Payments & Operations
Yoco vs iKhokha vs Payfast for Your Online Shop
Three of the most common names in South African payments, compared on what matters for an online shop. Which one fits depends on where you already sell and how your customers pay.
If you sell in South Africa, you've heard all three. Yoco and iKhokha are best known for the card machines on shop counters. Payfast has been the go-to online checkout for small shops for years. All three can run your online checkout.
So which one? It mostly comes down to two things: where you already sell, and how your customers like to pay.
The short version
- Already have a Yoco machine? Use Yoco online. Counter and online sales pay out to the same account.
- Already have an iKhokha machine? Same logic. Use iKhokha.
- Selling mostly online, to customers who don't all use cards? Payfast puts cards, Instant EFT and Capitec Pay on one checkout.
Yoco
Yoco is the name on a lot of counter card machines. Its online side, the Checkout API, takes card payments.
Good for: shops that already sell in person with Yoco and want one place for every sale.
What shoppers can use: cards.
Worth knowing: Yoco gives you test keys, so you can place a pretend order before you go live. In ShopEazy, Yoco also lets you send card payment links for orders you create yourself, and refund card payments straight from the order.
iKhokha
iKhokha also started at the counter, with its own card machines and app.
Good for: shops already on iKhokha at the till.
What shoppers can use: cards and EFT.
Worth knowing: you connect it with an application key and secret from your iKhokha dashboard, and ShopEazy checks them with iKhokha before saving.
Payfast
Payfast is an online checkout first, and has been one of the most common choices for small South African online shops for years.
Good for: online-first shops whose customers pay in different ways.
What shoppers can use: cards, Instant EFT and Capitec Pay.
Worth knowing: Instant EFT and Capitec Pay matter more than most owners expect. Plenty of South Africans would rather approve a payment in their banking app than type in a card number.
What about fees?
All three publish their fees, and all three change them from time to time. Compare the current pricing pages for the payment methods you'll actually use. Check whether there's a monthly fee as well as a per-sale fee, and how fast each one pays you out.
You can switch later
Picking the wrong one isn't fatal. In ShopEazy you connect your own account with the provider, and you can connect a second one and switch over when you're ready. Payments that already went through stay on their orders.
There are six more to choose from, too: Peach Payments, SnapScan, PayGate, Ozow, Stitch and Paystack. See them all on the payments page, or read How to choose a payment provider.