How to Add Secure Payments to Your Twilio IVR (2026 Guide)

Building an IVR on Twilio is the easy part: menus, routing, and personalisation are all a few lines of TwiML. Taking a payment inside that IVR is where most teams stall, because card data brings PCI DSS into the picture and nobody wants their infrastructure anywhere near a card number.

The good news: Twilio solved the capture side with the `<Pay>` verb, and a Pay Connector solves the processing side. Wired together properly, your IVR takes card and ACH payments while your systems never see a single digit, keeping you at SAQ-A, the lightest PCI self-assessment. Here is the full setup, current as of July 2026.

What You Need Before You Start

• A Twilio account with Programmable Voice

• A payment gateway account (Stripe, Adyen, Worldpay, Cybersource, or any of 30+ supported gateways)

• A Shuttle account, free to create at merchant.shuttleglobal.com/twilio (you pay per transaction, $0.20 per successful payment, no setup fees)

Step 1: Enable PCI Mode on Your Twilio Account

Twilio requires PCI Mode before <Pay> will run. In the Twilio Console:

1. Navigate to Voice Settings

2. Click "Enable PCI Mode"

3. Accept the terms and save

PCI Mode redacts sensitive payment details from your logs and recordings account-wide. Note that it applies per Account SID and enabling it is a deliberate, one-way choice, so do it on the right account.

Step 2: Install the Shuttle Pay Connector

In the Console, type <Pay> Connectors in the "Jump to" search box and select the Shuttle Pay Connector from the catalogue. Configure it with:

• Unique Name: shuttle-pay-connector (note this down, your TwiML references it)

• Username: your Shuttle instance key

• Password: your Shuttle secret key

Both keys come from your Shuttle dashboard.

Step 3: Connect Your Payment Gateway

Log into the Shuttle dashboard and create a payment profile with your gateway credentials (for example your Stripe secret key, or your Adyen API key and merchant account). This is the piece that makes the integration gateway-agnostic: your IVR code never changes if you later add a second gateway, switch acquirers, or route different calls to different merchant accounts.

Step 4: Add the Pay Verb to Your IVR

Wherever your call flow reaches the payment step, return TwiML like this:

``xml <Response> <Say>Please enter your card number followed by the hash key.</Say> <Pay paymentConnector="shuttle-pay-connector" chargeAmount="49.99" currency="GBP" description="Invoice payment" action="/payment-complete"> <Parameter name="metadata_invoiceId" value="INV-1234"/> </Pay> </Response> ``

The caller keys in their card number, expiry, and CVV. Twilio captures the digits inside its PCI-certified environment, suppresses the tones from any agent audio and recordings, and passes the card data to Shuttle, which processes it through your gateway.

A few options worth knowing:

• Tokenise instead of charge: omit chargeAmount to save the card without charging it

• Take a deposit hold: add <Parameter name="action" value="AUTH"/> to authorise now and capture later

• Set up a recurring payment from the call: add <Parameter name="frequency" value="MONTHLY"/>

• Attach your own references: metadata_ parameters flow through to your webhook for reconciliation, and account_ parameters (first name, last name, email) attach customer details

• Take ACH instead of card: set `paymentMethod="ach-debit"` and the caller enters routing and account numbers instead (see our guide to ACH payments over the phone)

Step 5: Handle the Result

Twilio POSTs the outcome to your action URL: the result status, masked card number, card type, and a confirmation code you can use to find the transaction in your gateway. Update the order, confirm to the caller with a <Say>, and carry on with the call. Refunds, captures, and voids afterwards run through the Shuttle API rather than the phone flow.

Step 6: Test Before You Go Live

Shuttle provides a demo application so you can test the full flow without writing your webhook first: map a Twilio number to the demo URL shown in the Shuttle dashboard, call it, and make a test payment against your gateway's sandbox credentials. Then swap in your own TwiML and go live.

If you hit an error during testing, it is usually one of Twilio's `<Pay>` error codes: 64001 means the connector configuration is wrong, 64004 means the `paymentConnector` name in your TwiML does not match the Unique Name you set, and the 64006/64007 family means the connector you are using does not support what you asked for. We keep a full reference of all 15 Twilio Pay error codes and what each one means.

Beyond Basic IVR

The same setup extends without new integration work:

• Agent-assisted payments: contact centre agents trigger secure capture mid-conversation using Twilio's Payments API, staying on the line while the customer keys in details they never hear. See contact centre payments.

• AI voice agents: autonomous agents hand the payment step to the same secure flow, so card data never enters the AI pipeline. See how AI voice agents take PCI-compliant payments.

• Payment links as a fallback: if a caller cannot complete keypad entry, send an SMS payment link mid-call and watch it complete in real time.

The Compliance Position

With this architecture, Twilio handles DTMF capture and suppression, Shuttle (a PCI DSS Level 1 Service Provider) handles the card data and gateway processing, and your application only ever receives redacted results. That keeps your PCI scope at SAQ-A: around 22 self-assessment requirements instead of the 300+ that apply when card data touches your systems.

*Ready to take payments on your Twilio IVR? Install the Shuttle Pay Connector from the Twilio Marketplace and go live today, or book a discovery call.*