BNPL integration in South Africa: Payflex, PayJustNow, Happy Pay and Stitch

Buy now, pay later is a credit decision attached to a payment. At checkout the shopper picks the BNPL option and goes to the provider, where they sign up or log in and are approved or declined. If approved, the order goes through as paid from your side. The provider settles with you, less its fee, and collects the instalments from the shopper over the following weeks or months.

For a developer, that makes BNPL closer to a redirect payment method than to a recurring one. You start a payment, wait for a verified result, mark the order, and later reconcile a settlement. What is different is everything after the sale: refunds adjust a credit agreement rather than reverse a card payment, approval can fail for reasons that have nothing to do with your checkout, and the merchant fee tends to be higher than a card fee.

BNPL sits in the recurring section of this hub because the shopper pays in instalments, but for the merchant it is one payment. For true recurring billing, see recurring payments in South Africa. For how the underlying card and bank rails work, start with how payments work in South Africa.

There are two routes, and the choice is mostly about volume and how many integrations you want to run.

Ways to add buy now, pay later to a South African checkout

Route	What you get	Published merchant fee	Extra integration work
Through Payfast	Payflex, MoreTyme and Mobicred on Payfast's method list	Not verified here	None beyond your Payfast integration
Through Stitch Express	Pay Later on the Stitch Express price list	5.7% excluding VAT; custom pricing above R200,000 a month	None beyond your Stitch integration
Direct with a BNPL provider	Payflex, PayJustNow, Happy Pay or another provider, on terms you negotiate	Not verified: ask each provider for a written quote	A second integration, notification handler and settlement report

Last verified: 2026-11-05. Sources, checked 2026-11-05: payfast.io fees page, Stitch Express pricing. Fees as the provider publishes them; we re-check every fee regularly. VAT is shown only where the published rate states it. Not verified means we have not confirmed a published merchant rate against a primary source.

Through your gateway is the quick route. BNPL appears as one more method at checkout and needs no new integration; ask whether it settles with your other payments or separately. You accept the providers your gateway carries, at your gateway's prices.

Direct is the route for scale or for a specific provider. You sign with the BNPL provider, integrate its checkout or plugin, and handle a second stream of notifications and settlements. In return you negotiate your own rate and can show the provider's own messaging and limits.

Shopper interest is real. In Stitch's 2026 Consumer Payments Report, 39% of consumers had tried buy now, pay later as a new payment method in the past 12 months, behind one-click wallets at 58% and ahead of Capitec Pay at 37%^{[Stitch blog, checked 2026-11-05]}. Whether that translates into higher sales for your store is something to measure, not assume.

Payfast carries several pay-later options alongside cards and Instant EFT. It lists 18 or more payment methods^{[Payfast home page, checked 2026-11-05]}, including Payflex, MoreTyme and Mobicred^{[payfast.io fees page, checked 2026-11-05]}, so a store already on Payfast can offer instalments without a second integration. The methods appear at Payfast's checkout next to cards and Instant EFT.

Two things to check before you switch them on. First, the fee for each method: we have not verified Payfast's published rates for its BNPL methods, so read them on Payfast's own fee page and compare them with your card fee. Second, the refund path for each method, because a refund on an instalment purchase can behave differently from a card refund.

For the developer side, Payfast's developer documentation is at developers.payfast.co.za^{[PayFast Developer Documentation, checked 2026-11-04]}, and our Payfast API integration guide covers the build. Payfast explained covers its fees and settlement more broadly.

Stitch added buy now, pay later for South African merchants in May 2026^{[Stitch blog, checked 2026-11-05]}, and its Stitch Express price list includes Pay Later at 5.7% excluding VAT, with custom pricing for merchants processing more than R200,000 a month^{[Stitch Express pricing, checked 2026-11-05]}. A published rate like this is a useful benchmark even if you end up elsewhere.

If you already use Stitch for Capitec Pay or PayShap Request, adding Pay Later keeps everything in one integration. Stitch's developer documentation is at docs.stitch.money^{[Stitch developer docs, checked 2026-11-05]}, and the Stitch API integration guide walks through the setup.

Run the numbers before you switch it on. A Pay Later rate well above your card rate pays off only if instalments win you orders, or bigger baskets, that you would not otherwise get.

Go direct when you need a specific provider your gateway does not carry, or when your BNPL volume justifies negotiating your own rate. We have not verified Payflex's, PayJustNow's or Happy Pay's merchant pricing or integration options against a primary source, so this page does not quote them. Ask each provider these questions in writing:

1. The merchant fee, as a percentage and any fixed amount, and whether it includes VAT.
2. When you are paid: on approval, on shipment, or on a settlement schedule.
3. Refunds: full and partial, who initiates them, and whether any of the fee comes back.
4. Basket limits: the smallest and largest order the provider will finance.
5. Integration options: a plugin for your platform, an API, a test environment, and how notifications are signed.
6. Marketing rules: how you may describe the product on product pages and at checkout.

The answers decide whether a direct contract beats the gateway route. A lower rate can disappear in the cost of a second integration and a second reconciliation feed.

If you would rather have a team run that comparison and build the winner, Mctaba Labs payment integration builds BNPL checkouts alongside card and bank payments.

Treat a BNPL payment like any redirect payment, with extra attention to declines:

• Create the order first, in a pending state, with your own reference, before sending the shopper to the provider.
• Trust only the verified notification. The shopper's browser returning to your thank-you page proves nothing. Verify the provider's signature, then mark the order paid.
• Handle declines gracefully. A declined credit check is not a failed payment you can retry. Return the shopper to checkout with the cart intact and the other payment methods visible.
• Expect delays. Approval can take longer than a card payment while the shopper signs up. Do not let your platform cancel the order while the shopper is still at the provider; on WooCommerce, check the Hold stock setting covered in WooCommerce payment gateways.
• Make updates idempotent. Key every update on the provider's transaction reference, so a repeated notification changes nothing.

The general patterns are in payment webhooks and reconciliation.

Refunds go back through the provider, which adjusts what the shopper still owes. Build for three cases:

• A full refund before you ship. Cancel through the provider so the agreement is closed and the shopper is not billed further.
• A partial refund or a partial return. Send the exact refund amount, and record it against the original order. The provider reduces the shopper's remaining instalments.
• A refund after settlement. You have already been paid, so the provider recovers the amount from you, for example by deducting it from a later settlement. Your reconciliation must expect negative lines.

Ask each provider whether its fee is returned on a refund. If it is not, a store with a high return rate pays BNPL fees on sales it did not keep.

Show it early, and show it accurately. Instalment messaging on product pages works best when it matches the provider's actual terms, so pull the wording and any limits from the provider rather than writing your own. Do not imply that every shopper will be approved.

Shopper data travels to the provider when they choose BNPL, and POPIA requires the responsible party to ensure its conditions for processing personal information are complied with^{[POPIA, checked 2026-11-05]}. Share only what the provider's checkout needs, and say so in your privacy notice.

• Already on Payfast and want instalments quickly: switch on its BNPL methods, after checking each fee.
• Already on Stitch, or want a published rate to plan around: Stitch Express Pay Later.
• BNPL is a large share of sales, or you need a specific provider: go direct, after getting written answers to the six questions above.

Whichever route you take, keep BNPL behind the same order and reconciliation logic as your other payment methods, so you can add or drop a provider without touching the rest of the checkout. For related options, see Capitec Pay VRP and card tokenisation and subscription billing. For the regional picture, see payments in Southern Africa, and when you want the build done, Mctaba Labs payment integration works on these rails.