Paystack review: products, technology, pricing (2026)

Paystack is a Lagos-based payments company, part of Stripe since 2020, that lets African businesses accept cards, bank payments, transfers, USSD and mobile money online and in person. It is built around a documented REST API with a popup, redirect and mobile SDK options, plus published per-country pricing and a point-of-sale terminal line.

At a glance

How the platform works

A typical Paystack payment has four steps, as set out in its documentation. The merchant's server calls the Initialize Transaction endpoint with a secret key and receives an access code or checkout link. The code goes to the front end, where the customer pays through a popup, a redirect page, a mobile SDK or the lower-level Charge API. Paystack then sends a charge.success event to the merchant's webhook, and the merchant confirms status and amount through the verify endpoint before delivering goods. The documentation stresses that visiting a callback URL alone does not prove payment.

Paystack also lists automated and manual fraud detection with chargeback protection among its tools, and a Paystack blog post says the company is certified to PCI DSS Level 1. That post is undated. See our guide on how card payments work for the surrounding parties.

Products

Online payments

Cards, bank accounts, bank transfers, USSD, Apple Pay, Visa QR and mobile money are listed on the homepage. The documentation covers one-off and recurring charges, subscriptions, bulk charges, partial debits, card pre-authorisation, refunds and disputes.

Split payments

Split payments divide the settlement of a transaction between the merchant's main account and a subaccount, either by percentage or by a flat amount for the main account. The merchant can choose who bears Paystack's fees. This suits marketplaces and platforms.

Transfers and virtual accounts

The transfers section covers single and bulk payouts to recipients. Dedicated virtual accounts let a customer pay by bank transfer to an account number linked to them.

Paystack Terminal

Terminal has three parts: a Virtual Terminal (software only, Nigeria and Ghana), a Physical Terminal built on a Morefun device that takes cards, USSD and bank transfers (Nigeria only, per the page), and a Terminal API for custom in-person experiences.

Identity and data tools

The docs list checks for bank account numbers, card BIN resolution and customer validation, alongside dashboard reporting and exports for reconciliation.

Developer experience and integrations

The documentation home lists InlineJS, Android, iOS and Flutter SDKs, a command-line tool, sample projects on GitHub, a developer Slack and an MCP server. Integration guides cover Vue, React, Android, Flutter and React Native. Test mode sits under the payments section.

Paystack also appears inside other products. An undated blog post says it is available on Flowcart, which lets merchants in Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa sell through WhatsApp. Our Stripe profile covers the parent group's wider platform, and Paystack says it keeps operating independently.

Payment methods, currencies and coverage

Cards are available on all accounts; other channels depend on country. The payment channels page lists:

At announcement in October 2020, Stripe said Paystack served more than 60,000 businesses in Nigeria and Ghana and had started a South Africa pilot. That is a 2020 figure and no current count appears on the pages we opened.

Pricing model

Paystack publishes rates for Nigeria on its pricing page and for other countries in support articles. None of the pages we opened carries an absolute effective date, so check them before relying on any number.

Other Nigerian items on the pricing page: transfers cost NGN 10, 25 or 50 depending on size, dedicated virtual accounts cost 1% capped at NGN 300, and a physical terminal is listed at NGN 100,000 per live device with a 0.5% local card rate capped at NGN 1,000. The page says integration and maintenance are free, settlement is next working day and volume discounts exist.

Recent launches

We could not open a dated launch feed for Paystack, so we do not list dated items for the last 12 to 18 months. Undated posts on the company blog describe a Small Business Bundle (discounts from 14 partners, up to NGN 4 million for eligible Nigerian merchants), the Flowcart integration and Pay with Bank, which lets customers pay from a bank account using an OTP. The documentation home also lists an MCP server for developers.

Regulation in brief

None of the Paystack pages we opened set out licences, and we did not locate a dedicated regulatory page. In October 2020 Stripe said its purchase was subject to regulatory approvals. Merchants should ask which Paystack entity contracts with them in each country and check that entity on the relevant regulator's register; our licence-checking guide explains how.

Who it tends to suit

Paystack is commonly used by businesses that sell mainly in Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa or Kenya and want published pricing, a documented API and local channels such as USSD, bank transfer and M-PESA. Platforms that split payments between vendors may find the subaccount model relevant. Businesses expanding across many African countries may also compare Flutterwave or the wider emerging-market providers such as dLocal.