Connect Payfast to your shop

Take payments through your own Payfast account on your ShopEazy shop and at your till. Where to find your keys, what to paste, and what the errors mean.

Connect Payfast and shoppers can pay by card, Instant EFT or Capitec Pay on your shop, and by Scan to pay at your till.

ShopEazy never holds your money. Shoppers pay Payfast, and Payfast pays you out on the terms you have with them. You pay Payfast's fees on your own account, and ShopEazy's platform fee per online sale depends on your plan.

Before you start

A Payfast account. Your Merchant ID and Merchant key, plus your passphrase if you set one in Payfast.
Owner or admin access to your ShopEazy business. Other team members can't connect or remove a payment provider.
Your email inbox. Connecting a provider asks you to confirm it's you with a 6-digit code we email you.

What your shoppers can pay with: Cards, Instant EFT and Capitec Pay, as switched on in your Payfast account.

Connect Payfast

In ShopEazy, click Settings in the sidebar, then Payments. You can also press Ctrl+K (Cmd+K on a Mac) and search for "Payments".
Under Ways to pay, find Card via Payfast and click Connect. Already have a provider connected? Click Add next to Add a way to pay and pick Payfast.
Follow the steps in the drawer, below.
Click Connect Payfast and enter the code we email you.

Step 1: Open your Payfast settings

Sign in to Payfast and go to Settings → Developer settings.
Your Merchant ID and Merchant key are on the same page.

Step 2: Paste them here

Merchant ID: the number on your dashboard, for example 10012345.
Merchant key
Passphrase (optional): only if you set one in Payfast. If you did, it must be here, or Payfast turns the payment down.

When it works, Payfast shows under Ways to pay with an On badge, and your shop starts taking payments through it.

Check that it worked

ShopEazy checks the shape of your Merchant ID and key when you connect. Place a small real order straight after to make sure it goes through.

Click Manage next to Payfast on the Payments page to see Live at checkout, your Payments · 30 days and Recent payments.

If something goes wrong

"Your Payfast Merchant ID is the number on your dashboard, e.g. 10012345." Paste only the number, with no spaces or letters.

"That doesn’t look like a Payfast Merchant key. Copy it from the same page." Copy the Merchant key again from Developer settings.

Payfast shows an error page at checkout Usually the passphrase: add it if you set one in Payfast, or remove it if you didn't.

Payfast shows "Not in use" Your shop charges through one card provider at a time. If another provider was connected first, checkout keeps using it. Disconnect that one to switch to Payfast.

For problems shoppers see at checkout, see Fix payment provider and checkout problems.

Good to know

Had a PayGate account? PayGate joined Payfast. Your PayGate account still connects: see Connect PayGate.

Your secret keys are encrypted when you save them, and ShopEazy never shows them again.

To disconnect, open Payfast from Settings → Payments and click Disconnect. We ask you to confirm, then forget your keys. If Payfast was the one at checkout and another provider is connected, checkout switches to it. Otherwise shoppers can't pay by card until you connect one again, so connect the new one first if you're switching.