments for voice agents. Returning callers are recognized by phone number and pay with their saved card in one sentence.

Ringup is a hosted payments layer for AI voice agents. Your agent takes the order; Ringup
recognizes the caller by phone number, knows whether payment is needed for this purchase,
charges the saved card when the caller agrees, and hands back a confirmation code. Charges
settle on each merchant's own payment processor, at their rates, in their dashboard.

You write no payment prompt and configure no models, transcribers, or languages. The payment
step inherits everything from your agent.

## The call, before and after

Before Ringup, a caller who wants to pay reads a card number aloud to a machine, or does not
pay at all. After Ringup:

> "That's one large pepperoni, \$19. I can put that on your Visa ending 4242. Sound good?"
>
> "Yep."
>
> "Done. Your confirmation number is 2PJJZY."

First-time callers get a texted link instead, pay on their phone, and are recognized on every
call after that.

## Where to start

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Quickstart" icon="rocket" href="/quickstart">
    Talk to a working demo in about a minute, then wire your own agent.
  </Card>

  <Card title="How it works" icon="diagram-project" href="/concepts/how-it-works">
    The handoff architecture: why your agent never branches on payment logic.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Vapi integration" icon="phone" href="/integrations/vapi">
    The full CLI lifecycle: provision, stage, go-live, rollback.
  </Card>

  <Card title="API reference" icon="code" href="/api-reference/introduction">
    Five REST tools for platforms that own their whole conversation flow.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

## What Ringup never does

* **Never reads or stores card numbers.** Card entry happens once, on a Ringup-hosted page.
  The number never appears in audio, transcripts, or your servers, so no PCI scope lands on
  you.
* **Never creates a new processor account.** Charges settle on the merchant's existing
  payment processor.
* **Never hard-codes payment behavior into your agent.** How payment works is a merchant
  setting served by Ringup at call time; merchants change it with zero redeploys.