How fulfillment works

Fulfillment is the step in the order workflow where Nexway delivers a purchased product after a successful payment. Depending on the integration, Nexway either calls your server to retrieve a deliverable or activate paid functionality on your platform, or issues a key from a pre-loaded batch. The deliverable can be:

license keys
activation codes
serial numbers
activation links
certificates
QR codes
or simply an acknowledgement from your server

If fulfillment fails, the order is set to PARTIAL_COMPLETED and the operations team is alerted. If the product cannot ultimately be delivered, the order is canceled and the end user is reimbursed.

The fulfillment call is used to:

Get a license key/activation code/serial number from a partner's server
Activate a service or a license key to a partner's server
Confirm that the partner is able to provide a purchased product

List of fulfillment actions

Each action is associated with an order workflow event on the Nexway Monetize Platform. Some actions are only useful in a subscription context. The Nexway team configures the action-to-URL mapping during onboarding.

Action	Event on Nexway side	Endpoint called on your side	Result
Create	Order is confirmed	https://yourserver.com/licenses/new	Activate or get a license key for a product
Cancel	Order is canceled	https://yourserver.com/licenses/cancel	Cancel/Revoke a license key
Renew (subscription only)	Renewal of subscription product	https://yourserver.com/licenses/renew	Get a new key or extend key validity
Upgrade (subscription mid-term upgrade)	Upgrade of subscription product	https://yourserver.com/licenses/upgrade	Upgrade the license

Implementation options

You already have...	Recommended path
A license-issuing service or partner API	Custom fulfillment template
A batch of pre-generated activation codes	Nexway off-the-shelf license key provider

Custom fulfillment template. If you have an existing service for issuing licenses, it can be integrated into the Monetize fulfillment via a custom fulfillment template.

Off-the-shelf license key provider. Nexway offers an integrated service designed to handle batches of activation codes. You provide a batch of keys for distribution. This works well during the initial phase but requires manual effort for license package maintenance.

What is the difference between a fulfillment call and an order notification?

	Fulfillment call	Order notification
Purpose	Triggers delivery of the product (license, activation, etc.)	Informs you of an order/subscription event
On success	License assigned, transaction finalized	Event delivered, no further effect
On failure	Order set to `PARTIAL_COMPLETED`, ops team alerted	Order processing not affected
Retry	Automatic retries	Automatic retries
Typical use	Issuing licenses, activating services	Updating BI tools, dashboards, CRM systems
Delivery guarantee	Required — blocks order completion	Fire-and-forget

tip

Prefer Fulfillment over Notifications

Even if your product doesn't deliver an activation code or digital asset, we'd still encourage you to use a Fulfillment Call rather than Notifications alone.

Why does this matter?

With Notifications: If a webhook fails while your server is down, the order status on Nexway's side isn't affected — so the order isn't monitored by our operations team, and the buyer may be left waiting without updates.

With a Fulfillment Call: Fulfillment is part of the order workflow itself. If the call fails, the order is automatically flagged and monitored, and end-buyers are kept informed about the delay — helping reduce frustration, cancellations, and chargebacks.

For details on order notifications, see Order notification.

Custom fulfillment template

The Nexway team can configure a fulfillment template to call your server. Nexway can adapt to fields with different names than those described below, mapping values to attributes recognized by your existing service.

Request payload

The fulfillment request is sent as a POST HTTP request. For the full field reference including all optional and integration-specific fields, see Request payload in the Fulfillment templating article.

Default template

Unless customized, Nexway sends the following payload. All payload-table fields are included; optional fields are emitted only when present.

POST https://yourserver.com/licenses/new
Authorization: Basic AuthToken
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "fulfillmentId": "a1b2c3d4-e5f6-7890-abcd-ef1234567890",
  "checkout": {
    "orderId": "ORD-2026-000123",
    "lineItemId": "11111111-2222-3333-4444-555555555555",
    "subscriptionId": "99999999-8888-7777-6666-555555555555",
    "cartExternalContext": "eyJjdXN0b21QYXJhbSI6dHJ1ZX0",
    "trialContext": "CREATION",
    "price": {
      "grossPrice": 29.99,
      "currency": "EUR"
    }
  },
  "user": {
    "id": "user-abc123",
    "email": "[email protected]",
    "country": "FR",
    "locale": "fr-FR",
    "firstName": "Jean",
    "lastName": "Dupont",
    "companyName": "Acme SAS",
    "companyIdentifier": "FR12345678901",
    "city": "Paris",
    "zipCode": "75001"
  },
  "product": {
    "id": "7c9e6679-7425-40de-944b-e07fc1f90ae7",
    "name": "Acme Pro Edition",
    "publisherProductId": "ACME-PRO-2026",
    "externalContext": "campaign:spring",
    "priceFunctionParameters": { "seats": "5" },
    "variables": { "region": "EU" },
    "price": {
      "grossPrice": 29.99,
      "currency": "EUR"
    }
  }
}

The underlying template used to render this payload, along with the full templating reference (syntax, variables, custom functions, response extraction), is in Fulfillment templating.

Security

Authentication. Basic HTTP auth is the default. Credentials are configured per integration during onboarding.
TLS. Production endpoints must use HTTPS. Self-signed certificates are accepted provided you supply your CA root.
Request signing. If your server needs to verify that a fulfillment call originated from Nexway, you can enable HMAC-SHA256 request signing. Nexway computes a signature over a declared set of request fields and delivers it as an HTTP header (X-Nexway-Signature by default) or as a value inside the request body. See Outbound request signing for setup and the algorithm specification.

Response format

Your server can return any JSON shape. Nexway extracts the values it needs with JSONPath expressions configured per integration during onboarding.

Extracted fields

Field	Purpose
`activationCode`	Optional — the delivered license key, activation code, or serial number
`activationFileContent`	Optional — file content (e.g. a certificate) to deliver alongside the key
`activationLink`	Optional — URL for activating the license
`errorCode`	Optional — a non-empty value marks the call as failed
`errorMessage`	Optional human-readable error detail

Sample response

Success:

{
  "licenses": [
    {
      "key": "ABCD-1234-EFGH-5678",
      "expiresAt": "2027-06-04T00:00:00Z"
    }
  ]
}

Error:

{
  "error": {
    "code": "LICENSE_POOL_EXHAUSTED",
    "message": "No available licenses for product ACME-PRO-2026"
  }
}

Response processing

Success. A 2xx response with no errorCode (or errorCode empty) is treated as success. Nexway extracts the configured fields from the response body.

Failure. Any of the following are treated as failed:

An HTTP error status (4xx / 5xx). Nexway retries automatically.
A 2xx response with a non-empty errorCode.

The order is set to PARTIAL_COMPLETED from the first failure, and the operations team is alerted. Retries continue in the background. If the order cannot ultimately be fulfilled, it is canceled and the customer is reimbursed.

List of fulfillment actions​

Implementation options​

What is the difference between a fulfillment call and an order notification?​

Custom fulfillment template​

Request payload​

Default template​

Security​

Response format​

Extracted fields​

Sample response​

Response processing​

See also​