GetPaid PayFast Payments

Selling to South Africa also means collecting the way people pay there

Your site sells to South African customers and only offers them a card. Someone who preferred to pay with Instant EFT, a QR code or a store card reaches the last step and does not find their method. The price, the product and the invoice were all fine.

Translating the page and showing the amount is not enough to sell in another market: the payment method is part of the offer too. A local gateway brings those methods closer to your checkout.

PayFast Payment Gateway is an add-on for GetPaid, the WordPress payments and invoicing plugin. It adds PayFast, a South African gateway, to your payment options. Payfast works with credit cards, Instant EFT, QR codes, Mobicred and store cards, among other methods. Which options your customer sees is something to check with a test purchase on your account.

Invoices, forms and buttons that can now be paid with PayFast

GetPaid brings together several ways to sell, and PayFast joins them as one more payment option:

• Buy Now buttons: place a sale anywhere on the site, for one-time fees, subscriptions, free trials, name-your-price sales, donations or tips.
• Payment forms: suit landing pages that sell a selection of products, as one-time or recurring payments.
• Invoices: you create and send them from the WordPress dashboard, and the customer pays them on your site.

In the settings you also choose the title and description the gateway shows at checkout, and its priority against the other options.

Recurring fees depend on the pass phrase

A single payment can work while a subscription fails on the same account. The difference lies in two conditions:

• Pass Phrase: it is mandatory for recurring payments. It must be identical in Payfast and in GetPaid, and it only accepts letters, numbers and the characters -, _ and /.
• Recurring billing: it must be enabled on your Payfast account.

If either is missing, Payfast may return a signature error. And if you change the phrase in Payfast, change it in GetPaid too, because the two must match. Before announcing a recurring fee, test both the signup and the first charge.

PayFast comes in through GetPaid and no other system

It does not work alone. It is a GetPaid add-on, and its options appear after you install and activate it.

You need your Payfast account. The add-on connects your site to it, and verification asks for proof of identity, address and bank account.

It only connects GetPaid. WooCommerce and other sales systems need a different integration.

Taxes and quotes do not come from here. European VAT belongs to GetPaid, and quotes are a separate add-on, whose accepted proposals become invoices.

Your Payfast account and the first test purchase

With GetPaid and the add-on active, follow this route:

1. Create your Payfast account.
2. Go to GetPaid, Settings, Payment Gateways, PayFast Payments.
3. Copy the Merchant ID, Merchant Key and Pass Phrase from the Payfast control panel.
4. Copy the ITN URL shown by GetPaid and paste it into the Payfast panel.
5. Turn on PayFast Test Mode and use sandbox credentials while testing.
6. Make a test purchase, first a one-time payment and then a recurring one.
7. Turn off test mode and switch to your real credentials: with that mode on, real payments do not work.

Gateways for GetPaid and PayFast for memberships

If your customers are in Europe, GetPaid Mollie Payment Gateway works in euros with cards and European methods such as iDEAL, Bancontact or SEPA transfer. GetPaid Square Payment Gateway works in the United States, Canada, Australia, Japan and the United Kingdom.

If you sell memberships with Paid Memberships Pro, the catalog has Paid Memberships Pro PayFast Gateway.

When connecting PayFast to GetPaid

Does it work without GetPaid?

No. It is an add-on for that plugin and its settings live inside it.

Does it allow recurring charges?

Yes, with the Pass Phrase configured and recurring billing enabled on your Payfast account.

Where do I find the Merchant ID and Merchant Key?

In the Payfast control panel. The Merchant ID is numeric.

What is the ITN URL for?

GetPaid generates it and you copy it into the Payfast panel as part of the connection between the two.

Why are real payments not coming through after setup?

First check that PayFast Test Mode is off and that you are using your real credentials.