Add Card Payments to Your Creator CRM With One API

Step-by-step

How to add card payments to a creator CRM

1. 1

   Apply for app access

   Apply at /developers/apply. Approved apps appear in every creator’s API Connect picker and get a higher rate-limit tier.

2. 2

   Let creators connect

   Each creator, or the agency acting for them, generates a key for your app from Vault → API Connect. One key per creator. Apps enabled for it can also sign creators up from their own page.

3. 3

   Create a drop and get a buy link

   Package vault items into a paid drop through the API. Create it once, then give each fan their own link with your reference on it.

4. 4

   Let the chatter send the link

   The chatter sends the buy link in the conversation. The fan pays by card on the web checkout.

5. 5

   Confirm the sale

   Set your app’s webhook once. When the fan pays, a signed drop.paid event arrives with the order and your reference, so you can show the sale against the fan, the chatter and the creator.

6. 6

   Show earnings

   Read earnings and balance through the API so creators and agencies see their numbers in your dashboard.

If you build a CRM or a chatter tool for creator agencies, your users do their most valuable work inside your product: the conversation that ends in a sale. Then the money leaves. The fan gets sent to another platform, a Stars invoice, or a crypto address, and your product loses sight of the sale it just made happen.

Taking card payments yourself is not a weekend project in this category. Adult and creator content is high-risk for card networks, which means a specialised merchant account, card-network registration, identity checks on every creator, content moderation, chargeback handling and payouts. Most CRMs decide, sensibly, not to become a payment company.

The Dropfans API is the other option.

What Dropfans handles

• Checkout. The fan pays by card on a Dropfans checkout page. Your CRM never touches card data.
• Creator verification. Every creator passes identity verification before they can sell.
• Moderation. Content sold through the API goes through the same review as anything uploaded in the dashboard. The API cannot bypass it.
• Chargebacks and payouts. Each sale is held for 14 days to cover chargebacks and then released to the creator, who withdraws by bank, card or crypto through our payout partner, or Paxum.

The fan's statement shows DROPFANS.

What your CRM builds

Connecting accounts. Each creator generates an API key for your app in Vault → API Connect. Once your app is approved (apply here), it appears in that picker, so connecting takes one click. Agencies generate one key per managed creator. Keys can be revoked by the creator at any time. If your app is enabled for it, creators can also sign up from your own page: the API creates the account, hands back the ID-check link, and your app owner earns the standard referral commission on their sales.

Selling in chat. From the conversation, your software packages vault items into a paid drop and gets back a buy link. Create the drop once and give each fan their own link with your reference on it (?m=<ref> on the web, b_<drop>_<ref> in Telegram), so one drop serves a whole broadcast. The chatter sends the link; the fan pays on the checkout page and the content unlocks. The broadcast guide walks through it.

Confirming the sale. Set your app's webhook once. When a fan pays, Dropfans sends a signed drop.paid event with the order and your reference; drop.refunded follows a refund or chargeback. Failed deliveries are retried, and GET /orders lists paid orders by reference if you would rather poll.

Showing the numbers. Earnings and balance are available through the API, so you can show sales per creator and per chatter inside your own dashboard.

Rate limits depend on the tier, with more headroom for approved apps. The exact figures are on the rate limits page.

If your users sell on Telegram

Telegram's Bot Developer Terms require Telegram Stars for digital goods sold inside bots and Mini Apps, and say such payments "cannot be processed through third-party payment providers". So the card option in a Telegram workflow is a link: the chatter sends the Dropfans buy link, and the fan pays on the web checkout. Do not wire card payments into a bot invoice or a Mini App.

Stars and cards can sit side by side: Stars for in-chat micro-purchases, the card link for everything bigger. We explain the difference in Telegram Stars fees explained.

Already running in production

KVIQA, our sister CRM for creator agencies, runs on this same API: its chatters create drops, send buy links and track sales from the inbox. You can read how that integration works in the KVIQA integration post. Telestars, the Telegram sales CRM, also offers Dropfans card checkout next to Stars; see the Telestars announcement.

Get started

1. Read the developer docs and make your first call.
2. Apply for app access. We review every application by hand.
3. Have one agency connect a creator and send a real buy link from your inbox.

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There is no charge for using the API. Standard fees apply to sales made through it: the creator keeps 85% of the listed price and the fan pays a 10% service fee at checkout.

FAQ

Frequently asked

Do we need our own merchant account to offer card payments?▾

No. Your users sell through Dropfans: Dropfans runs the checkout, takes the card payment and pays the creator. Your CRM never handles card data.

Can one agency connect many creators?▾

Yes. Agencies hold one key per managed creator, generated while acting as that creator. There is no cross-creator key, which keeps every creator’s access separate and revocable.

Does the API skip content moderation or identity checks?▾

No. Everything sold or posted through the API runs the same moderation as the dashboard, and every creator goes through identity verification before they can sell.

Are there webhooks for sales?▾

Yes. Each app sets one https endpoint. Dropfans sends signed drop.paid and drop.refunded events, plus account.kyc_updated for creators you signed up, and retries failed deliveries. If you prefer polling, the orders endpoint lists the same sales.

How do we know which fan or chatter a sale came from?▾

Add your own reference to the buy link: ?m=<ref> on the web, or b_<drop>_<ref> in a Telegram link. It comes back on the paid order and in the drop.paid webhook, so one drop can go to a whole broadcast and every sale still maps to the fan who paid.

Can our Telegram bot take card payments directly?▾

Not for digital goods. Telegram requires Stars for digital goods sold inside bots and Mini Apps. Send the Dropfans buy link instead, so the fan pays on the web checkout.

What does it cost?▾

There is no charge for the API. Standard fees apply to sales: the creator keeps 85% of the listed price and the fan pays a 10% service fee at checkout.

Written by

Dropfans Team

Creator Growth, Dropfans

The Dropfans team writes about creator monetization, pay-per-link selling, and the shift away from subscription platforms. Dropfans is operated by KVIQVIEW AB in Gothenburg, Sweden.

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