Twilio Pay is Twilio's product for taking card payments over the phone. It is built into Twilio Voice as the <Pay> TwiML verb: when a call reaches the payment step, Twilio prompts the caller to enter their card number, expiry, and security code on their phone keypad, captures those digits inside Twilio's PCI DSS Level 1 environment, and passes them to a payment gateway for processing. The caller never reads their card aloud, the agent never hears or sees the digits, and card data never touches your own servers.
Quick answer: Twilio Pay is a PCI-compliant payment capture mechanism for phone calls, both automated IVR and agent-assisted. It is not a payment processor: it collects card details securely and hands them to a gateway (Stripe, Adyen, Worldpay, and others) through something called a Pay Connector, and the gateway charges the card. To use Twilio Pay you need three things: a Twilio Voice number, a payment gateway account, and a Pay Connector linking the two. Connector-billed transactions start at $0.15 to $0.20 per successful payment on top of your normal gateway fees.
This guide explains how Twilio Pay works, what it costs in 2026, which Pay Connectors are available, and where its limits are.
How Twilio Pay Works
Twilio Pay, launched in 2018, handles the voice-side mechanics of a phone payment. A typical flow looks like this:
The call reaches the payment step. Your IVR flow, agent desktop, or AI voice agent triggers the
<Pay>verb in TwiML.The caller keys in their card details. Card number, expiry date, and CVC are entered on the phone keypad as DTMF tones.
Twilio suppresses the tones. The DTMF digits are stripped from the agent's audio and from call recordings, so nobody on your side can hear or reconstruct the card number. Callers hear the prompts; agents hear silence or masked tones.
The Pay Connector routes the details to your gateway. Twilio hands the captured card data to whichever Pay Connector you have installed, which validates it and submits the charge (or tokenisation) to your payment gateway.
The result comes back into the call. Approved, declined, or errored, the outcome returns to your call flow in real time, so the agent or IVR can confirm payment before the call ends. Declines surface as specific error codes you can handle in the flow.
Two modes are supported:
Automated IVR payments. The caller pays inside a self-service phone menu with no human involved: bill payment lines, order lines, donation lines.
Agent-assisted payments. The agent stays on the call and guides the customer through the payment step by step, requesting one piece of information at a time, while Twilio blocks the sensitive digits from the agent's side. The same mechanism extends to AI voice agents through Twilio's real-time channels.
Because capture happens entirely inside Twilio's certified environment, your infrastructure stays out of PCI scope for the card data itself. That is the core value: phone payments without your contact centre becoming a cardholder data environment. Our guide to Twilio PCI compliance covers exactly what responsibilities remain yours.
Twilio Pay Is Not a Payment Processor
This is the most common misunderstanding. Twilio Pay does not process payments, hold funds, settle money to your bank account, or charge processing fees on the transaction value. It captures payment details securely and passes them on.
The actual charge happens at a payment gateway: your Stripe, Adyen, Worldpay, Braintree, or other gateway account. The money settles from your gateway to your bank exactly as it does for your web payments. Twilio Pay is the secure bridge between the phone call and that gateway.
The bridge itself is called a Pay Connector, and which connector you choose shapes what Twilio Pay can actually do for you.
Twilio Pay Connectors in 2026
A Pay Connector is the integration that links the <Pay> verb to a gateway. Twilio's Marketplace offers three kinds:
Named single-gateway connectors. First-party connectors for a short list of gateways, including Stripe, Braintree, and CardConnect. Each links <Pay> to exactly one gateway account. They handle in-call charges and tokenisation, but the <Pay> API offers no refunds, no auth-then-capture split, and no 3D Secure (transactions are tagged MOTO). Twilio now bills these per transaction: the Stripe connector has cost $0.15 per successful transaction since January 2024, and CardConnect has been billed since October 2025.
The Generic Pay Connector. Point <Pay> at any gateway by building the integration yourself. The catch is significant: Twilio sends the captured card data, including the full card number and CVV, to an endpoint you host. That endpoint becomes part of your cardholder data environment, pulling you into full PCI DSS scope, and Twilio requires an Attestation of Compliance before switching the connector live. It is designed for payment gateways integrating themselves, not for merchants.
Third-party multi-gateway connectors. Shuttle's Pay Connector is listed first in Twilio's Pay Connector catalogue and connects one <Pay> integration to 30+ gateways, with routing by merchant, region, amount, or failover, plus the operations the built-in connectors lack: refunds, pre-auth and capture, and recurring payments set up in the call itself. It is also one of the few connectors Twilio documents for its Ireland (IE1) and Australia (AU1) data-residency regions, where the Stripe connector is not available.
The full comparison lives in our guide to Twilio Pay Connectors, and if you are already on a connector that no longer fits, switching connectors is a configuration change rather than a rebuild.
What Does Twilio Pay Cost?
Three costs stack up, and it is worth separating them:
Twilio voice charges. Normal per-minute call pricing for the call itself.
Connector fees. Billed by Twilio per successful transaction. The Stripe connector is $0.15 per transaction for the first 10,000 per month, tiering down to $0.04 above 1 million. The Shuttle connector is $0.20 per transaction for the first 50,000 per month, tiering down to $0.05 above 1 million.
Gateway processing fees. Your gateway's normal card processing rates apply on top, exactly as they do for online payments. Twilio Pay does not change them.
There is no monthly platform fee for Twilio Pay itself; you pay per successful transaction plus your usual voice and gateway costs.
What Twilio Pay Can and Can't Do
Supported today:
Credit and debit card capture on calls, IVR flows, and AI voice agent conversations
ACH bank account capture (connector-dependent: the Stripe connector can tokenise ACH in-call but not charge it; the Shuttle connector supports both ACH tokenisation and in-call ACH charges)
Tokenisation, so you can save a card during a call and charge it later
Real-time results returned into the call flow
Not supported through the built-in connectors:
Refunds. The
<Pay>API processes charges and tokenisations only; refunds happen in your gateway's dashboard, disconnected from the call platform.3D Secure / SCA. Payments are tagged MOTO (telephone order), which is exempt from PSD2 Strong Customer Authentication. There is no option to step up to authentication.
Auth-then-capture. No holding a deposit during the call and capturing later.
Multi-gateway routing and multi-merchant management. One built-in connector means one gateway account. Platforms and BPOs serving many merchants need a connector layer that routes per client.
Recurring schedules. Built-in connectors tokenise in-call; the subscription itself is something you build at the gateway afterwards.
Several of these gaps are connector-level rather than platform-level: a multi-gateway connector such as Shuttle's adds refunds, pre-auth and capture, in-call recurring setup, and per-merchant routing on top of the same <Pay> capture mechanics.
Common Use Cases
Contact centre payments. Agents take secure card payments mid-call without hearing card numbers, keeping the centre out of PCI scope. See contact centre payments for the full picture across platforms.
IVR payment lines. 24/7 self-service bill payment, order, and donation lines with no agent cost.
AI voice agents. Voice AI platforms use Twilio Pay to let their agents collect payment mid-conversation; the AI voice agent PCI payments guide covers how this works end to end.
Collections and debt recovery. Automated and agent-assisted payment collection with payment plans, where DTMF capture plus tokenisation supports instalment schedules.
Twilio Pay FAQ
What is Twilio Pay in simple terms? It is the feature of Twilio Voice that lets a caller type their card details into their phone keypad during a call, securely, so a business can take payment over the phone without anyone reading card numbers aloud. Twilio captures the digits in its PCI-certified environment and passes them to the business's payment gateway to charge.
Is Twilio a payment processor? No. Twilio Pay captures card details and hands them to a payment gateway (Stripe, Adyen, Worldpay, and others) via a Pay Connector. The gateway processes the charge and settles the funds. Twilio never holds your money.
How much does Twilio Pay cost? Per successful transaction, billed by Twilio on top of your voice minutes and gateway fees: $0.15 for the Stripe connector (first 10,000 per month, tiering down at volume) and $0.20 for the Shuttle connector (first 50,000 per month). Your gateway's normal processing fees apply unchanged.
Is Twilio Pay PCI compliant? Twilio Voice `<Pay>` is PCI DSS Level 1 certified for capture, with DTMF tones suppressed from agents and recordings. Using it does not automatically make your business PCI compliant, but it keeps card data out of your systems, which typically keeps you at the simplest self-assessment level (SAQ-A). The exception is the Generic Pay Connector, where your endpoint receives full card data and your PCI scope expands dramatically. See Twilio PCI compliance.
What payment methods does Twilio Pay support? Credit cards, debit cards, and ACH bank debits. ACH support varies by connector: the Stripe connector tokenises ACH in-call but cannot charge it, while the Shuttle connector supports in-call ACH charges as well.
Can Twilio Pay do refunds? Not through the <Pay> API. With built-in connectors, refunds happen directly in your gateway. With the Shuttle connector, refunds and pre-auth/capture run through the same platform that took the call payment.
Which payment gateways work with Twilio Pay? Twilio ships named connectors for a short list (Stripe, Braintree, CardConnect, and a few others), a Generic Pay Connector you integrate yourself, and third-party connectors. Shuttle's connector links `<Pay>` to 30+ gateways including Adyen, Worldpay, Checkout.com, Global Payments, Authorize.net, and Cybersource; the full list is in our Twilio Pay Connectors guide.
Does Twilio Pay work with AI voice agents? Yes. The same `<Pay>` capture works when the "agent" is an AI voice agent rather than a human, and it is one of the main ways voice AI platforms add PCI-compliant payment collection. See AI voice agent payments.
Related Reading
Twilio Pay Connectors: How to Connect Any Payment Gateway - the complete guide to connectors and multi-PSP routing
Twilio PCI Compliance: Payments Without Handling Card Data - what
<Pay>does and doesn't cover for your PCI scopeTwilio Stripe Pay Connector: Features, Limits & Alternatives - the native Stripe connector examined honestly
Twilio Generic Pay Connector: Build vs Buy - what building your own connector actually involves
Twilio Pay Error Codes Explained - every 64001-64015 error and how to handle it
Voice Payments: The Complete Guide - phone payments beyond Twilio
*Take PCI-compliant payments on Twilio with 30+ gateways through one connector. Install Shuttle on Twilio or book a discovery call.*