Best Payment Gateway for Kenyan Online Stores (Paystack, Flutterwave, Pesapal, Daraja)

Key takeaways

• Paystack is the best gateway for most Kenyan online stores: 1.5% on M-Pesa, 2.9% on local cards and 3.8% on international cards, with no setup or monthly fees.
• Safaricom's Daraja API is the cheapest way to take M-Pesa: your normal Till or Paybill tariff applies, and Buy Goods collections are free up to KES 500 since August 2026. But it's M-Pesa only, and you need a developer.
• Flutterwave charges 2.9% on mobile money, 3.2% on local cards and 4.8% on international cards, plus KES 100 per payout.
• Pesapal doesn't publish fees on a page we could load. One Kenyan agency reports 3.5% + KES 1 on M-Pesa, but get a quote before you decide.
• A common setup: Daraja for M-Pesa plus Paystack for cards, if you have a developer. If you don't, use Paystack for everything.

For most online stores in Kenya, Paystack is the best payment gateway. It takes M-Pesa at 1.5% and cards at 2.9%, plugs into common store platforms, and needs no developer. If you have a developer and most customers pay with M-Pesa, Daraja (Safaricom's own API) is cheaper still, and the money lands in your Till or Paybill instantly. Flutterwave suits businesses selling across several countries. Pesapal is a familiar local name, but its fees appear to be higher.

The four at a glance

| |Paystack | Daraja (M-Pesa direct) | Flutterwave | Pesapal | |:--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | |M-Pesa | 1.5% | Till tariff: free to KES 500, then 0.55%, capped at KES 200 | 2.9% | ~3.5% + KES 1 (reported) | |Local cards | 2.9% | Not supported | 3.2% | ~3.8% + KES 1 (reported) | |International cards | 3.8% (KES or USD) | Not supported | 4.8% | ~4.5% + KES 2 (reported) | |Settlement | Two working days (T+2) | Instant to your Till or Paybill | Next day | Next day to 3 working days (reports differ) | |Payout to M-Pesa | KES 20–60 | Already in M-Pesa | KES 100 | Not confirmed | |Developer needed? | No, for common platforms | Yes | Usually no | No (WooCommerce plugins) | |Setup or monthly fees | None | None for the API itself | None stated | Reported KES 5,000 setup + KES 1,500 a month |

Paystack, Flutterwave and Safaricom figures come from official pricing pages or Safaricom's August 2026 tariff changes reported in the Kenyan press. Pesapal's come from a Kenyan web agency's August 2026 guide, because Pesapal's own pricing page didn't load for us. Flutterwave's prices exclude VAT.

What will each one cost per order?

Most Kenyan shoppers pay with M-Pesa, so here are M-Pesa fees on three typical orders:

Order	Daraja (Till)	Paystack	Flutterwave	Pesapal (reported)
KES 1,000	KES 5.50	KES 15	KES 29	KES 36
KES 5,000	KES 27.50	KES 75	KES 145	KES 176
KES 20,000	KES 110	KES 300	KES 580	KES 701

For card payments on a KES 5,000 order, you'd pay about KES 145 on Paystack, KES 160 on Flutterwave and about KES 191 on Pesapal.

Over a month, the difference adds up. A Nairobi store doing KES 500,000 in M-Pesa sales would pay roughly KES 7,500 on Paystack and KES 14,500 on Flutterwave. On Daraja, with orders above KES 500, it would be at most KES 2,750.

Paystack: best for most stores

Paystack's Kenya pricing is the clearest of the four.

• M-Pesa: 1.5%
• Local cards: 2.9%
• International cards: 3.8%, charged in KES or USD, and settled in either currency
• No setup, monthly or integration fees

Payouts to M-Pesa cost KES 20 (up to KES 1,500), KES 40 (up to KES 20,000) or KES 60 (above that). To a bank account it's KES 80 to KES 140 for most amounts.

Why choose it:

• Cards and M-Pesa in one checkout, with M-Pesa at a fair 1.5%.
• USD option. Paystack Kenya can charge foreign customers in dollars and settle into a Kenya-based USD bank account, which is unusual and handy for selling abroad. Our guide to selling globally has more.
• No developer needed for common platforms, and it has Apple Pay for foreign customers.

Downsides:

• T+2 settlement. Money takes two working days to reach you, slower than Daraja or Flutterwave.
• Its M-Pesa integration is less deep than local specialists', according to PaymentProviders.io's 2026 guide.

Best for: most online stores, especially those taking both M-Pesa and cards without a developer on hand.

Daraja: cheapest M-Pesa, but you need a developer

Daraja is Safaricom's own API for M-Pesa. Instead of paying a gateway, you connect your website directly to your Till or Paybill, usually with M-Pesa Express (STK push), which sends a PIN prompt to the customer's phone.

What it costs: there's no separate fee for the API. You pay your normal M-Pesa business tariff. From 7 August 2026, Safaricom made Buy Goods (Till) collections free up to KES 500, up from KES 200. Above that it's 0.55%, capped at KES 200, according to Business Today and The Kenya Times. Paybill tariffs are agreed with Safaricom.

Why choose it:

• By far the cheapest way to take M-Pesa.
• Instant settlement into your own Till or Paybill. No waiting on a gateway.
• No middleman holding your money.

Downsides:

• M-Pesa only. No cards, no Airtel Money, no foreign customers. You'll need a second gateway for cards.
• You need a developer. Going live means a registered Till or Paybill, company registration documents, a go-live letter on your letterhead, public HTTPS callback URLs, and production server IPs whitelisted by Safaricom.
• It's your job to handle failures. Your site has to log callbacks, retry failed ones and confirm payment before releasing orders.

Best for: stores where most customers pay with M-Pesa and a developer is available, either in-house or through a Nairobi agency.

Flutterwave: for multi-country businesses

Flutterwave's Kenya pricing:

• Local wallets and mobile money: 2.9%
• Local cards: 3.2%
• International cards: 4.8%
• Payouts: KES 100 per transfer, to a bank or mobile money

Flutterwave's pricing page says customers bear the transaction charges by default, which you can switch off in the dashboard. Its prices exclude VAT.

Why choose it: you sell in Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana and other markets from one account, or pay suppliers across several countries. It also offers next-day settlement for local payments.

Downsides: for a Kenya-only store, it charges nearly double Paystack's rate on M-Pesa, and its international card fee is the highest of the three gateways with published rates.

Pesapal: local favourite, but check the price

Pesapal is a Kenyan company with deep M-Pesa and Airtel Money support and point-of-sale options, according to PaymentProviders.io. Kenzobe says it has strong WordPress and WooCommerce plugins, so you don't need a developer.

The catch is pricing. Pesapal's pricing page didn't load for us, and the figures we found vary:

• Tasflex, a Kenyan web agency, reports 3.5% + KES 1 on M-Pesa (3.0% above KES 1 million a month), 3.8% + KES 1 on local cards and 4.5% + KES 2 on international cards. It also mentions a KES 5,000 setup fee and KES 1,500 a month.
• PaymentProviders.io gives a range of 1.5% to 3.5% depending on method and volume.

If the Tasflex figures are right, Pesapal is the most expensive option here. Ask Pesapal for a written quote before signing up, and confirm whether those setup and monthly fees apply to you.

Best for: stores that want a Kenyan provider with good WooCommerce plugins and Airtel Money, once you've confirmed the price.

Should you combine two?

You can, and it's often the cheapest setup. The most cost-effective pairing:

• Daraja for M-Pesa (the bulk of payments, at the lowest cost, settled instantly)
• Paystack for cards (local and international)

That needs a developer to build and maintain the Daraja side. If you don't have one, Paystack alone is the sensible choice, and the difference on M-Pesa is about 1% of each sale above KES 500.

How do you choose?

• No developer, M-Pesa and cards: Paystack.
• Developer available, mostly M-Pesa customers: Daraja, plus Paystack for cards.
• Selling to customers abroad, ideally in USD: Paystack Kenya, with USD settlement.
• Selling in several African countries: Flutterwave.
• You want a Kenyan provider with WooCommerce plugins and Airtel Money: Pesapal, after getting a quote.

Before you go live

1. Test with real small payments on M-Pesa and a card.
2. Wait for confirmation before releasing orders. STK push prompts can time out if the customer is slow.
3. Check who pays the fee. Flutterwave passes it to customers by default.
4. Plan payouts. Paystack's T+2 settlement and KES 20 to 60 payout fees, or Daraja's instant settlement into your Till, affect your cash flow differently.
5. Remember M-Pesa limits: KES 250,000 per transaction and KES 500,000 a day, which can matter for high-value orders.