> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://docs.peakcommerce.com/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://docs.peakcommerce.com/product/using-peakcommerce/ecommerce-and-payment-pages/external-payment-pages.md).

# External & Hosted Payment Pages

A **payment page** lets a customer securely add a payment method or pay an invoice without walking through a full checkout journey. This matters for moments outside the initial sale — collecting a card after a trial, updating an expired card, or settling a one-off invoice — where a lightweight, linkable page is faster than a full flow. Payment capture always runs on the billing provider's **hosted payment page** (for example Zuora's), so card and bank details go straight to the provider and never touch PeakCommerce servers, keeping your PCI scope minimal.

## What you can do

* **Add a payment method** — capture and store a default payment method on the customer's account, optionally enabling auto-pay.
* **Pay an invoice** — present a specific invoice (with an optional partial-payment amount) and collect payment, storing the method for future use.

## How it works

1. Build a **Payment**-type page in **Content → Pages** and drop in the payment component, which embeds the provider's hosted page (curated in [Settings → Hosted Pages](/product/settings/developer-tools/hosted-pages.md)).
2. **Publish** the page to get its public slug/URL.
3. Link customers to it — for example from a billing email (see [Add payment page links to Zuora email templates](/product/journeys-and-pages/pages/add-payment-page-links-to-zuora-email-templates.md)).
4. Pass **prefill parameters** on the URL (such as the account and invoice id) so the page opens already scoped to the right customer and balance.

## Key concepts

* **Hosted pages are configured once.** Each hosted payment page is registered against a billing **integration** in [Settings → Hosted Pages](/product/settings/developer-tools/hosted-pages.md) (provider page id, name, and version); your Payment-type pages reference that registration rather than re-entering provider config.
* **The provider owns the card form.** PeakCommerce orchestrates and records the result, but the sensitive capture happens inside the provider's iframe.

## Gotchas

* The hosted page must be registered in **Settings → Hosted Pages** before a Payment-type page can embed it; an unregistered or stale provider page version will fail to load.
* Prefill params scope the page — omit the account/invoice and "pay an invoice" has nothing to settle. Double-check the URL parameters when building billing-email links.
* A payment page is for capture and invoice payment, not for changing what a customer is subscribed to — for that, see [Updating Subscriptions Through Ecommerce](/product/using-peakcommerce/ecommerce-and-payment-pages/updating-subscriptions-through-e-commerce.md).


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