---
url: https://dstorage.pro/docs/guide/managed-payments-service.md
---
# Managed Payments Service

dStorage Pro is a hosted signing/payment service run by the dStorage team. It covers the network
fees your app incurs across every supported network — Arweave storage costs and Midnight DUST
chain fees alike — billed to your dStorage Pro account instead of drawn from each end user's own
wallet, so your users never need a funded wallet on any of them. Access is authorized per-request
via a token you configure once. It also offers a `TEST` sandbox, which runs the same payment flow
against your account without spending real funds, so you can build and test your integration
before going live.

This guide takes the [Local & Simulator Adapters](/guide/local-simulator-adapters) script and
routes its storage and chain payments through dStorage Pro's `TEST` (sandbox) service. You get the
full managed-payment round trip against your real dStorage Pro account, while uploads still go to
your local arlocal instance and no real funds are spent.

## Prerequisites

Everything from the [Local & Simulator Adapters](/guide/local-simulator-adapters) guide, plus a
dStorage Pro token:

* Node.js 22 or later
* [arlocal](https://github.com/textury/arlocal) running locally — see
  [Step 1 of the Local & Simulator Adapters guide](/guide/local-simulator-adapters#step-1-—-start-arlocal)
* A dStorage Pro account and API token from [portal.dstorage.pro](https://portal.dstorage.pro)

Fast track: clone [`dstorage-starter-template`](https://github.com/dStorageTech/dstorage-starter-template) and wire up this guide's adapters in minutes.

## Step 1 — Get a dStorage Pro API token

Go to [portal.dstorage.pro](https://portal.dstorage.pro), sign in, and create a token from the
dashboard. Copy it — you'll paste it into the adapter config in Step 2.

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See the [Managed Payments FAQ](/faq/managed-payments#managed-payments-dstorage-pro) for the
different token types and how to scope them.

## Step 2 — Add managed payment to your adapters

Starting from the exact Step 2 config of the Local & Simulator Adapters guide, the only change is
a single `managedPayment` config object, passed to both
`ArweaveLocalStorageAdapter.createWithTestWallet()` and `MidnightSimulatorChainAdapter`:

```typescript
import {
  DStorage,
  ArweaveLocalStorageAdapter,
  MidnightSimulatorChainAdapter,
  PasswordEncryptionAdapter,
} from "@dstorage-tech/dstorage-sdk";

const managedPayment = {
  signingServerUrl: "https://portal.dstorage.pro",
  authToken: "your_dstorage_pro_token_here", // from portal.dstorage.pro
  testMode: true,
};

const { adapter: storageAdapter } = await ArweaveLocalStorageAdapter.createWithTestWallet({
  fundAr: 5, // amount of test AR to fund the generated wallet with
  managedPayment,
});

const sdk = new DStorage({
  storageAdapters: [storageAdapter],
  chainAdapters: [new MidnightSimulatorChainAdapter({ managedPayment })],
  encryptionAdapters: [
    new PasswordEncryptionAdapter({
      password: "Correct-Horse-Battery!",
      salt: "myapp:v1",
    }),
  ],
});
```

With `testMode: true`, each upload's payment request is sent to dStorage Pro with the `TEST`
network identifier: dStorage Pro records it as a sandbox payment against your account, without
spending any real funds.

Because the same `managedPayment` object is also passed to `MidnightSimulatorChainAdapter`, the
on-chain reference write is paid through dStorage Pro's `TEST` sandbox too. Each `store()` call
therefore records two sandbox payments — one for storage and one for the chain — just as a
production setup has dStorage Pro cover both the Arweave and the Midnight fees. If you only want
to route storage through dStorage Pro, leave `{ managedPayment }` off the chain adapter.

Your content never goes to dStorage Pro — not the raw data, and not even the encrypted bytes.
The storage payment only sends the transaction metadata and its Merkle root (`data_root`), and the
chain payment only sends a hash of the content; the encrypted content is uploaded directly to
arlocal afterwards.

## Step 3 — Init, store, retrieve

Same call pattern as every other guide in this series:

```typescript
await sdk.init();

const { chainRefId } = await sdk.store(
  new TextEncoder().encode("hello, dStorage"),
);

const { bytes } = await sdk.retrieveByRefId(chainRefId);
console.log(new TextDecoder().decode(bytes)); // "hello, dStorage"
```

What's different from the Local & Simulator Adapters guide:

* **Both payments go through dStorage Pro** — the storage upload and the on-chain reference
  write are each recorded as a `TEST` payment on your dStorage Pro account, so you can see them
  in the portal dashboard.
* **Storage and chain still run locally** — uploads still land in your local arlocal instance,
  and the on-chain reference is still written by `MidnightSimulatorChainAdapter`; only their fees
  now go through dStorage Pro.

## Learn More

* Browse the [FAQ](/faq/managed-payments#managed-payments-dstorage-pro) for the full
  managed-payments reference, including token scoping and security notes.
* Next: [Midnight Network Adapter](/guide/midnight-network-adapter) swaps the simulator for a real
  Midnight network, a real wallet, and a live proof server.