# Charges versus Payment Intents APIs

Learn about the differences between Stripe's two core payment APIs and when to use them.

## Understanding the Stripe payment APIs

There are three ways to accept payments on Stripe today:

- *Stripe Checkout* (A low-code payment integration that creates a customizable form for collecting payments. You can embed Checkout directly in your website, redirect customers to a Stripe-hosted payment page, or create a customized checkout page with Stripe Elements)
- *Payment Intents API* (The Payment Intents API tracks the lifecycle of a customer checkout flow and triggers additional authentication steps when required by regulatory mandates, custom Radar fraud rules, or redirect-based payment methods)
- Charges API (deprecated for creating payments)

[Stripe Checkout](https://docs.stripe.com/payments/checkout.md) is a prebuilt payment page that you can redirect your customer to for simple purchases and *subscriptions* (A Subscription represents the product details associated with the plan that your customer subscribes to. Allows you to charge the customer on a recurring basis). It provides many features, such as Apple Pay, Google Pay, internationalization, and form validation.

The [Payment Intents API](https://docs.stripe.com/payments/payment-intents.md) is the unifying API for all Stripe products and payment methods. It lets you build custom payment flows and experiences. New features are only available with the Payment Intents API.

> #### Deprecated
> 
> We’ve deprecated use of the Charges API to create card payments and plan to remove support. Use [Checkout](https://docs.stripe.com/payments/checkout.md) or [the Payment Intents API](https://docs.stripe.com/payments/payment-intents.md) instead. New integrations can’t use the Charges API to create payments.
> 
> The Charges API doesn’t support the following features, many of which are required for credit card compliance:
> 
> - Businesses in India
- [Bank requests for card authentication](https://docs.stripe.com/payments/cards/overview.md)
- [Strong Customer Authentication](https://docs.stripe.com/strong-customer-authentication.md)

## Migrating code that reads from charges 

If you have an application with multiple payment flows and are incrementally migrating them from the Charges API to the Payment Intents API, you should first update any code that reads from the [Charge](https://docs.stripe.com/api/charges.md) object. To help with this, the charge object has two additional properties, [payment_method_details](https://docs.stripe.com/api/charges/object.md#charge_object-payment_method_details) and [billing_details](https://docs.stripe.com/api/charges/object.md#charge_object-billing_details), which provide a consistent interface for reading the details of the payment method used for the charge.

These fields are available on all API versions and on charge objects created with both the Charges API and the Payment Intents API.

The following table shows commonly used properties on a charge and how the same information can be accessed using the additional properties:

#### Cards and bank accounts

| Description | Before | After |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Details about the payment method used to create a charge | `charge.source` | `charge.payment_method_details` |
| ID of the payment method used for the charge | `charge.source.id` | `charge.payment_method` |
| Type of payment method used | `charge.source.object` (for example, `card` or `bank_account`) | `charge.payment_method_details.type` |
| Billing information for the charge (for example, billing postal code) | `charge.source.address_zip` | `charge.billing_details.address.postal_code` |
| Name of the cardholder | `charge.source.name` | `charge.billing_details.name` |
| Last 4 digits of the card used | `charge.source.last4` | `charge.payment_method_details.card.last4` |
| Fingerprint of the card | `charge.source.fingerprint` | `charge.payment_method_details.card.fingerprint` |
| CVC verification status for the charge | `charge.source.cvc_check` | `charge.payment_method_details.card.checks.cvc_check` |
| Card brand values | `charge.source.brand` can be one of: `American Express`, `Diners Club`, `Discover`, `JCB`, `MasterCard`, `UnionPay`, `Visa` | `charge.payment_method_details.card.brand` can be one of: `amex`, `diners`, `discover`, `jcb`, `mastercard`, `unionpay`, `visa` |
| Google Pay enum value | `charge.source.tokenization_method` is `android_pay` | `card.wallet.type` within `charge.payment_method_details` is `google_pay` |

#### Sources

| Description | Before | After |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Details about the payment method used to create a charge | `charge.source` | `charge.payment_method_details` |
| ID of the payment method used for the charge | `charge.source.id` (`charge.source.three_d_secure.card` if 3D Secure source used) | `charge.payment_method` |
| Type of payment method used | `charge.source.object == 'source' && charge.source.type` (unless `charge.source.type` is `three_d_secure`) | `charge.payment_method_details.type` |
| Billing information for the charge (for example, billing postal code) | `charge.source.owner.address.postal_code` | `charge.billing_details.address.postal_code` |
| Name of the cardholder | `charge.source.owner.name` | `charge.billing_details.name` |
| Last 4 digits of the card used | `charge.source.card.last4` `charge.source.three_d_secure.last4` | `charge.payment_method_details.card.last4` |
| Whether or not 3D Secure was successful | `charge.source.object == 'source' && charge.source.type == 'three_d_secure'` | `charge.payment_method_details.card.three_d_secure.succeeded` |
| Fingerprint of the card | `charge.source.card.fingerprint` | `charge.payment_method_details.card.fingerprint` |
| CVC verification status for the charge | `charge.source.card.cvc_check` | `charge.payment_method_details.card.checks.cvc_check` |
| Card brand values | `charge.source.card.brand` can be one of: `American Express`, `Diners Club`, `Discover`, `JCB`, `MasterCard`, `UnionPay`, `Visa` | `charge.payment_method_details.card.brand` can be one of: `amex`, `diners`, `discover`, `jcb`, `mastercard`, `unionpay`, `visa` |
| Google Pay enum value | `charge.source.card.tokenization_method` is `android_pay` | `card.wallet.type` within `charge.payment_method_details` is `google_pay` |

## See also

- [Migrate to Payment Intents](https://docs.stripe.com/payments/payment-intents/migration.md)