Payne won his first title in 2013 at a PDC Challenge Tour event by beating Rowby-John Rodriguez 4–3 in the final. He also qualified for the Gibraltar Darts Trophy and beat Wayne Jones 6–2, before losing 6–1 to Dave Chisnall in the second round despite averaging 100.50.

In 2014, Payne reached the final of the first two Youth Tour events, losing to Nick Kenny and Lewis Venes respectively. He qualified for the UK Open for the first time and lost 5–4 to Andy Boulton in the second round. At the fifth Players Championship of the year Payne recorded wins over three-time world champion John Part and 2012 UK Open winner Robert Thornton to reach the last 16 of a PDC event for the first time, where he was whitewashed 6–0 by Mervyn King. He also won through to the last 16 of the World Youth Championship and lost 6–4 to Jack Twedwell. In September, Payne came from 3–0 down in the final of a Youth Tour event to beat Jake Jones 4–3 and he lost by a reverse of this scoreline in the final of the 16th event to Dean Reynolds. He finished second on the Youth Tour Order of Merit to earn a two-year PDC tour card which commenced in 2015.

At the 2015 UK Open, Payne defeated Lionel Sams 5–3, Dave Prins 5–4 and Andy Jenkins 9–6 to play in the fourth round, where Mensur Suljović beat him 9–4. Payne beat Wayne Jones, Stephen Bunting and Michael Smith at the Dutch Darts Masters to play in the quarter-finals of a PDC event for the first time, where he lost 6–4 to Justin Pipe. Payne finished as the runner-up in two Development Tour in the second half of the year, as well as being a quarter-finalist in the World Youth Championship.

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