Payfast vs Paystack vs Ozow vs Peach Payments: fees and developer experience

Choose on how your customers pay, then on price. All four take local cards and a form of bank payment, but each has a different strength:

• Most customers pay from a bank account, or card disputes hurt you: Ozow. It publishes the lowest pay-by-bank rate here, 1.5% with a minimum of R1^{[Ozow pricing page, checked 2026-11-04]}, and Ozow says its payments involve no credit card chargebacks and no reverse transactions^{[Ozow FAQ, checked 2026-11-05]}.
• Card-first, with some customers abroad: Paystack. Its international card rate of 3.1% + R1^{[Paystack pricing, checked 2026-11-04]} is lower than Peach Payments', and the same integration carries Capitec Pay and Ozow's EFT.
• Cards and pay by bank on one contract, with quick payouts: Peach Payments. Pay by Bank costs 1.50% + R1.50 for every bank except Capitec^{[Peach Payments fees page, checked 2026-11-04]}, Capitec Pay 1.50% + R1.50^{[Peach Payments fees page, checked 2026-11-04]}, and money arrives the next business day after processing^{[Peach Payments fees page, checked 2026-11-04]}.
• Buy now, pay later, scan-to-pay apps and store cards through one gateway: Payfast. Its card rate is the highest of the four, but it lists 18 or more payment methods^{[Payfast home page, checked 2026-11-05]}, including SnapScan, Zapper, Payflex, MoreTyme, Mobicred and Capitec Pay^{[payfast.io fees page, checked 2026-11-05]}.

This page compares the four on published fees and on what a developer gets from each. For how cards, EFT, DebiCheck and PayShap fit together underneath, read how payments work in South Africa first. For the wider field, including Stitch, Yoco and iKhokha, see payment gateways in South Africa compared.

These are the rates each provider publishes for South African merchants, for the payment methods most online stores switch on.

Published fees for South African merchants: Payfast, Paystack, Ozow and Peach Payments

Payment method	Payfast	Paystack	Ozow	Peach Payments
Local cards	3.2% + R2	2.9% + R1	2.85% (minimum R1)	2.95% + R1.50 excluding VAT (Growth plan)
International cards	Not verified	3.1% + R1	3.5% (minimum R1)	3.50% + R1.50
Instant EFT or pay by bank	2% + R2	2%, no flat fee (EFT)	1.5%, minimum R1	1.50% + R1.50 (all banks except Capitec)
Capitec Pay	2% + R2	Not verified	1.5%, minimum R1	1.50% + R1.50
Monthly fee	None	Not verified	Not verified	No account fee on the Growth plan; R200 a month to store cards

Last verified: 2026-11-04. Sources, checked 2026-11-04 to 2026-11-05: payfast.io fees page, Paystack pricing, Ozow pricing page, Peach Payments fees page, payfast.io home page. Rates as each provider publishes them. We re-check every fee against the provider's own pricing page regularly, and the date above is the latest check. Payfast, Paystack and Peach Payments publish their rates excluding VAT; Ozow's pricing page does not say, so confirm VAT before you compare. Not verified means we have not confirmed a published rate for that cell.

Three patterns stand out.

Bank payments are cheaper than cards at all four. Payfast, Paystack, Ozow and Peach Payments each charge less for Instant EFT or pay by bank than for a local card. Whichever gateway you pick, a checkout that makes paying from a bank account easy lowers your costs.

Ozow undercuts the others on paper, for cards as well as bank payments. Its local card rate is 2.85%, with a minimum of R1^{[Ozow pricing page, checked 2026-11-04]}, and international cards cost 3.5%^{[Ozow pricing page, checked 2026-11-04]}. Before you move card volume to it, confirm that its card product covers what you need, such as saved cards for repeat customers.

Paystack's EFT is Ozow's. Ozow is currently the only EFT provider on Paystack^{[Paystack docs, checked 2026-11-04]}, and Paystack charges EFT at 2% with no flat fee^{[Paystack pricing, checked 2026-11-04]}. Contract with Ozow directly and the same kind of payment costs 1.5%, minimum R1^{[Ozow pricing page, checked 2026-11-04]}. More on that trade-off below.

Where account fees are published, they are low. Payfast charges no monthly fee^{[payfast.io home page, checked 2026-11-04]}, and Peach Payments charges no account fee on its Growth plan, though tokenising cards costs R200 a month^{[Peach Payments fees page, checked 2026-11-04]}. We have not verified Paystack's or Ozow's account fees, so ask both for them in writing.

Payouts are easy to leave out of a comparison. Payfast charges R8.70 excluding VAT per payout, and immediate payouts cost 0.8% excluding VAT with a R14.00 minimum^{[payfast.io fees page, checked 2026-11-04]}. If you withdraw every day, that line belongs in your model next to the transaction fees.

If you would rather hand the build to a studio once you have picked, Mctaba Labs payment integration builds checkouts on these South African gateways.

On small orders. A card fee has two parts: a percentage of the amount, and at Paystack, Peach Payments and Payfast a fixed charge per transaction as well, R1 at Paystack^{[Paystack pricing, checked 2026-11-04]}, R1.50 on Peach Payments' Growth plan, excluding VAT^{[Peach Payments fees page, checked 2026-11-04]} and R2 at Payfast^{[payfast.io fees page, checked 2026-11-05]}. The fixed part is the same on a cup of coffee as on a couch, so the smaller your baskets, the bigger its share of each sale.

Run your own numbers rather than trusting a headline rate:

1. Take your average basket for card payments and, separately, for bank payments.
2. Apply each provider's percentage and add its fixed charge.
3. Divide the result by the basket to get your real rate for that method.
4. Weight the methods by your actual mix.

The mix usually moves the answer more than any single rate. A store whose customers mostly pay by Instant EFT is choosing between 1.5%^{[Ozow pricing page, checked 2026-11-04]} at Ozow, 1.50% + R1.50^{[Peach Payments fees page, checked 2026-11-04]} at Peach Payments for every bank except Capitec, 2% with no flat fee^{[Paystack pricing, checked 2026-11-04]} at Paystack and 2% + R2^{[payfast.io fees page, checked 2026-11-04]} at Payfast, which is a different race from the card one. A store selling furniture on credit cards is mostly comparing percentages, and the fixed charges barely register.

They overlap on bank payments. Paystack bundles Capitec Pay and Ozow's EFT^{[Paystack docs, checked 2026-11-04]} into its own checkout, so one Paystack integration gives you cards, Capitec Pay and Instant EFT. Paystack's documentation describes Capitec Pay as an open banking payment method available to businesses in South Africa only^{[Paystack docs, checked 2026-11-04]}, which is worth knowing if you also sell outside the country.

On EFT, the bundle usually costs more per payment than going direct. The trade-off is engineering against fees:

• One gateway (Paystack for everything): one integration, one webhook handler, one settlement report. You pay Paystack's rate on bank payments.
• Two gateways (Paystack or Peach Payments for cards, Ozow direct for EFT): a lower bank-payment rate, plus a second integration, a second notification handler and a second settlement feed to reconcile.

Our verdict: start with one gateway while cards carry most of your volume. Add a direct Ozow contract once bank payments are a large enough share that the gap between the two rates pays for the extra integration and the reconciliation work. Ozow vs Capitec Pay goes deeper on the bank-payment side, and Payfast vs Paystack covers the two-way comparison in more detail.

Payfast now belongs to Network International: the name Payfast remains as an ecommerce product offered by Network^{[Payfast blog, checked 2026-11-04]}, and Payfast joined forces with Paygate and SiD under Network International^{[Payfast press release, checked 2026-11-04]}. If you still run an older Paygate integration, factor that into any migration plan. Payfast's strength is breadth. Beyond cards and Instant EFT, its list includes Mobicred, MoreTyme and Payflex for credit and instalments, SnapScan and Zapper for scan-to-pay, MukuruPay, store cards and Scode^{[payfast.io fees page, checked 2026-11-05]}.

Paystack is part of Stripe: Paystack, which Stripe acquired in October 2020^{[Paystack, checked 2026-11-05]}, has been live in South Africa since May 2021^{[Paystack blog, checked 2026-11-05]}. Its international card rate, 3.1% + R1^{[Paystack pricing, checked 2026-11-04]}, carries the lowest percentage in this comparison, which matters if you sell abroad as well as at home.

Ozow suits sellers who want to move customers off cards. Ozow says its payments involve no credit card chargebacks and no reverse transactions^{[Ozow FAQ, checked 2026-11-05]}, and Ozow offers PayShap Request^{[Ozow blog, checked 2026-11-05]}, South Africa's instant payment rail.

Peach Payments suits a business that wants cards and bank payments on one plan with predictable cash flow: daily settlement on the next business day^{[Peach Payments fees page, checked 2026-11-04]}, and no monthly fee on the Growth plan. Its international card rate, 3.50% + R1.50^{[Peach Payments fees page, checked 2026-11-04]}, is higher than Paystack's, so a store with many foreign customers should price that in. Peach Payments explained and Peach Payments vs Stitch cover it in more depth.

Each publishes its developer documentation:

• Paystack: a full API reference^{[Paystack docs, checked 2026-11-04]}.
• Payfast: developer documentation at developers.payfast.co.za^{[PayFast Developer Documentation, checked 2026-11-04]}.
• Ozow: a developer hub with integration guides, an API reference and working code for payments, refunds and payouts^{[Ozow developer hub, checked 2026-11-04]}.
• Peach Payments: a documentation hub at developer.peachpayments.com^{[Peach Payments documentation hub, checked 2026-11-04]}.

Documentation tells you what is possible. A test integration tells you what living with it is like. Before you commit, get test access and run the same five checks against each provider you are still considering:

1. Notifications. How does the gateway tell your server that a payment succeeded? How do you prove the message is genuine, and does the gateway retry when your server is down?
2. Duplicates. Replay the same notification twice. Your system should fulfil the order once, which means keying every update on the gateway's transaction reference.
3. Status lookups. If a notification never arrives, can you query the payment by your own order reference and settle the question?
4. Refunds. Can you refund in full and in part through the API, or only from the dashboard?
5. Reconciliation. Can you match each payout to the orders inside it without a spreadsheet?

Our build guides walk through each one: Payfast in Node.js and Next.js, Paystack in Next.js for South African merchants, Ozow Pay by Bank in Next.js and a Peach Payments Next.js checkout. Whichever you choose, the patterns in payment webhooks and reconciliation apply.

Yes. You can send card payments through one gateway and bank payments through another, or keep a second gateway ready for outages. The cost is engineering: two notification handlers, two settlement reports, and a router that decides which gateway each checkout uses. Add the second when a fee saving or an uptime requirement justifies it. The multi-PSP orchestration guide covers routing and failover.

Work through it in this order:

1. Export three months of orders and split them by payment method and basket size.
2. Price each gateway against that mix using the table above, then add payout and account fees.
3. List the methods your customers ask for. If they want Capitec Pay, instalments or scan-to-pay, cross off any gateway that cannot offer them.
4. Run the five developer checks on your shortlist.
5. Decide on one or two gateways and write down the volume at which you would add the second.

For the regional picture beyond South Africa, see payments in Southern Africa. When you want the integration built and the reconciliation set up properly from day one, Mctaba Labs payment integration works on these rails.