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Overview

Webhooks are notifications about events occurring in the system. When a specific event occurs, Xsolla sends an HTTP request, in which event data is transmitted, to your application. This is usually a POST request in JSON format.

Event examples:

  • user interaction with an item catalog
  • payment or cancellation of an order

When a set event happens, Xsolla notifies your system about it via a webhook. As a result, you can perform actions such as:

  • replenish the user's balance
  • make a payment refund
  • credit or debit new items from the user account
  • start providing a subscription
  • block a user in case of a suspicion of fraud

Example of a payment processing webhook workflow:

Payment processing webhook

Webhooks settings when working with Xsolla products and solutions:

Product/ Solution Required/ Optional What are webhooks used for
Payments Required
  • User validation.
  • Receiving information about transaction details in cases of successful payment or payment refund.
  • Crediting purchased items to a user and debiting items in case of order cancellation.
In-Game Store Required
  • User validation.
  • Receiving information about transaction details in cases of successful payment or payment refund.
  • Crediting purchased items to a user and debiting items in case of order cancellation.
Buy Button Optional For selling game keys, user validation and crediting of items are not required. You can connect webhooks if you want to receive information about events, such as payment or order cancellation.
If you connect webhooks, it is important to process all incoming required webhooks.
Subscriptions Optional To receive information about creation, update, or cancellation of a subscription. Alternatively, you can request information via the API.
Web Shop Optional For user authentication, if you use authentication via user ID. Alternatively, you can use user authentication via Xsolla Login.
Digital Distribution Hub Optional
  • User validation.
  • Linking the transaction ID on Xsolla side with the transaction ID in your system.
  • Transferring additional transaction parameters in the order.
  • Crediting purchased items to the user and debiting items in case of order cancellation.

You can learn more in the instruction for setting up webhooks for Digital Distribution Hub.

List of required webhooks

If you use products and solutions that require webhooks, enable and test the webhooks in your Publisher Account and set up their processing. When specific events occur, webhooks are sent sequentially. Therefore, if you do not process one of the webhooks, subsequent webhooks will not be sent. The list of required webhooks is presented below.

In-Game Store/ Payments

To fully operate an in-game store, it is necessary to implement the processing of the main webhooks:

  • User validation (user_validation) — is sent at different stages of the payment process to ensure the user is registered in the game.
  • Payment (payment) — is sent when an order is paid and contains payment data and transaction details.
  • Successful payment of the order (order_paid) — is sent when a Payment webhook has been successfully processed and contains information about purchased items and the transaction ID. Use the data from the webhook to add items to the user.
  • Refund (refund) — is sent when an order is canceled and contains the canceled payment data and transaction details.
  • Order cancellation (order_canceled) — is sent when a Refund webhook has been successfully processed and contains information about the purchased items and the ID of the canceled transaction. Use the data from the webhook to remove the purchased items.

If item catalog personalization is implemented on your application’s side, set up processing of Catalog personalization on the partner’s side webhook.

Note

To receive real payments, you only need to implement processing of the Payment, Successful payment of the order, and User validation webhooks, as well as sign the licensing agreement.

Subscriptions

To automatically manage subscription plans, it is necessary to implement processing of the main webhooks:

  • User validation (user_validation) — is sent at different stages of the payment process to ensure the user is registered in the game.
  • Payment (payment) — is sent when an order is paid and contains payment data and transaction details.
  • Created subscription (create_subscription) — is sent when a Payment webhook has been successfully processed or the user has purchased a subscription with a trial period. It contains the details of the purchased subscription and user data. Use the webhook data to add a subscription to the user.
  • Updated subscription (update_subscription) — is sent when a subscription is renewed or changed, when a Payment webhook has been successfully processed. It contains the details of the purchased subscription and user data. Use the webhook data to extend the user's subscription or change the subscription parameters.
  • Refund (refund) — is sent when an order is canceled and contains the canceled payment data and transaction details.
  • Canceled subscription (cancel_subscription) — is sent when a Refund webhook has been successfully processed or the subscription was canceled for another reason. It contains information about the subscription and user data. Use the webhook data to deduct purchased subscriptions from the user.

Set up webhooks in Publisher Account

To enable receiving webhooks:

  1. Open your project in Publisher Account.
  2. Click Project settings in the side menu and go to the Webhooks tab.
  3. In the Webhook server field, specify the URL of your server where you want to receive webhooks in the https://example.com format. You can also specify the URL you find in a tool for testing webhooks.
  4. A secret key to sign project webhooks is generated by default. If you want to generate a new secret key, click the refresh icon.
  5. Click Enable webhooks.

Note

To test webhooks, you can select any dedicated website, such as webhook.site, or a platform, such as ngrok.

Notice

You can’t simultaneously send webhooks to different URLs. What you can do in Publisher Account is specify a URL for testing first, and then replace it with the real one.

To disable receiving webhooks:

  1. Open your project in Publisher Account.
  2. Click Project settings in the side menu and go to the Webhooks tab.
  3. Click Disable webhooks.

Test webhooks in Publisher Account

Testing webhooks helps to ensure the correct setup of the project both on your side and on Xsolla side.

You can test the receiving of the following webhooks:

Webhook name Webhook type
User validation user_validation
Payment payment
Order cancellation order_canceled
Successful payment of the order order_paid

If webhooks are set up successfully, a webhooks testing section is displayed below the webhooks setup section.

Webhooks testing section

Note

If a warning that the test has not passed appears in the testing section, check the webhook response settings in your webhook listener. The reasons for the errors in testing are indicated in the test results.

Example:

You use the specialized site webhook.site for testing.

An error is displayed in the Testing response to invalid signature section.

This happens because Xsolla sends a webhook with an incorrect signature and expects your handler to respond with a 4xx HTTP code specifying the INVALID_SIGNATURE error code.

webhook.site sends a 200 HTTP code in response to all webhooks, including a webhook with an incorrect signature. The expected 4xx HTTP code cannot be obtained, so an error is displayed in the test result.

Testing error

Store

In the Store tab, you can test the following webhooks:

To test:

  1. In the webhooks testing section, go to the Store tab.
  2. In the drop-down menu, select the type of item. If the item of selected type is not set up in Publisher Account, click:
    • Connect – if the module with items of this type is not connected
    • Configure – if you connected the module previously, but have not completed the setup
      When you click the button, you will be redirected to the section of Publisher Account corresponding to the type of the selected item. After creating the item, return to the webhook testing section and proceed to the next step.
  3. Enter any value in the Xsolla Order ID field.
  4. Select the items’ SKU from the drop-down list and indicate the amount. You can choose multiple items of the same type by clicking + and adding them in a new line.
  5. Choose the currency in which the order will be paid.
  6. Click Test.

Successful payment of the order and Order cancellation webhooks with the specified data are sent to the provided URL. The results of testing each webhook type are displayed below the Test webhooks button.

Store testing section

Payments

In the Payments tab, you can test the following webhooks:

To test:

  1. In the testing section, go to the Payments tab.
  2. Fill in the necessary fields:
    1. User ID — when testing, you can use any combination of letters and digits.
    2. Public user ID — ID known to a user, e.g., an email or a nickname. This field is displayed if public user ID is enabled in your project in the Pay Station > Settings > Additional settings section.
    3. Currency — select a currency from the drop-down list.
    4. Xsolla Invoice ID — transaction ID on Xsolla side. When testing, you can use any numeric value.
    5. Amount — payment amount. When testing, you can use any numeric value.
    6. Invoice ID — transaction ID on your game’s side. When testing, you can use any combination of letters and digits. It is not a required parameter for a successful payment, but you can pass it to link the transaction ID on your side to the transaction ID on Xsolla side.
  3. Click Test webhooks.

In the specified URL, you will receive webhooks with filled in data. Testing results of each webhook, for both a successful scenario and a scenario with an error, are displayed under the Test webhooks button. If public user ID is enabled in your project, you will also see the results of a user search check.

For each webhook, you need to configure processing both scenarios: a successful one and the one with an error.

Payments testing section

When you save the URL in the Webhook server field, you can see the Advanced settings section where you can give permissions to receive detailed information in webhooks. To do that, set the respective toggles to On. In the line of each permission, you can see the list of webhooks affected by the settings.

Toggle Description
Show info about the saved payment account Information about the saved payment method is passed in the payment_account custom object.
Show info about transactions via saved payment methods

Information is passed in the following custom parameters of the webhook:

  • saved_payment_method:
    • 0 — the saved payment method was not used
    • 1 — the payment method was saved when making the current payment
    • 2 — the previously saved payment method is used
  • payment_type:
    • 1 — one-time payment
    • 2 — recurring payment
Add order object to webhook Information about the order is passed in the order object of the Payment webhook.
Send only necessary user parameters without sensitive data

Only the following information about the user is passed in the webhook:

  • ID
  • country
Send custom parameters Information about custom token parameters is passed in the webhook.
Show card BIN and suffix

The following information about the bank card number is passed in the webhook:

  • the first 6 digits in the card_bin parameter
  • the last 4 digits in the card_suffix
Show card brand The brand of the card used for making the payment. For example, Mastercard or Visa.

Advanced settings

Subscriptions

In the Subscriptions tab, you can test the following webhooks:

Note

In Publisher Account, you can only test basic User Validation and Payment webhooks. To test other webhook types, go to:

Note

To test webhooks, you should have at least one subscription plan created in the Publisher Account > Subscriptions > Subscription Plans section.

To test:

  1. In the testing section, go to the Subscriptions tab.
  2. Fill in the necessary fields:
    1. User ID — when testing, you can use any combination of letters and digits.
    2. Xsolla Invoice ID — transaction ID on Xsolla side. When testing, you can use any numeric value.
    3. Public user ID — ID known to a user, e.g., an email or a nickname. This field is displayed if public user ID is enabled in your project in the Pay Station > Settings > Additional settings section.
    4. Currency — select a currency from the drop-down list.
    5. Plan ID — a subscription plan. Choose a plan from the drop-down list.
    6. Subscription product — choose a product from the drop-down list (optional).
    7. Amount — payment amount. When testing, you can use any numeric value.
    8. Invoice ID — transaction ID on your game’s side. When testing, you can use any combination of letters and digits. It is not a required parameter for a successful payment, but you can pass it to link the transaction ID on your side to the transaction ID on Xsolla side.
    9. Trial period. To test the purchase of a subscription without a trial period or to test the renewal of a subscription, specify the value 0.
  3. Click Test webhooks.

In the specified URL, you will receive webhooks with filled in data. Testing results of each webhook, for both a successful scenario and a scenario with an error, are displayed under the Test webhooks button.

Webhook listener

Webhook listener is program code that allows receiving incoming webhooks at a specified URL address, generating a signature, and sending a response to the Xsolla webhook server.

Note

You can use the Pay Station PHP SDK library, which contains ready-made classes for processing webhooks.

On the your application side, implement the reception of webhooks from the following IP addresses: 185.30.20.0/24, 185.30.21.0/24, 185.30.23.0/24, 34.102.38.178, 34.94.43.207, 35.236.73.234, 34.94.69.44, 34.102.22.197.

Limitations:

  • There should not be multiple successful transactions with the same ID in your application's database.
  • If the webhook listener received a webhook with an ID that already exists in the database, you need to return the result of the previous processing of this transaction. It is not recommended to credit the user with a duplicate purchase and create duplicate records in the database.

Generation of signature

When receiving a webhook, you should ensure the security of data transmission. To achieve this, a signature must be generated from the webhook data and verified that it matches the signature sent in the HTTP request header. To generate a signature:

  1. Concatenate the JSON from the request body and the project’s secret key.
  2. Apply the SHA-1 cryptographic hash function to the string obtained in the first step.
POST /your_uri HTTP/1.1
Host: your.host
Accept: application/json
Content-Type: application/json
Content-Length: 165
Authorization: Signature 52eac2713985e212351610d008e7e14fae46f902
{
  "notification_type":"user_validation",
  "user":{
      "ip":"127.0.0.1",
      "phone":"18777976552",
      "email":"email@example.com",
      "id":1234567,
      "name":"Xsolla User",
      "country":"US"
  }
}
curl -v 'https://your.hostname/your/uri' \
-X POST \
-H 'Authorization: Signature 52eac2713985e212351610d008e7e14fae46f902' \
-d '{
  "notification_type":
    "user_validation",
    "user":
      {
        "ip": "127.0.0.1",
        "phone": "18777976552",
        "email": "email@example.com",
        "id": 1234567,
        "name": "Xsolla User",
        "country": "US"
      }
    }'

Sending responses to webhook

To confirm receipt of the webhook, your server must return:

  • 200, 201, or 204 HTTP code in case of a successful response.
  • 400 HTTP code with description of the problem if the specified user was not found or an invalid signature was passed. Your webhook handler may also return a 5xx HTTP code in case of temporary issues on your server.

If a response was not received for the Successful payment of the order and Order cancellation webhooks or if a response with a 5xx code was received, the webhooks are resent according to the following schedule:

  • 2 attempts with a 5-minute interval
  • 7 attempts with a 15-minute interval
  • 10 attempts with a 60-minute interval

Maximum of 20 attempts to send webhooks are made within 12 hours from the first attempt. If for either the Payment webhook or the Refund webhook a response was not received or if a response with a 5xx code was received, webhooks are also resent with an increased time interval. A maximum of 12 attempts are made within 12 hours.

Notice

If the payment refund was initiated by Xsolla and a response with a `5xx` HTTP code came in response to the Refund webhook, the payment will still be refunded.

If a response was not received for the User validation webhook or a response with a code of 400 or 5xx was received, the User validation webhook is not resent. In this case, an error is shown to the user and the Payment and Successful payment of the order webhooks are not sent.

Errors

Error codes for HTTP code 400:

Code Message
INVALID_USER Invalid user
INVALID_PARAMETER Invalid parameter
INVALID_SIGNATURE Invalid signature
INCORRECT_AMOUNT Incorrect amount
INCORRECT_INVOICE Incorrect invoice
HTTP/1.1 400 Bad Request
{
    "error":{
        "code":"INVALID_USER",
        "message":"Invalid user"
    }
}

Webhooks list

Note

The notification type is sent in the notification_type parameter.

Webhook Notification type Description
User validation user_validation Sent to check if a user exists in the game.
User search user_search Sent to get user info based on public user ID.
Payment payment Sent when a user completes a payment.
Refund refund Sent when a payment must be canceled for any reason.
Partial refund partial_refund Sent when a payment must be partially canceled for any reason.
AFS rejected transaction afs_reject Sent when a transaction is declined during an AFS check.
AFS updated blocklist afs_black_list Sent when the AFS blocklist is updated.
Created subscription create_subscription Sent when a user creates a subscription.
Updated subscription update_subscription Sent when a subscription is renewed or changed.
Canceled subscription cancel_subscription Sent when a subscription is canceled.
Nonrenewing subscription non_renewal_subscription Sent when status is set to nonrenewing.
Add payment account payment_account_add Sent when a user adds or saves a payment account.
Remove payment account payment_account_remove Sent when a user removes the payment account from saved accounts.
User validation in Web Shop - Sent from a Web Shop site to check if a user exists in the game.
Catalog personalization on partner’s side partner_side_catalog Sent when a user interacts with the store.
Successful payment of the order order_paid Sent when an order is paid.
Order cancellation order_canceled Sent when an order is canceled.
Dispute dispute Sent when a new dispute is opened.