Cardtonic

Cardtonic is an Africa-focused fintech platform, operated by The Tonic Technologies, that lets users trade gift cards (sell unused cards for cash and buy over 14,000 local and international gift cards), issue virtual dollar cards, pay bills (airtime, data, electricity, TV, betting), purchase eSIMs in 140+ countries, and shop for gadgets through its Just Gadgets storefront. Cardtonic supports Naira and Cedi settlement for users in Nigeria and Ghana, carries a PCI DSS certification badge, and is registered with the Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC) as a Data Controller of Major Importance under the Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023. For businesses, Cardtonic advertises a Gift Card Developer API (waitlist-only, no published contract) and separately publishes a real OpenAPI 3.0.1 contract for its Business API - business signup, login, 2FA, BVN and corporate KYC, and API-key issuance - through an Apidog-hosted documentation site at docs.cardtonic.com, against the base https://api.cardtonic.com/v1.

Cardtonic publishes 5 API contracts indexed on the APIs.io network, including Auth API, User API, and 3 more. Tagged areas include Africa, Bill Payments, eSIM, Finance, and Fintech.

The Cardtonic catalog on APIs.io includes 1 Spectral governance ruleset.

Cardtonic’s developer surface includes documentation, API reference, signup flow, engineering blog, support, and 27 more developer resources.

🌐 Visit website 📡 Profile data on GitHub

48.6/100 developing ▬ flat Agent 26/100 agent aware Front door AI 2/6 trace saas Full breakdown ↓
scored 2026-11-06 · rubric v0.27.0 · Show this score on your site →

AccessFreemiumSelf serve⚡ Free to try

2 published contracts 1 MCP Servers 3 Agent Skills

Africa Bill Payments eSIM Finance Fintech Gift Cards Ghana Nigeria PaymentsVirtual Dollar Cards

Kin Score

Kin Score How this is scored →
scored 2026-11-06 · rubric v0.27.0

Composite quality — 48.6/100 · developing

Contract Quality 7.4 / 19

Developer Ergonomics 8.1 / 15

Access Clarity 9.5 / 15

Operational Transparency 2.1 / 10

Contract Governance 2.9 / 9

Discoverability 4.8 / 8

Regulatory Posture 5.9 / 15

Create-or-Update Ergonomics 0.0 / 10

Agent readiness — 26/100 · agent aware

Machine-Readable Contract 18 / 18

Agentic Access Contract 0 / 10

Documented Reversibility 0 / 6

MCP Server 0 / 12

Machine-Readable Auth 10 / 10

Idempotency 0 / 9

Stable Error Semantics 8 / 8

Request/Response Examples 7 / 7

Rate-Limit Signaling 7 / 7

Typed Event Surface 0 / 6

Agent Skills 5 / 5

Well-Known Catalog 0 / 4

Consent & Bot Identity 0 / 3

A2A Agent Card 0 / 8

Dry-Run / Simulate Mode 0 / 4

Delegated User Identity 0 / 6

Protected Resource Metadata 0 / 5

Registration Without a Human 0 / 6

Agentic Commerce Well-Known Document 0 / 5

Pagination 5 / 5

Distinct Operations 3 / 3

MCP Tool Quality 6 / 6

Regulatory Posture applies to this provider. Its tags matched the Payments regime, so Regulatory Posture carries 15 points of the composite. If this regime is wrong for your business, say so on your provider repo — the applicability map is public and we will correct it.

Create-or-Update Ergonomics applies to this provider. This API accepts writes, so it carries 10 points of the composite. It is scored from the published contracts themselves: whether a caller can create-or-update in one call, whether the write accepts a key the caller already holds, and whether the response says which branch ran. Without that, every write needs a search-and-branch in front of it, and the first time that check is skipped a duplicate record is created. Scored against the observed mean rather than raw — a provider at the catalog average is unchanged by this facet, not penalised by it.

The six quality facets above are damped to 75 points between them, because the conditional facet above carries the other 25. That is why each facet's contribution is shown against a damped maximum: raising a quality facet moves the composite by 75% of its nominal weight, not 100%. The full arithmetic is at apis.io/rating/.

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Agent readiness — checks not met, largest first (exact, from this profile):

MCP Server +12 pts — deployment.mode + probe verdict on the mcp/ manifest, not the pointer; an unprobed slug falls back to authorship
Agentic Access Contract +10 pts — agentic_access artifact present (x-agentic-access), graded by author
Idempotency +9 pts — OpenAPI mutating operations declare an idempotency key — a header, a request-body property, or a named de-duplication token whose own description says so (verified); else common[].type matches /idempoten/i (documented)
A2A Agent Card +8 pts — a2a/-a2a.yml manifest, graded on conformance.grade against A2A 1.0.0
Registration Without a Human +6 pts — a `registration_endpoint` in the served RFC 8414 / OIDC discovery document
Delegated User Identity +6 pts — a served discovery document listing authorization_code in grant_types_supported (served), else an oauth2 authorizationCode flow or openIdConnect declared in an OpenAPI (documented)

7 more unmet checks in the Agent Readiness table above.

Kin Score — facets with the most composite points still available (weight × headroom):

Contract Quality scores 39.5 — up to +15.1 composite points
Operational Transparency scores 21.1 — up to +10.3 composite points
Developer Ergonomics scores 54.2 — up to +9.2 composite points

Each check links to what satisfies it. Publish the artifact, or tell us where it already lives, and the score moves on the next scoring run.

Improve this rating by publishing the missing artifacts — every area above can be raised, and the full rubric is at apis.io/rating/. Every facet and dimension name above is a link: it opens that measurement's own page — what it means, the exact checks that feed it, how the whole catalog distributes on it, and the providers at the top of it. This rating is computed from the provider profile at artifacts.apis.io/cardtonic/apis.yml: open an issue on github.com/api-evangelist/cardtonic to ask a question or point us at an artifact you publish. Submit an artifact on GitHub — free → Manage your own listing — the Influence plan, $499/mo →

Markets this provider is in provisional

The Kin Score Market layer reads a provider inside its market: its position, and how deep its integrations go. Depth is only comparable within a position. Provisional and unweighted: not part of the Kin Score or agent readiness.

Market	Position	Depth	Registered MCP server	Declares compatibility
African Payments (Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Ghana, WAEMU)	undeclared	-	-	-

Registered MCP server and declares compatibility are report only — not weighted. Undeclared means we found nothing we can read, so there is no number: we never infer integrations.

Standards implemented 2

Standards this provider implements or carries. De facto ones are profiled and measured by the API Commons; formal ones come from the standards directory and are linked by the provider's own tags. The evidence column says how each claim was established — not that it was made.

eSIM

tagged — the provider's own APIs.json carries the standard as a tag; implementation not verified

OpenAPI

measured — observed by APIs.io (published)

APIs 5

Individual APIs this provider publishes, each with its own machine-readable definition.

Cardtonic Gift Card Developer API

The Cardtonic Gift Card Developer API enables merchants and platforms to integrate gift card services into their websites, mobile apps, and point-of-sale systems. The API expose...

Cardtonic Virtual Dollar Card

Cardtonic Virtual Dollar Cards are user-facing USD-denominated cards that let African customers pay merchants that accept Visa/Mastercard globally. The product is currently cons...

Cardtonic Bill Payments

Cardtonic Bill Payments cover airtime top-ups, mobile data, electricity, TV subscriptions, and betting wallets across more than 100 countries, consumed through the Cardtonic app...

Cardtonic Auth API

The Auth API from Cardtonic — 6 operation(s) for auth.

Cardtonic User API

The User API from Cardtonic — 8 operation(s) for user.

Open Collections 1

Open, tool-agnostic API collections (OpenAPI-derived and Bruno).

API Collection

OPEN COLLECTION

MCP Servers 1

Model Context Protocol servers that expose these APIs to AI agents.

Cardtonic MCP Server

A CANDIDATE tool list derived from Cardtonic's published OpenAPI operations. Cardtonic ships no MCP server of any kind. Nothing below is offered by the provider; each entry inhe...

MCP SERVER

Agent Skills 3

Packaged agent skills for driving this provider's APIs from an AI assistant.

cardtonic-account-security

AGENT SKILL

cardtonic-api-credentials

AGENT SKILL

cardtonic-business-onboarding

AGENT SKILL

Cardtonic API pricing

Prices published by Cardtonic, read 2026-09-05 from "waitlist + feature copy, no pricing", "status" => 200, "url" => "https://cardtonic.com/developer"}" rel="nofollow noopener">{"note" => "waitlist + feature copy, no pricing", "status....

Plan	Price
Gift Card Developer API (Waitlist) enterprise	—

Plan details, limits and sources →

Rate limits

Per-merchant contract limit: see merchant onboarding varies

Rate-limit details →

Pricing Plans 1

Published pricing tiers and plan structures.

Cardtonic Plans Pricing

1 plans

PLANS

Rate Limits 1

Documented rate limits and quota policies.

Cardtonic Rate Limits

1 limits

RATE LIMITS

Service Levels 1

Uptime the provider promises or reports, as SLA4OAI. Read from its own pages; APIs.io runs no monitors.

Cardtonic

SLA

FinOps 1

Cost, billing, and metering signals for API financial operations.

Cardtonic Finops

FINOPS

Spectral Rules 1

Spectral governance rulesets for linting and validating these APIs.

Cardtonic API Rules

41 rules · 39 errors 1 warnings 1 info

SPECTRAL

OpenAPI Overlays 1

Overlays applied on top of this provider's contracts. Each card says who wrote it: a document the provider publishes, or one API Evangelist derived or generated.

Cardtonic Business Api Overlay

15 actions · documentation · cardtonic-business-api-openapi.yml

DERIVED

Security Posture 2

Authentication, domain security, vulnerability disclosure, and trust-center signals.

Cardtonic Authentication

3 schemes

SECURITY

Cardtonic Domain Security

TLSv1.3 · DMARC

SECURITY

Resources

Get Started 3

Portal, sign-up, and the first successful call

DeveloperPortal

DeveloperPortal

Login

SignUp

SignUp

Documentation 2

Reference material describing how the API behaves

Documentation

Documentation

APIReference

APIReference

Agent Surfaces 4

MCP servers, agent skills, and machine-readable catalogs

MCPServer

AgentSkill

LlmsText

LLMsTxt

Design & Contract 2

Pagination, idempotency, versioning, errors, and events

Conformance

Conformance

Lifecycle

Lifecycle

Build 1

SDKs, sample code, and the tooling you integrate with

Packages

Packages

Access & Security 2

Authentication, authorization, and security posture

Compliance

Compliance

DomainSecurity

DomainSecurity

Operate 5

Status, limits, changes, and where to get help

HelpCenter

Support

Contact

StatusPage

RateLimits

Commercial 4

Pricing, plans, and the legal terms of use

TermsOfService

PrivacyPolicy

Plans

FinOps

Company 5

The organization behind the API

Website

Website

About

About

Blog

Blog

LinkedIn

Instagram

Instagram

Other 4

Properties that don't map to a standard resource type

Overlay

Overlay

Developer

Developer

Dashboard

Dashboard

Source (apis.yml)

aid: cardtonic
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/cardtonic/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
name: Cardtonic
description: Cardtonic is an Africa-focused fintech platform, operated by The Tonic Technologies, that lets users trade gift
  cards (sell unused cards for cash and buy over 14,000 local and international gift cards), issue virtual dollar cards, pay
  bills (airtime, data, electricity, TV, betting), purchase eSIMs in 140+ countries, and shop for gadgets through its Just
  Gadgets storefront. Cardtonic supports Naira and Cedi settlement for users in Nigeria and Ghana, carries a PCI DSS certification
  badge, and is registered with the Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC) as a Data Controller of Major Importance under
  the Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023. For businesses, Cardtonic advertises a Gift Card Developer API (waitlist-only, no
  published contract) and separately publishes a real OpenAPI 3.0.1 contract for its Business API - business signup, login,
  2FA, BVN and corporate KYC, and API-key issuance - through an Apidog-hosted documentation site at docs.cardtonic.com, against
  the base https://api.cardtonic.com/v1.
type: Index
kind: company
deliveryModel:
  model: saas
  open_source: false
  commercial: true
  callable_host: false
  label: Hosted service · you call their endpoint
  confidence: medium
  source:
  - pricing
  generated: '2026-08-28'
  method: derived
accessModel:
  pricing: freemium
  onboarding: self-serve
  trial: false
  try_now: true
  public: false
  gated: none
  gated_source:
  - onboarding
  label: Freemium · Self-serve signup
  confidence: high
  source:
  - plans
  - authentication
  - rate-limits
  - security
  - sandbox
  generated: '2026-11-06'
  method: derived
position: Consuming
access: 3rd-Party
image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/icons/cardtonic.png
x-docs-platform: redoc
x-docs-platform-confidence: medium
x-docs-platform-checked: 2026-09-21
tags:
- Africa
- Bill Payments
- eSIM
- Finance
- Fintech
- Gift Cards
- Ghana
- Nigeria
- Payments
- Virtual Dollar Cards
created: '2025-02-08'
modified: '2026-09-05'
specificationVersion: '0.23'
apis:
- aid: cardtonic:gift-card-developer-api
  name: Cardtonic Gift Card Developer API
  description: The Cardtonic Gift Card Developer API enables merchants and platforms to integrate gift card services into
    their websites, mobile apps, and point-of-sale systems. The API exposes a catalog of more than 14,000 gift cards for purchase
    and sale, bulk ordering with instant reporting, inventory and redemption management, and branding/customization hooks.
    As of 2026 the API is in waitlist mode and developer credentials are issued through Cardtonic on request.
  humanURL: https://cardtonic.com/developer
  tags:
  - Gift Cards
  - Fintech
  - Payments
  properties:
  - url: https://cardtonic.com/developer
    type: Documentation
  - url: https://cardtonic.com/developer
    type: SignUp
  x-features:
  - Catalog of 14,000+ local and international gift cards
  - Purchase and sale flows for merchant integration
  - Bulk ordering with instant reporting
  - Inventory and redemption management
  - Branding/white-label customization hooks
  - Web, mobile, and POS integration patterns
  - Waitlist-based onboarding
  x-use-cases:
  - Rewards and employee recognition platforms
  - Remittance and cross-border cash-out flows
  - Neobank and wallet gift card storefronts
  - Retail POS gift card upsell and resale
  - Loyalty and referral programs
  - Corporate procurement and bulk gifting
- aid: cardtonic:virtual-dollar-card
  name: Cardtonic Virtual Dollar Card
  description: Cardtonic Virtual Dollar Cards are user-facing USD-denominated cards that let African customers pay merchants
    that accept Visa/Mastercard globally. The product is currently consumed through the Cardtonic app and dashboard; programmatic
    access for partners is available on request alongside the Gift Card Developer API waitlist.
  humanURL: https://cardtonic.com/virtual-dollar-card
  tags:
  - Cards
  - Fintech
  - Virtual Dollar Cards
  properties:
  - url: https://cardtonic.com/virtual-dollar-card
    type: Documentation
  x-features:
  - USD-denominated virtual cards for online spending
  - Load and settle in Naira/Cedis
  - App and dashboard controls for issuance and spend
  - PCI DSS certified issuance
  x-use-cases:
  - Cross-border subscription payments (SaaS, streaming)
  - Online shopping on global merchants
  - Travel and ad-platform spend for SMBs
  - Remote worker payouts
- aid: cardtonic:bill-payments
  name: Cardtonic Bill Payments
  description: Cardtonic Bill Payments cover airtime top-ups, mobile data, electricity, TV subscriptions, and betting wallets
    across more than 100 countries, consumed through the Cardtonic app and dashboard. Partner access is available on request.
  humanURL: https://cardtonic.com/
  tags:
  - Bill Payments
  - Fintech
  - Payments
  properties:
  - url: https://cardtonic.com/
    type: Documentation
  x-features:
  - Airtime and mobile data top-ups
  - Electricity and TV subscription payments
  - Betting wallet funding
  - 100+ country coverage
  - App, web, and dashboard channels
  x-use-cases:
  - Consumer bill-payment super-app scenarios
  - Diaspora bill pay for family members
  - Agent-banking and mobile-money integrations
- aid: cardtonic:cardtonic-auth-api
  name: Cardtonic Auth API
  description: The Auth API from Cardtonic — 6 operation(s) for auth.
  humanURL: https://cardtonic.com/developer
  baseURL: https://api.cardtonic.com/v1
  tags:
  - Authentication
  tags_raw:
  - Auth
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/cardtonic-auth-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Authentication
    url: authentication/cardtonic-authentication.yml
  - type: Conventions
    url: conventions/cardtonic-conventions.yml
  - type: ErrorCatalog
    url: errors/cardtonic-problem-types.yml
  - type: DataModel
    url: data-model/cardtonic-data-model.yml
  - type: Sandbox
    url: sandbox/cardtonic-sandbox.yml
  - type: APIReference
    url: https://docs.cardtonic.com
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://docs.cardtonic.com
  - type: SignUp
    url: https://cardtonic.com/developer
- aid: cardtonic:cardtonic-user-api
  name: Cardtonic User API
  description: The User API from Cardtonic — 8 operation(s) for user.
  humanURL: https://cardtonic.com/developer
  baseURL: https://api.cardtonic.com/v1
  tags:
  - User
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/cardtonic-user-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Authentication
    url: authentication/cardtonic-authentication.yml
  - type: Conventions
    url: conventions/cardtonic-conventions.yml
  - type: ErrorCatalog
    url: errors/cardtonic-problem-types.yml
  - type: DataModel
    url: data-model/cardtonic-data-model.yml
  - type: Sandbox
    url: sandbox/cardtonic-sandbox.yml
  - type: APIReference
    url: https://docs.cardtonic.com
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://docs.cardtonic.com
  - type: SignUp
    url: https://cardtonic.com/developer
common:
- type: Overlay
  url: overlays/cardtonic-business-api-overlay.yaml
- type: MCPServer
  url: mcp/cardtonic-mcp.yml
- type: AgentSkill
  url: skills/_index.yml
- type: Website
  url: https://cardtonic.com/
- type: Developer
  url: https://cardtonic.com/developer
- type: DeveloperPortal
  url: https://cardtonic.com/developer
- type: Documentation
  url: https://docs.cardtonic.com
- type: APIReference
  url: https://docs.cardtonic.com
- type: Dashboard
  url: https://dashboard.cardtonic.com/
- type: Login
  url: https://dashboard.cardtonic.com/signin
- type: SignUp
  url: https://dashboard.cardtonic.com/signup
- type: About
  url: https://thetonictech.com/about-us
- type: Blog
  url: https://cardtonic.com/read
- type: HelpCenter
  url: https://help.cardtonic.com/en/
- type: Support
  url: https://help.cardtonic.com/en/
- type: Contact
  url: https://cardtonic.com/contact-us
- type: StatusPage
  url: https://status.cardtonic.com/
- type: TermsOfService
  url: https://cardtonic.com/terms
- type: PrivacyPolicy
  url: https://cardtonic.com/privacy
- type: X
  url: https://x.com/cardtonic
- type: LinkedIn
  url: https://www.linkedin.com/company/thetonictech
- type: Instagram
  url: https://www.instagram.com/cardtonic
- type: LlmsText
  url: https://cardtonic.com/llms.txt
- type: LLMsTxt
  url: llms/cardtonic-llms.txt
- type: Conformance
  url: conformance/cardtonic-conformance.yml
- type: Compliance
  url: conformance/cardtonic-conformance.yml
- type: Lifecycle
  url: lifecycle/cardtonic-lifecycle.yml
- type: Packages
  url: packages/cardtonic-packages.yml
- type: Plans
  url: plans/cardtonic-plans-pricing.yml
- type: RateLimits
  url: rate-limits/cardtonic-rate-limits.yml
- type: DomainSecurity
  url: security/cardtonic-domain-security.yml
- type: FinOps
  url: finops/cardtonic-finops.yml
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com
x-enrichment:
  date: '2026-09-05'
  status: enriched
  artifacts_added: 17
  pass: local-v3

Cardtonic API — frequently asked questions

Does Cardtonic have an API?

Yes. APIs.io lists 5 APIs from Cardtonic, including Cardtonic Gift Card Developer API, Cardtonic Virtual Dollar Card and Cardtonic Bill Payments, and 2 more.

Is there an OpenAPI specification for the Cardtonic API?

Yes. APIs.io indexes 2 OpenAPI specifications for Cardtonic, each linked for download from this page.

How do I authenticate with the Cardtonic API?

Cardtonic uses bearer-token authentication (3 schemes). The details are profiled on APIs.io as Cardtonic Authentication.

How much does the Cardtonic API cost?

APIs.io lists 1 pricing plan for Cardtonic, with each plan's price, limits and inclusions under Pricing on this page.

Does Cardtonic have an MCP server?

Yes. APIs.io lists 1 MCP server for Cardtonic: A CANDIDATE tool list derived from Cardtonic's published OpenAPI operations. Cardtonic ships no MCP server of any kind. Nothing below is offered by the provider; each entry inherits its input schema f

Is the Cardtonic API ready for AI agents?

Cardtonic has a Kin Score of 48.6 out of 100 (developing) and an Agent Readiness score of 26.2 (agent-aware), scored by API Evangelist on 2026-11-06.

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