Payment Providers in South Africa
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- Can be withdrawn via Wise (by opening a USD Wise account)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
- POS machines and online payments
- Does not support subscriptions (https://support.yoco.help/s/article/Gateway-FAQs)
- ZAR only