Shopify Payment Gateways in Pakistan (2026): Options, Fees and What to Pick
Shopify Payments isn't available in Pakistan. Here are the gateways that work, what Shopify charges on top, what a prepaid order really costs and why COD isn't free.
· Deixtra
Setting up a Shopify store in Pakistan is easy until you reach the Payments page. Shopify Payments isn't offered here, Stripe and PayPal don't onboard Pakistani businesses, and the local gateways mostly keep their rates off their websites. So most new store owners turn on cash on delivery, tell themselves they'll sort out cards later, and never do.
That's an expensive habit. In one published dataset from a Pakistani retailer, only about 49 out of every 100 COD orders ended with cash actually collected. Prepaid orders in the same data were cancelled 2.8 percent of the time.
We build Shopify apps and store integrations for businesses in Pakistan and the Gulf, and payment setup is one of the first things clients ask us about. This guide covers which gateways connect to Shopify in Pakistan, what Shopify charges on top, what a prepaid order really costs you, and how to decide. Where a gateway doesn't publish its pricing, we say so instead of guessing. Sources are at the end.
Is Shopify Payments available in Pakistan?
No. Shopify Payments, Shopify's own card processor, is only offered in certain countries and Pakistan isn't one of them. A Shopify store registered in Pakistan has to use a third-party payment provider, a manual method such as cash on delivery or bank transfer, or both.
This matters for cost, because Shopify adds its own fee to every order that goes through a third-party provider. You pay the gateway, and then you pay Shopify too.
What does Shopify charge when you use a third-party gateway?
Shopify charges a third-party transaction fee on each order paid through an outside gateway. The rate depends on your plan:
Plan | Monthly price (billed monthly) | Third-party transaction fee |
|---|---|---|
Basic | US$25 | 2% |
Grow | US$65 | 1% |
Advanced | US$399 | 0.6% |
Plus | From US$2,300 | 0.2% |
The plan prices are from Shopify's Pakistan pricing page. Shopify's pricing page says the fee "depends on your plan" without listing the percentages, so the rates above are the ones reported by several Shopify fee guides. Check the rate for your own plan in your Shopify admin, or ask Shopify support, before you price anything.
Shopify's help centre is clear on one point: you aren't charged third-party transaction fees for manual payments. Cash on delivery and bank transfers don't carry the Shopify fee.
When does it make sense to move up a plan?
You can work this out from the table. Grow costs US$40 a month more than Basic and cuts the fee by one percentage point. One percent of US$4,000 is US$40, so once your gateway (not COD) orders pass roughly US$4,000 a month, Grow pays for itself on fees alone.
Advanced is a much bigger jump. It costs US$334 more than Grow and saves 0.4 points, so you'd need about US$83,500 a month in gateway orders before the fee saving covers it. For most Pakistani stores, where COD is the majority of orders, that's a long way off. Don't upgrade to Advanced for the fee.
Which payment gateways work with Shopify in Pakistan?
These are the options we see most often. "Published pricing" means what the provider shows publicly, which for most of them is nothing.
Option | How it connects to Shopify | Published pricing |
|---|---|---|
Safepay | Safepay Checkout Onsite app on the Shopify App Store, embedded checkout | App is US$11.99 a month with a 7-day trial, plus a per-transaction fee quoted by Safepay |
XPay (PostEx) | XPay app on the Shopify App Store, embedded checkout | Quoted per merchant |
GoPayFast | Lists Shopify as a supported platform. Confirm the current method with them | Quoted per merchant |
Rapid Gateway | Says it supports Shopify | 2.5% on cards and 2% on wallets, no setup fee, next-day settlement (its own published figures) |
Cash on delivery, bank transfer | Built into Shopify under Settings, Payments, Manual payment methods | No gateway fee and no Shopify fee |
Safepay
Safepay has an app on the Shopify App Store called Safepay Checkout Onsite, launched in July 2024. The listing describes an embedded checkout that keeps the customer on your store, payments from local and international customers, and refunds issued from inside the Shopify admin. The app costs US$11.99 a month after a 7-day trial, and Safepay charges a per-transaction fee on top that it asks you to get from its website or sales team. There's also a separate Safepay app for Raast payments.
The App Store listing had no merchant reviews when we checked, so ask Safepay for a reference store you can look at.
XPay
XPay is PostEx's payment product and also installs from the Shopify App Store. It describes its checkout as embedded and lists Visa, Mastercard and UnionPay cards, mobile wallets and Google Pay. XPay says its Shopify app can route payments through several acquirers, including Bank Alfalah, HBL, Meezan Bank and MCB, which is useful if you already have a merchant relationship with one of those banks. Pricing is on request.
XPay's own material claims big conversion and speed gains. Treat those as marketing until you've seen your own numbers.
GoPayFast
GoPayFast (often just called PayFast) is licensed by the State Bank and has been around longer than most. It lists Shopify among the platforms it supports, alongside WooCommerce, Magento and OpenCart.
One warning that will save you an hour: there's a different company called Payfast in South Africa, and its Shopify app shows up when you search the App Store. It has nothing to do with the Pakistani gateway. Get the integration link from GoPayFast directly, and ask whether the customer pays on your store or gets redirected to another page.
Rapid Gateway
Rapid Gateway is the only one in this list that publishes its rates: 2.5 percent on cards, 2 percent on wallets, no setup fee and settlement the next working day. Those figures come from Rapid Gateway's own site, in an article comparing itself with competitors, so verify them in your contract.
Cash on delivery and bank transfer
Both are manual payment methods in Shopify. You turn them on in Settings and there's no app to install. Orders arrive marked unpaid, and you mark them paid yourself once the courier remits the cash or the transfer shows up in your account. For bank transfers, that manual matching gets tiring quickly once you're past a handful of orders a day.
What does a prepaid order really cost you?
Take a PKR 5,000 order on the Basic plan, paid by card through a gateway that charges 2.5 percent.
The gateway takes 2.5 percent: PKR 125.
Shopify takes its 2 percent third-party fee: PKR 100.
Total: PKR 225, or 4.5 percent of the order.
On the Grow plan the Shopify part drops to PKR 50 and the total to PKR 175, which is 3.5 percent. Your real gateway rate may be higher or lower than 2.5 percent, so put your own quote into the same sum.
4.5 percent sounds like a lot next to "free" COD. It isn't free, though, which is the next section.
Should you still offer cash on delivery?
Yes. In Pakistan you'll lose most of your customers if you don't. The Ministry of Commerce's draft e-Commerce Policy 2.0 puts COD at 60 to 70 percent of e-commerce orders. For individual stores it can be far higher.
OrderNation published a study of about 170,000 orders from one Pakistani mobile accessories retailer, placed between June 2025 and May 2026. It's a single retailer, so don't read it as a national average, but the pattern matches what store owners tell us:
94.5 percent of orders were COD and 1.6 percent were prepaid.
37.3 percent of COD orders were cancelled before shipping, against 2.8 percent of prepaid orders.
Of the COD parcels that did ship, 19.4 percent came back to the seller.
Out of every 100 COD orders placed, about 49 ended with cash collected.
Every returned parcel costs you courier charges both ways, packaging, and stock that sat in a van for a week. Compared with that, paying 3.5 to 4.5 percent on an order that is already paid for is cheap.
Customers are more ready for digital payment than those COD numbers suggest. The State Bank's annual payment systems review counted 111 million e-commerce transactions in FY25, up 42 percent on the year before, and 93 percent of those went through wallets or bank accounts with only 7 percent on cards. More than 2.6 million merchants had registered for Raast merchant payments by the end of March 2026. So when you pick a gateway, wallet and bank account payments matter more than card logos.
How do you get more customers to prepay?
These are things we've seen stores do. None of them needs custom development to start.
Offer a small discount or free delivery on prepaid orders, funded by what you'd otherwise lose on returns.
Show wallets and bank transfer first at checkout. That's how most people in Pakistan already pay digitally.
Confirm COD orders by WhatsApp or a phone call before dispatch. It cuts refusals, and it's a natural moment to offer a payment link.
Ask for a partial advance on expensive or custom items.
Keep COD available. The aim is to move the share, a few points at a time.
What do you need to open a gateway account?
Pakistani gateways are regulated by the State Bank and have to verify who you are, so expect paperwork. They typically ask for your CNIC, a business bank account, your NTN or business registration, and a live website that shows a refund policy, a privacy policy and contact details. Requirements differ by provider and by whether you're a sole proprietor or a company, so ask for the checklist before you apply.
Approval usually takes days to weeks, and switching gateways later means going through review again with the new provider. Start the application while you're still building the store.
Can a Pakistani Shopify store accept international payments?
Partly. Some local gateways accept international cards. Safepay's App Store listing mentions international payments, for example. Ask each provider which foreign cards and currencies they accept, and when and in what currency they settle to you.
PayPal doesn't operate in Pakistan. Payoneer is a way to receive payouts, not a checkout your customers can pay through. Some sellers register a company abroad to get access to Stripe, which brings its own legal and tax obligations in both countries, so talk to an accountant before you go that way.
How do you choose a gateway?
Ask every provider the same questions and compare the answers side by side:
What is your rate for cards, for wallets and for bank account or Raast payments?
Is there a setup fee, an annual fee or a monthly minimum?
When do you settle, and into which bank?
Does the customer stay on my store or get redirected?
Can I refund from inside Shopify?
Which wallets do you support?
What happens when a payment fails? Does the customer get a retry?
Can I talk to a store that uses your Shopify integration?
Then run a real test order on your own phone, on mobile data, before you launch. A checkout that works on office wifi and fails on a 4G connection in Multan isn't working.
Common mistakes we see
Forgetting Shopify's own fee and pricing products as if the gateway rate were the only cost.
Installing the South African Payfast app by mistake.
Launching COD-only and never applying for a gateway.
Choosing a gateway for its card rate when most customers pay by wallet.
Not reconciling. The gateway's settlement report, Shopify's order list and the bank statement should agree every week.
Upgrading to Advanced to save on fees without doing the sum.
Key takeaways
Shopify Payments isn't available in Pakistan, so online payments go through a third-party gateway.
Shopify adds a third-party fee per order, reported as 2 percent on Basic, 1 percent on Grow, 0.6 percent on Advanced and 0.2 percent on Plus. COD and bank transfer don't carry it.
Safepay and XPay both have apps on the Shopify App Store with embedded checkout. GoPayFast and Rapid Gateway also say they support Shopify.
Most gateways quote pricing per merchant. Rapid Gateway publishes 2.5 percent for cards and 2 percent for wallets.
A prepaid PKR 5,000 order on Basic costs about PKR 225 in fees at a 2.5 percent gateway rate.
COD is still most orders, but in one retailer's data only about 49 of 100 COD orders ended in collected cash.
Frequently asked questions
Which payment gateway is best for Shopify in Pakistan?
There isn't one answer. Safepay and XPay are the two with embedded checkout apps on the Shopify App Store, so start by getting quotes from both. Compare their rates for wallets as well as cards, since most digital payments in Pakistan go through wallets and bank accounts.
Can I use Stripe or PayPal on Shopify in Pakistan?
Not with a Pakistan-registered business. PayPal doesn't operate in Pakistan and Stripe doesn't onboard Pakistani companies. Some sellers use a foreign company to get Stripe, which has legal and tax consequences you should take advice on.
Does Shopify charge fees on cash on delivery orders?
No. Shopify's help centre states that third-party transaction fees aren't charged on manual payments, and COD is a manual payment method. Your COD costs come from the courier and from refused parcels.
Can I accept JazzCash and Easypaisa on Shopify?
Yes, through a gateway that supports those wallets. Ask the gateway to confirm which wallets are live on its Shopify integration, because support differs between providers.
How long does it take to get a payment gateway approved in Pakistan?
Usually days to a few weeks, depending on the provider and how complete your documents are. Have your CNIC, bank account details, NTN and website policies ready before you apply.
Is Raast available on Shopify?
Through a gateway, yes. Safepay has a Raast app on the Shopify App Store, and other gateways list Raast or bank account payments among their methods. Confirm it's enabled for your account.
Need help with payments on your Shopify store?
We set up and build Shopify stores and apps for businesses in Pakistan, the UAE and the wider GCC, including gateway integration, COD confirmation flows and reconciliation reports. Send us your store and your current payment setup on WhatsApp, and we'll come back with a written scope and a fixed quote. If you're building an app for the Shopify App Store, our guide to the Shopify Billing API in 2026 covers how apps charge merchants. If you're registered for sales tax, read our guide to FBR digital invoicing as well.
Fees and provider terms change often. Confirm current rates with Shopify and with each gateway before you commit.