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Overview

Before processing real payouts, complete this checklist to ensure your integration is production-ready and compliant.

Pre-launch checklist

1. Account setup

1

Complete onboarding

Finish the merchant application with all required business details, documents, and beneficial owner information. Your application must be approved before you can access production.
2

Fund your account

Wire funds to your Anton production account. Confirm balances appear correctly via the API.
3

Generate production API keys

Create production keys (ak_live_...) from the dashboard. Store them securely in your environment variables or secrets manager.

2. Integration quality

Use production base URL

Switch from https://api.staging.antonpayments.com to https://api.antonpayments.com.

Use production API keys

Replace ak_test_... keys with ak_live_.... Never use test keys in production.
Every payout creation should include an Idempotency-Key header to prevent duplicates.
Implement exponential backoff for 5xx errors and respect Retry-After for 429 responses. Never retry 4xx errors (except 429).
Verify HMAC signatures on incoming webhooks. Never trust unverified webhook payloads.
Handle duplicate webhook deliveries. Store processed event IDs and skip duplicates.
Amounts are passed as strings, never floating-point. Ensure your code uses decimal/string arithmetic for money.

3. Security

API keys in environment variables

Never hardcode keys. Use environment variables or a secrets manager (AWS Secrets Manager, GCP Secret Manager, HashiCorp Vault).

Server-side only

API keys must only be used from backend servers. Never expose them in browser JavaScript, mobile apps, or frontend code.
All API calls must use HTTPS. The API rejects non-TLS connections in production.
Your webhook receiver URL must be HTTPS with a valid TLS certificate.
Ensure your application doesn’t log beneficiary bank details, API keys, or other sensitive data.

4. Monitoring

Set up alerts for failed webhook deliveries. If your endpoint goes down, events queue up and you’ll miss notifications.
Monitor the ratio of completed vs. failed payouts. A spike in failures could indicate an issue with beneficiary data or a rail provider.
Alert when balances drop below a threshold so you can fund your account before payouts start failing.
Track API error rates. A sudden increase in 4xx errors could indicate a code issue; 5xx errors could indicate a platform issue.

Sandbox vs. production differences

AspectSandboxProduction
API URLapi.staging.antonpayments.comapi.antonpayments.com
API keysak_test_...ak_live_...
ComplianceSimulated (auto-pass)Real OFAC, PEP, sanctions checks
FundsPre-loaded test balancesReal money — must fund account
DeliveryInstant simulationReal rail processing (minutes to days)
WebhooksDelivered normallyDelivered normally

Launch recommendation

Start small. Send a few small production payouts first to verify end-to-end flow works with real compliance checks and real rail delivery. Once confirmed, ramp up volume.

Need help?

Contact the Anton Payments team: