Razorpay vs PayMongo vs Stripe: Which Payment Gateway?

A payment gateway is the service that takes a customer's card, UPI, GCash or Maya payment on your website and puts the money in your bank account, minus a fee. For a hotel taking a deposit, a restaurant taking an order or a clinic taking a consultation fee, the choice mostly comes down to where your business is registered. That decides which gateways will accept you, which payment methods your customers see and which fee table you pay.

We connect all three of the gateways below to client websites, and our own SaaS product ReviewWala runs on Razorpay. Every fee in this post is copied from the provider's own public page, checked on 23 September 2026 and linked under Sources. Fees change, so read the provider's page again on the day you sign up.

Which payment gateway should a small business use?

Start with the country your business bank account and registration are in. The gateway has to verify your business before it pays you, so this is not a choice you can make on price alone.

• India: Razorpay. It accepts unregistered individual businesses with a personal PAN as well as registered companies, and it covers UPI, cards, netbanking and wallets under one fee.
• Philippines: PayMongo. It is the practical way to take GCash, Maya, GrabPay, QR Ph and cards on your own website, and it pays out to Philippine bank accounts.
• Elsewhere: Stripe, if your country is on Stripe's list of supported countries. Read the fees on Stripe's pricing page for your own country.

What does Razorpay charge in India?

Razorpay's pricing page lists a platform fee of 2% per successful transaction for every domestic payment method: cards, UPI, netbanking, wallets, Pay Later and EMI. GST at 18% is added on that fee. There is no setup fee, no annual maintenance charge and no refund processing fee.

UPI itself carries zero MDR under RBI policy, and Razorpay says so on the same page. It still charges its 2% on UPI, and it describes that 2% as a platform fee, not MDR. International cards are listed at up to 3% per successful transaction, again with GST on top. Money is settled to your bank on a T+1 cycle, meaning the next working day, or on an instant settlement cycle.

Here is what that means on a ₹10,000 room booking paid by UPI or an Indian card. The fee is 2% of ₹10,000, which is ₹200. GST at 18% of ₹200 is ₹36. You pay ₹236 in total and ₹9,764 reaches your bank.

What does PayMongo charge for GCash, Maya and cards?

PayMongo prices each payment method separately, and the gap between them is large. All of its published rates exclude VAT. There is no setup fee. Standard payouts arrive in 2 to 7 days, and each transfer out to your bank costs ₱10 through InstaPay or PesoNET.

• Local cards: 3.125% + ₱13.39 per transaction.
• International cards: 4.02% + ₱13.39 per transaction.
• GCash: 2.23%. Maya: 1.79%. GrabPay: 1.96%. ShopeePay: 1.70%.
• QR Ph, online or in-store: 1.34%.
• Direct online banking (BDO, UnionBank, BPI, Landbank, Metrobank): 0.71% or ₱13.39.

On a ₱5,000 resort deposit, those rates work out very differently. A local card costs ₱156.25 plus ₱13.39, which is ₱169.64. GCash costs ₱111.50, Maya ₱89.50 and QR Ph ₱67.00. All of these are before VAT. If most of your guests are happy to pay by e-wallet or QR, put those options first at checkout. The card fee is more than double the QR Ph fee.

Can a business in India or the Philippines use Stripe?

Not in the usual self-serve way. Stripe's global availability page does not list the Philippines at all, so a Philippine business cannot open a Stripe account for itself. India appears on that page as a "Preview". Instead of signing up, you contact Stripe's sales team.

For Indian businesses that do get an account, Stripe's India pricing page lists 2% for Mastercard and Visa cards issued in India. Cards issued outside India are 3% for Mastercard and Visa and 3.5% for American Express. Foreign cards charged in USD or another currency are 4.3%, and currency conversion adds 2%. Stripe says it charges no setup fees and no monthly fees. If your business is registered in another country Stripe supports, read the fees Stripe publishes for that country, not a number quoted in a blog.

How do the three gateways compare side by side?

The table shows the headline rates only. Each pricing page has more: dispute fees, subscription billing, QR codes for a shop counter and custom pricing for high volume. If you expect a high volume of payments, ask the gateway about custom pricing before you launch.

What paperwork do you need before you can take payments?

This is where most launches stall. The website can be ready in a week, but the gateway will not pay you until it has verified you.

• Razorpay, unregistered individual business: your personal PAN, an identity proof (Aadhaar, Voter ID or passport) and your bank account details.
• Razorpay, registered business: the business PAN, the authorised signatory's PAN, a GST or Udyam (MSME) certificate, one more document such as a Shop Establishment Certificate, your bank details and the date of incorporation.
• PayMongo, sole proprietor: the DTI Certificate of Business Name Registration, a government ID of the registered owner and the BIR Certificate of Registration (Form 2303).
• PayMongo, corporation: the SEC Certificate of Incorporation, the Articles and By-Laws, the latest General Information Sheet, a notarised Secretary's Certificate, the representative's ID and BIR Form 2303.

Start the application on the same day you commission the website. Verification runs while the site is being built, so the checkout can go live on launch day instead of weeks later.

What does it cost to add a payment gateway to your website?

At Digiocular, connecting Razorpay, PayMongo or Stripe to your website is a $249 add-on. It is a one-time price in USD, on top of the website itself. The gateway's own transaction fees, shown above, go to the gateway. The account is in your name, so your customers' money never passes through us. The work is connecting the gateway's checkout to your pages and testing it before launch.

Most businesses need the gateway alongside something else. Here is how it adds up from our published price list:

• Hotel or resort taking prepaid bookings: a hotel website from $499, a booking system at $249 and the payment gateway at $249.
• Restaurant taking deposits for tables: a restaurant website from $599 and a reservation system with deposit collection at $399.
• Restaurant or café taking takeaway orders: the website from $599, an online ordering flow at $399 and the gateway at $249.
• Clinic or consultant charging for appointments: a business website from $599, a booking system at $249 and the gateway at $249.
• Shop selling a product catalogue: an e-commerce store from $999, where checkout is part of the build.

When is a payment gateway not worth adding yet?

If you take a handful of bookings a month and every guest already talks to you on WhatsApp before paying, a gateway may not pay for itself yet. A one-tap WhatsApp link on every room or service page, and payment arranged in the chat, is a perfectly good first version. Hotel Vagmi's website opens a prefilled WhatsApp enquiry for room types that are not yet on its booking engine.

Add the gateway when manual payments start costing you bookings. That is usually when customers arrive at night or from abroad, or when a no-show deposit would save you real money. The account paperwork takes longer than the code, so start it before you need it.