Payments
Sui provides multiple primitives for building payment flows, from reading balances and constructing multi-step transactions to sponsoring gas fees on behalf of your users. The approach you choose depends on your use case:
- Reading balances: Query address balances to display a user's holdings or verify sufficient funds before processing a payment.
- Constructing payments: Use payment intents to compose multi-step payment workflows (split coins, transfer, merge) into a single atomic programmable transaction block.
- Sponsoring gas: Use sponsored transactions so your users pay no gas fees. This is common for onboarding flows and stablecoin transfers where you want a Web2-like experience.
- Gasless stablecoin transfers: Sui supports zero-fee stablecoin transfers for eligible transactions, removing gas costs entirely for supported assets.
- Payment verification: The Payment Kit provides secure payment verification, receipt management, and duplicate prevention for production payment systems.
Choosing a payment approach
| Use case | Approach | Key benefit |
|---|---|---|
| Display user balances | Address Balances | Direct balance reads without coin enumeration |
| Send assets to a recipient | Payment Intents | Atomic multi-step transactions |
| Subsidize user gas costs | Sponsored Transactions | Zero gas for the end user |
| Stablecoin payments | Gasless Stablecoin Transfers | No gas fees for eligible stablecoin transfers |
| Production payment processing | Payment Kit | Receipts, verification, duplicate prevention |
Regulatory considerations
Payment applications might be subject to KYC, AML, and money-transmitter licensing requirements depending on your jurisdiction and business model. These requirements are outside the scope of Sui documentation. Consult qualified legal counsel before launching a payment product.