A payment gateway should be chosen according to the company’s long-term business goals and transaction volume. It’s even more important to study the features of all payment gateways carefully before making any decision. Small business and startups look for the Cheapest Online Payment Gateways if their transaction volumes are low.

If you’re a business having considerably low transaction volumes and low average transaction values, then you should probably look towards working with the most economical and cheapest online payment gateways that suit your business needs.

Cheapest Online Payment Gateways

Image Source: Freepik

First of all, let’s understand the payment processes of a payment gateway.  Any payment gateway imposes 3 kinds of fees on a merchant:

  1. Setup Fees – A one-time amount you pay to start receiving the services of the payment gateway
  2. Annual Maintenance Fees – A maintenance charge for the operational costs of a Payment Gateway
  3. Transaction Fees – Amount deducted per transaction through the payment gateways

To understand what the merchant is liable to pay the payment gateway in a course of 1 year, let’s take an example of Rinkler Private Limited, a small enterprise with an average monthly transaction of 500 products and an average transaction value of Rs. 1000/-.

Let’s calculate the Average Yearly Income of the company,

Average Annual Income =  Average Transaction Value * Average Transaction Volume* 12

1000*500*12 = Rs. 60,00,000

The Complete Fees to a Payment Gateway for a year would be,

Payment Gateway Fees Per Year =  Setup Fees + Annual Maintenance Fees + Transaction Rate% (Average Transaction Value* Average Transaction Volume Per Month*12)

Suppose Rinkler Private Limited chooses PayUMoney, with a transaction rate of 2%, then Rinkler is liable to pay:

SF + AMF + TDR(500*1000*12) = 0 + 0 + 2%(500*1000*12) = Rs. 1,20,000 Per Year

If you want to choose the cheapest payment gateway for your business, make sure to do your calculations right and choose wisely. And to make your choices even simpler, we did some research and made a list of the cheapest Online Payment Gateways with absolutely no Setup or Annual Maintenance Fees and very low transaction fees.

So here is a List of the most Cheapest Online Payment Gateways for your Startup!

Cheapest Online Payment GatewaysPayU India is the flagship company of Naspers group which is a $25 Billion internet and media conglomerate listed on London and Johannesburg stock exchanges respectively. PayU provides state-of-the-art payment gateway solutions to online businesses through its cutting-edge and award-winning technology.

Setup fees: Nil

Annual Maintenance Fees: Nil

Transaction Fees: 2%

Setup Time: 5 – 7 days

Settlement Time: T + 2 Days

Major Clients: ShopClues, Pepperfry, olx, Freecharge

Cheapest Online Payment GatewaysIndia’s emerging C2C payments & e-commerce platform. Instamojo makes digital commerce universally accessible to create newer opportunities & sustainable livelihoods. They believe every business idea deserves to be on the Internet to grow and they make it possible with technology, data, design and little bit of Mojo ( meaning magic ).

Setup fees: Nil

Annual Maintenance Fees: Nil

Transaction Fees: 2% + Rs. 3

Setup Time: Instant

Settlement Time: 3 Days

Major Clients: Snapdeal’s app Shopo, Online Prasad, UrbanClap, YourStory, Next Big What

Cheapest Online Payment GatewaysPaynimo, a revolutionary way to request and receive money. Paynimo works across all devices and banks, so you can conduct transactions, anywhere and anytime. Paynimo converts your regular reminder SMS and emails into actionable payment tools, thereby improving your collections!

Setup fees: Nil

Annual Maintenance Fees: Nil

Transaction Fees: Variable

Setup Time: 3 days

Settlement Time: T + 2 Days

Major Clients: Bookabus, eBus India, Rotomac, Mebelkart.com, BatteryBhai.com

Cheapest Online Payment GatewaysNext generation of online payments. Easiest way to accept payments for your online business. Razorpay is an online payment gateway which allows Indian businesses to collect payments online through credit card, debit card, net banking and popular wallets like Mobikwik, PayUmoney etc.

Setup fees: Nil

Annual Maintenance Fees: Nil

Transaction Fees: 2%

Setup Time: 2 – 3 Days

Settlement Time: T + 3 Days

Major Clients: chai point, roadrunner, papa johns, inner chef, knowlarity

Cheapest Online Payment GatewaysAirpay is a unique payment platform which aids global e-commerce & retail. We help businesses envision the world beyond cash providing the best experience to merchants and their customers. airpay is an all-encompassing payment solution provider, working towards making monetary transactions simpler, easier and quicker.

Setup fees: Nil

Annual Maintenance Fees: Nil

Transaction Fees: 2.5%

Setup Time: 7 Days

Settlement Time: T + 2 Days

Major Clients: Livepro

Cheapest Online Payment GatewaysDesign to Simplify. Juspay consists of a team of engineers and designers working passionately to revolutionize digital payments in India with secure, reliable, efficient and cost-effective solutions. Juspay’s infrastructure is PCI DSS Level 1 compliant and Securely stores cards with Juspay Vault.

Setup fees: Nil

Annual Maintenance Fees: Nil

Transaction Fees: Customized

Setup Time: Instant

Major Clients: MakeMyTrip, redBus, Snapdeal, Bookmyshow, Freecharge, Mobikwik, foodpanda, Swiggy, Zoomcar, Spi Cinemas and Voonik

Cheapest Online Payment GatewaysDiscover awesomeness with PayZippy. Zip through online & mobile payments without typing your card number, expiry date, name or billing address. Just save these details once with PayZippy. PayZippy is built by Flipkart – the most trusted e-commerce brand in India.

Setup fees: Nil

Annual Maintenance Fees: Nil

Transaction Fees:

<= Rs. 2000 0.75%
> Rs. 2000 1.00%

Settlement Time: T + 2 Days

Major Clients: Bluestone, Babyoye, Makemytrip, Lenskart, Caratlane, and Zansaar

Cheapest Online Payment GatewaysBillDesk, a property of IndiaIdeas.com Ltd. was conceived in early 2000 to solve the frustrations of most of us when it comes to paying bills. They have created BillDesk to help consumers leverage on the potential of the electronic medium to better organize and manage payments while escaping some of the pitfalls of traditional bill payment services.

Setup fees: Nil

Annual Maintenance Fees: Nil

Transaction Fees: 1.5 – 5%

Setup Time: Immediately

Settlement Time: T + 2 Days

Major Clients: state electricity boards, airtel mobile services, reliance communication, Kotak life insurance

Cheapest Online Payment GatewaysPayza is the leading global online payment platform that specializes in e-commerce processing, corporate disbursements, and remittances for individuals and businesses around the world. The e-wallet platform provides Payza members worldwide with convenient and flexible loading and withdrawal options, such as localized bank transfers, global bank wires, credit/debit card, checks, prepaid cards, among others.

Setup fees: Nil

Annual Maintenance Fees: Nil

Transaction Fees: 2.90 % + $0.30 USD

Setup Time: 1 Week

Settlement Time: 1 Week

Major Clients: Ubercart, InstanteStore, X-cart, PrestaShop, OpenCart

Cheapest Online Payment GatewaysQPayIndia has been established with the view to provide a secure, reliable, quick and scalable payment service to Indian e-commerce merchants. Instituted by a team of experienced payment gateway professionals with more than 50 years of combined experience in card processing and acquisition, QPay offers innovative services and solutions for digital payments and online checkout processes to suit every e-commerce merchant in India.

Setup fees: Nil

Annual Maintenance Fees: Nil

Transaction Fees: Negotiable

Credit Cards between 2.25% – 5.5%

Debit Cards between 1.25% – 3%

Net banking – 2%- 3%

Setup Time: 2 – 5 Days

Settlement Time: T + 2 Days

Cheapest Online Payment GatewaysTelr believes in the growth of these markets and the success it will bring to all players. They are committed to enabling e-commerce in the emerging markets.  Telr cares about payment gateway, its functionalities, APIs, and the possibilities. It opens to a wide variety of business models. They always design payment services and solutions to specifically cater to their needs.

Setup fees: Nil

Annual Maintenance Fees: Nil

Transaction Fees:

Domestic Credit + Net Banking – 2.45% + INR 2

Domestic Debit Cards – 1.25% + INR 2

International Cards – 2.75% + INR 2

Setup Time: Few Days

Major Clients: jaiboot, essentially, flower shop

Paytm logo

Paytm is India’s largest mobile commerce platform. Paytm started by offering mobile recharge and utility bill payments and today it offers a full marketplace to consumers on its mobile apps. They have over 100mn registered users. Paytm is the consumer brand of India’s leading mobile internet company One97 Communications.

Setup fees: Nil

Annual Maintenance Fees: Nil

Transaction Fees: 2.5%

Setup Time: A few Hours

Major Clients: Foodpanda, bookmyshow, gaana.com, uber, makemytrip, jabong, oyo rooms, Fasso’s, Spicejet

Cheapest Online Payment GatewaysJioMoney is a safe and secure way of making digital payments across physical and online channels. You can make instant bill payments, do mobile/DTH recharges, pay at thousands of online & physical stores and transfer money to other people or bank accounts. You can link your cards and bank accounts with JioMoney.

Setup fees: Nil

Annual Maintenance Fees: Nil

Transaction Fees: 2.5%

Cheapest Online Payment GatewaysMillions of customers can now pay using the information stored in their Amazon accounts. Pay with Amazon makes it easy for customers to buy what they want, and get on with their lives. There’s no need to create countless usernames and passwords – your Amazon account credentials are all you need.

Setup fees: Nil

Annual Maintenance Fees: Nil

Transaction Fees: 1.95%

Setup Time: Instantly

Settlement Time: T + 2 Days

Major Clients: Himalaya, Crocs, CCD, Skybags

We managed to collect information on 30 payment gateways through publicly available resources and today we have a structured report on all payment gateways in India. Our e-book “The Most Comprehensive Report on Payment Gateways In India” will give you every insight you need about an online payment gateway!
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Disclaimer: Some of the links in this chapter are affiliate links. We will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase of any of the services, at no additional cost to you.


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