Payment with memo

Attach an order id, invoice number or customer reference to an SDP transfer with the memo field.

Set memo on POST /v1/payments/transfers to store a note of up to 256 characters with the transfer. SDP returns it whenever you read or list that transfer, so your reconciliation can map each transfer back to a row in your own database.

When to use a memo

Use a memo for a correlation value your backend already has when it sends the payment:

  • Order or invoice ids: order_2026-05-14_4837, so the transfer ties to a checkout row.
  • Customer references: your customer or account id, for support and reconciliation.
  • Run ids: one payout run's id across many outbound transfers.

SDP stores the memo on its own record. It does not add a Solana memo instruction to the transaction, so block explorers don't show it. See Memos and Solana Pay references for on-chain correlation.

API usage

Terminal
curl -X POST https://api.solana.com/v1/payments/transfers \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer sf_..." \
  -H "Idempotency-Key: order-2026-05-14-4837" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "sourceCustodyWalletId": "cwlt_123",
    "destination": "7xKXz...9fGh",
    "token": "9aBCd...4eEf",
    "amount": "100.00",
    "memo": "order_2026-05-14_4837"
  }'
send-payment-with-memo.ts
const response = await fetch(
  "https://api.solana.com/v1/payments/transfers",
  {
    method: "POST",
    headers: {
      "Authorization": "Bearer sf_...",
      "Idempotency-Key": "order-2026-05-14-4837",
      "Content-Type": "application/json",
    },
    body: JSON.stringify({
      sourceCustodyWalletId: "cwlt_123",
      destination: "7xKXz...9fGh",
      token: "9aBCd...4eEf",
      amount: "100.00",
      memo: "order_2026-05-14_4837",
    }),
  }
);
const { data } = await response.json();
SendPaymentWithMemo.java
HttpRequest request = HttpRequest.newBuilder()
    .uri(URI.create("https://api.solana.com/v1/payments/transfers"))
    .header("Authorization", "Bearer sf_...")
    .header("Idempotency-Key", "order-2026-05-14-4837")
    .header("Content-Type", "application/json")
    .POST(HttpRequest.BodyPublishers.ofString("""
        {
          "sourceCustodyWalletId": "cwlt_123",
          "destination": "7xKXz...9fGh",
          "token": "9aBCd...4eEf",
          "amount": "100.00",
          "memo": "order_2026-05-14_4837"
        }"""))
    .build();

The memo comes back on the transfer:

response.json
{
  "data": {
    "transfer": {
      "id": "xfr_...",
      "memo": "order_2026-05-14_4837",
      "status": "finalized",
      "signature": "5xR1...",
      ...
    }
  }
}

memo takes up to 256 characters of UTF-8 text. Sanitize it on the way in if your downstream systems are stricter.

Memos and Solana Pay references

A Solana Pay reference is the other way to correlate a payment: a unique public key per order, added to the transfer instruction. Anyone can then find and verify the payment on chain without SDP's database, and the payer can build the transfer from a Solana Pay URL.

SDP uses references for dashboard payment requests: each request gets its own, and SDP watches it to see when the request is paid. A transfer you send through the API carries no reference, and transfer records don't expose one. To read a reference from any transaction, fetch it from Solana RPC by its signature.

Rule of thumb: use a memo when you send the transfer (payouts, internal moves), and a reference when someone else does (customer checkout, donations).

Finding transfers by memo

GET /v1/payments/transfers and GET /v1/payments/transfers/{transferId} return memo. To find transfers by memo, pass search with 3 or more characters: it matches part of the memo, as well as ids, signatures, addresses and counterparty names. See Indexing and reconciliation for query patterns.