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Payment Providers in South Africa

ByGareth Dwyer

Stripe has quickly become the default payment provider for startups around the world, but it’s not available in South Africa. If you want to run a SaaS or accept online payments in South Africa, and don’t have an international entity to bill through, you’re probably looking for one of the following.

This page contains mainly a list of payment providers, but also information about sending money to/from South Africa, and related services (like Gumroad) that aren’t strictly payment providers, but can be used nonetheless.

Providers

PayStack

  • Owned by Stripe
  • Supports sole proprietors
  • USD billing coming Soon(TM)

PayFast

  • Supports sole proprietors

Peach Payments

  • Supports subscription payments and recurring payments for WooCommerce, Magento and custom integrations (via their API or mobile SDK).
  • Reasonable pricing for non-enterprise (2.95% + R1.50 per transaction)

PayPal

  • Works with FNB
  • Can be withdrawn via Wise (by opening a USD Wise account)
  • Fees: 4.5% + 49c (for South Africans)

Paddle

  • Provides Merchant of Record services
  • Charge in local currency
  • Localized pricing (nice)
  • Can handle tax compliance for you
  • Requires (potentially lengthly) approval
  • Fees: 5% + $ 50c per transaction

Gumroad

  • Pays out to ZA via PayPal (Gumroad swallows the PayPal deposit fee)
  • Can handle tax compliance for you
  • License key distribution and validation
  • Store page for digital products
  • Fees: Variable fees according to volume from 2.9% + 30c to 9% + 30c per transaction

Lemon Squeezy

  • Provides Merchant of Record services
  • Pays out via bank transfer every Friday to any account (including sole proprietors) or to PayPal
  • Can handle tax compliance for you
  • License key distribution and validation
  • Store page for digital products
  • Cheaper than Paddle (monthly price tiers, then 3.5% + $ 30c per transaction)

Klasha

  • Supports charging to card in USD for ZA companies
  • Includes low/no-code and CMS integrations

Yoco

Providers by feature / use cases

To be completed

Billing in USD but receiving ZAR

To be completed

“Pay Now” buttons on invoices

To be completed

Accepting online Credit Card payments

To be completed

Accepting international bank transfers

To be completed

Accepting ‘instant’ EFTs

To be completed

For more information, please pester Gareth Dwyer on Slack to complete this guide :)