The headline percentage on a pricing page is the smallest part of what a gateway takes. This is the method behind every figure on this site, and you can run it yourself in about ten minutes per provider.
Where should you read the rate?
Always on the provider’s own pricing page, never an aggregator or a blog. Third-party “best gateway” articles routinely disagree with each other and with the provider, because they quote legacy rates, promotional rates, or each other. When two sources conflict, the provider’s own page wins.
Two habits make the reading trustworthy:
- Date what you read. A rate with no date is a rate you cannot trust. Every figure on this site carries the month we read it off the provider’s page, and you should do the same in whatever spreadsheet you keep.
- Note where you read it. Sometimes the number you need is not on the rate card at all: Yoco’s online rates live in its help centre, and Paystack’s pricing page refuses automated readers, so it only opens in a real browser. A figure from a support article is a weaker claim than one from the rate card itself, and we mark it as such rather than pretend otherwise. If you can only source a figure from a support article or a sales email, record that.
What does a pricing page leave out?
Read past the headline for five lines that rarely make the marketing:
- Fixed per-transaction fees. A “3.2% + R2” rate reads as 3.2%, but the R2 lands on every order regardless of size, so small baskets pay far more than the headline suggests. The worked example below puts numbers on it.
- Per-transaction minimums. Some rails have a floor rather than a fixed fee. PayFast’s instant EFT is 2% with a R2.00 minimum, which reads as a flat 2%, but on a R60 basket the floor makes it 3.33%. Minimums bite exactly where fixed fees do: at the small end.
- Payout fees. PayFast charges R8.70 per payout, at any value. Withdraw weekly and that is about R452 a year that never appears in the headline rate. Several providers pay out free; the difference only shows up if you look for the line.
- Refund retention. Almost every gateway keeps the original processing fee when you refund an order, and some charge an extra fee to process the refund itself. A refunded R500 sale is not a break-even event: it can still cost you R15 to R20.
- Settlement lag. T+2 versus real-time is not a fee, but it is a cost. Money in transit is money you cannot use, and on thin margins the cash-flow gap is real.
And one multiplier that applies to all of the above: VAT. Gateway fees are almost always quoted ex VAT, so multiply by 1.15 to get what actually leaves your account.
How do you turn a rate card into an effective rate?
Divide everything the gateway takes by everything you processed. That single number, the effective rate, is the only fair way to compare providers, because it forces the fixed fees, minimums and payout charges into the open.
Here is the worked example, using PayFast’s published card rate of
3.2% + R2.00 3.2% + R2.00 card rate Read off the provider's own published pricing page. Checked this month, on 23 Jul 2026.
Per-transaction cost only, ex VAT: percentage rate plus the fixed fee as a share of the basket. Payout fees, refunds and chargebacks add to these at the monthly level.
Same provider, same rate card, and the smallest basket pays close to double the effective rate of the largest. This is why a gateway that is cheapest for a high-ticket store can be the most expensive one for a coffee shop, and why the calculator asks for your basket size and volume before it ranks anything: the ranking genuinely changes with your inputs.
The ten-minute checklist
For each provider on your shortlist:
- Open the provider’s own pricing page and note the date.
- Record the percentage and the fixed fee or minimum for each payment method you will offer.
- Find the payout fee and multiply by how often you withdraw each month.
- Find the refund policy: is the processing fee returned, and is there a fee to process the refund itself?
- Note the settlement time in days.
- Compute the effective rate at your average basket and monthly volume, or let the calculator do it for the modelled providers.
- Add 15% VAT to whatever you got.
If a provider publishes no rates at all, that is also an answer: you cannot verify a quote-based price, you can only negotiate it. Ask for the quote in writing with every line above filled in.
The compare table shows where each of our published figures came from and when we last read it. When a provider’s page and this site disagree, trust the provider’s page, then tell us: fee corrections jump the queue.
