Skip to main content

What is Star-Pay

Star-Pay is a secure, scalable, API-first payment gateway designed to simplify digital transaction processing for modern applications. Built for the Ethiopian market, it enables fast, reliable, and traceable payment experiences through USSD Push — letting your customers pay using their Ethiotelecom mobile money account without installing an app. Star-Pay exposes a REST API with two core operations:
  • Create a payment order — generate a payment session for a customer
  • Verify payment status — query whether a transaction completed
All communication goes through a single base URL:
https://starpayqa.starpayethiopia.com/v1/starpay-api

Who this guide is for

This documentation is for:
  • Developers integrating payment functionality into web or mobile applications
  • Technical teams connecting back-end systems to Star-Pay
  • Product engineers building secure, end-to-end payment workflows
Familiarity with REST APIs and JSON is assumed. No prior knowledge of Star-Pay is required.

What you can do

CapabilityDescription
Create payment ordersSubmit customer and transaction details to generate a payment session and URL
Redirect customersSend customers to the Star-Pay-hosted payment page to complete USSD Push payment
Verify payment statusPoll the API with an order_id to confirm payment completion
Receive webhook callbacksProvide a callbackURL to get real-time notifications when payments succeed or fail

Authentication

Every API request must include your API secret in the x-api-secret header. You obtain this key from the Star-Pay merchant dashboard.
curl https://starpayqa.starpayethiopia.com/v1/starpay-api/trdp/order \
  --header "x-api-secret: YOUR_API_SECRET"
Keep your API secret private. Do not expose it in client-side code, public repositories, or logs.

Explore

Quickstart

Make your first API call and create a payment order in minutes.

Authentication

Learn how to obtain and use your API secret securely.

API Reference

Full endpoint documentation with request and response schemas.

Testing

Use sandbox credentials and test phone numbers to validate your integration.

Build docs developers (and LLMs) love