Payfast
Payment gateway
- SA storefronts offering it: 7,988
- Share of readable checkouts: 45.8%
- Rank among payment gateways: #1 of 31
Who it suits
Payfast is the default. It is on 45.8% of South African storefronts we can read — more than the next three gateways combined — and that position is mostly inherited: it was the obvious choice for long enough that most established stores never had to make a decision.
That makes it a safe pick and a lazy one. If you are migrating an existing store and your customers already recognise the checkout, the case for staying is real. If you are launching now, the market is telling you something different.
The number that moves
Share of all stores is a lagging indicator — it mostly measures who won five years ago. The useful comparison is among stores that launched recently.
| Payfast | Yoco | Yoco per 10 Payfast | |
|---|---|---|---|
| All SA stores | 45.8% | 21.6% | 4.7 |
| Launched since Jan 2025 | 36.8% | 27.9% | 7.6 |
Among the 6,042 stores that launched since the start of 2025, Payfast's share drops nine points and Yoco's rises six. The gap is closing from both ends, and it is closing fastest exactly where new merchants are making a fresh choice.
Payfast is not losing stores. It is losing new stores, which is the number that matters first.
What we have not checked
Fees. We count what is offered at the checkout, not what it costs — and published rates move, differ by plan, and are negotiable above a certain volume. Anyone comparing on price should confirm current rates with the provider directly rather than trusting a table on a website, including this one.
Written section checked 1 October 2026.
Other payment gateways, and how common they are
- #2 Yoco — 3,762 storefronts, 21.6%
- #3 Stitch — 1,263 storefronts, 7.2%
- #4 Paystack — 1,066 storefronts, 6.1%
- #5 Peach Payments — 855 storefronts, 4.9%
- #6 Ozow — 475 storefronts, 2.7%
- #7 PayGate — 471 storefronts, 2.7%
- #8 Stripe — 374 storefronts, 2.1%
- #9 Shopify Payments — 218 storefronts, 1.3%
- #10 Bob Pay — 175 storefronts, 1.0%
- #11 iKhokha — 87 storefronts, 0.5%
- #12 Onerway — 58 storefronts, 0.3%
- #13 Global-e — 51 storefronts, 0.3%
- #14 Authorize.net — 35 storefronts, 0.2%
- #15 Airwallex — 33 storefronts, 0.2%
- #16 iPay — 32 storefronts, 0.2%
- #17 PayU — 25 storefronts, 0.1%
- #18 WooPayments — 25 storefronts, 0.1%
- #19 Adumo Online — 25 storefronts, 0.1%
- #20 OPay — 20 storefronts, 0.1%
- #21 Braintree — 19 storefronts, 0.1%
- #22 ChipIn — 19 storefronts, 0.1%
- #23 Walletdoc — 19 storefronts, 0.1%
- #24 Oceanpayment — 17 storefronts, 0.1%
- #25 Tap Payments — 4 storefronts, <0.1%
- #26 Flutterwave — 4 storefronts, <0.1%
- #27 DPO Pay — 3 storefronts, <0.1%
- #28 Pesapal — 2 storefronts, <0.1%
- #29 MyFatoorah — 1 storefront, <0.1%
- #30 Payzone — 1 storefront, <0.1%
- #31 Nomba — 1 storefront, <0.1%
Share of the 17,441 published South African storefronts where our crawler could read the checkout. Counts availability at the checkout, not volume.