10 Best Payment Gateways in India (2026)
Short answer: India’s digital payment ecosystem is evolving rapidly, driven by UPI dominance, mobile commerce, and global payment adoption. This blog explores the 10+ best payment gateways in India for 2026, covering features, transaction fees, settlement speed, security standards, and use-cases for startups, eCommerce businesses, and enterprises.
Vishwa T
Payment gateways are the backbone of digital commerce in India. From UPI-powered apps to advanced international payment solutions, businesses must choose a system that is secure, fast, and scalable. In this guide by Stagebit, we break down the top payment gateways in India for 2026, along with trends, fees, and practical advice to help you choose the right option.
Latest Payment Trends in India (2025–26)
India’s digital payment revolution continues with rapid adoption of mobile and real-time systems such as UPI (Unified Payments Interface). UPI now handles more than 85% of digital transactions in the country and processes billions of transactions every month, making India a global leader in real-time payments.
According to the Reserve Bank of India, digital payments accounted for nearly 99.8% of total transaction volume in early 2025, highlighting how cashless systems now dominate the payment ecosystem.
Additionally, India is expanding its UPI network globally, linking with systems in UAE, Singapore, France, and other countries, enabling cross-border digital payments.
What Is a Payment Gateway?
A payment gateway is a technology that securely authorizes and processes payment transactions between customers, merchants, and banks. It supports credit and debit cards, UPI, wallets, net banking, and international payments while ensuring encryption and fraud protection at every stage.
How Does a Payment Gateway Work?
Step 1: The process begins when a customer places an order and proceeds to the payment page to enter their card or payment details. These details are protected using Secure Socket Layer (SSL) encryption and securely shared between the customer’s browser and the merchant’s web server. This reduces the merchant’s PCI DSS compliance burden and ensures a smooth, uninterrupted checkout experience.
Step 2: The merchant forwards the encrypted transaction details to the payment gateway, which is securely connected to the payment server using SSL.
Step 3: The payment gateway converts the transaction data from XML format into ISO 8583 (or a compatible message format). The data is then forwarded to the payment processor used by the merchant’s acquiring bank and card network.
Step 4: An authorization request is sent to the customer’s issuing bank. The bank either approves or declines the transaction using a response code. If approved, the bank settles the payment with the merchant through the gateway.
How to Choose the Best Payment Gateway in India (2026)
- Supported Payment Modes: UPI, credit/debit cards, wallets, BNPL, and international payments
- Fees & Settlement: MDR, settlement timelines, refund and chargeback fees
- Security: PCI-DSS compliance, tokenization
- Developer Support: APIs, plugins for popular platforms
- Customer Support: 24/7 help for issues
Top 10 Payment Gateways in India (2026)
1. Cashfree Payment Gateway
Cashfree Payments is one of the leading payment gateways in India. Founded in 2015, it processes over $80 billion annually for approximately 800,000 businesses. Cashfree offers a full-stack payments platform with 100+ payment methods, instant payouts, cross-border payments, abandoned cart recovery, return prediction, and one-click checkout to improve conversions.
Businesses can start accepting payments within a day due to fast onboarding and easy integration with platforms such as WhatsApp, WooCommerce, Shopify, Wix, and WordPress.
- Supports UPI, cards, net banking, wallets
- Instant refunds and automated invoices
- Competitive TDR and same-day settlements
2. Paytm Payment Gateway
Paytm is the well known payment gateway India linked with 50+ banks and accepts domestic payments significantly. Do you know how it became the best payment gateways in india? Because, it has penetrated by strengthening the online customer base with ‘Paytm Cash Wallet’.
- UPI and wallet integrations
- Recurring billing and multiple currency support
- No setup or annual fees
3. PayPal
As the most recognized online payment gateway PayPal, it holds a global reputation across any business and facilitates easy cart integration.
It monitors 24/7 transactions and plays out an important role in enhancing the payment security of an individual. Just like Paytm, PayPal also offers a facility of recurring payment.
- Multi-currency support
- Buyer and seller protection
- Seamless cross-border transactions
4. PAYKUN
PayKun is a digital payment gateway solution that aims to amplify your customers’ checkout experience. It offers a test mode to experience its features before making a decision. The payment gateway has 15000+ merchants actively using the platform. You can either integrate a plugin on your website, share a payment link, or embed a button to accept payments.
- Supports 100+ payment modes
- PCI-DSS Level 1 security
- User-friendly dashboard
5. CCAvenue
CCAvenue is one of the best payment gateway service providers. As a payment gateway, it allows companies to receive payments online using a variety of ways, including digital wallets, net banking, debit cards and credit cards. It serves as a safe channel for connecting the payment processors and a retailer’s website. In essence, it streamlines the online transaction process and also gives clients a quick and secure way to pay for goods and services.
- 200+ payment methods
- Smart analytics & marketing tools
- Mobile apps for merchants
6. PayU
PayU is ruling over the trust of more than 5 lakh businesses because of its focus on building better payment experiences — for both businesses and customers. It claims to have industry-best payment success rates and offers two checkout options for your business — a payment gateway on your website and app-based checkout.
- Customizable checkout experience
- Multi-currency and wallet support
7. Instamojo
Instamojo is the choice of 20,00,000+ Indian businesses with its high-speed and optimized checkout experience for customers. You can choose between two checkout options — either a custom page on your website or a pay button on any of your web pages.
- Simple setup with payment links
- Live chat support
- Digital product hosting
8. MobiKwik
MobiKwik (formerly known as Zaakpay) has emerged as the fastest growing eCommerce payment gateway giving leverage to successfully conduct business operations. It focuses more on providing a smooth and friendly user experience by detecting the OTP (One Time Password) automatically.
Some of the popular customers are Business World, BlueDart, Uber, Zomato and others. You can hire the eCommerce Website Development Company for payment gateway for your website or your business application.
Transaction Fee: Custom and negotiable
Features:
- Offers advanced security with PCI DSS to protect all transaction data
- Enable website analytics to check data
- Supports credit and debit cards, wallets, international cards, UPI and EMIs
9. Razorpay
Razorpay was founded in 2014 and has now become one of the most popular payment gateway in India having 800k customers specifically. In October 2020, it became a unicorn startup valuing over $1 billion as Fintech Company.
Emerging as the smartest and one of the cheapest payment gateway in India, Razorpay offers a Dashboard facility to check the real time facility in purchasing. A few of the freelancers, self-employed, small, big and large companies consider Razorpay as the most trusted payment gateway provider in India.
- Supports subscriptions, payouts, and real-time analytics
- Easy integration with major platforms
10. Atom Payment Gateway
Atom is the payment gateway integrated with 50+ banks and 260+ payment options including credit cards, EMI, debit cards, IMPS and others to make your transaction better.
- Express checkout
- Multi-bank EMI
- Invoice generation tools
UPI: The Backbone of Indian Digital Payments
India’s UPI system is now considered the world’s largest real-time payment network, processing over 18 billion transactions per month and surpassing global players like Visa in daily volume.
UPI powerfully drives digital commerce across India and is also expanding internationally through partnerships in countries such as UAE, Singapore, Nepal, Sri Lanka, France, and Mauritius.
Common Payment Gateway Challenges (and Solutions)
- Payment failures and retries → use auto-retry & UPI routing
- High MDR fees → negotiate tiered plans
- International receiving issues → choose solutions with multi-currency support
- Cart abandonment → streamline checkout with fewer steps
FAQs – Payment Gateways in India (2026)
Which is the best gateway for startups?
Cashfree and Razorpay are often recommended due to easy onboarding and scalable features.
Can Indian gateways accept international payments?
Yes. PayPal, Razorpay, and Cashfree support international transactions with multi-currency options.
Why is UPI dominant?
UPI dominates due to speed, low cost, and mass adoption, handling most digital transactions in India.
Conclusion
In this blog post, we provided you with the list of top 10 payment gateways in India. They are Razorpay, PayU, Cashfree Payments, Amazon Pay, CCAvenue, Instamojo, Billdesk, Open Money, Zoho Payments and PayGlocal. They allow businesses to collect payments from customers easily. Depending on your requirements, you can choose to use any of these payment gateways.
External Resources & Reference Links
For a detailed comparison of payment gateways in India, you can also refer to this resource: Top 10 Payment Gateways in India on Registrationwala .
Another useful reference covering features and pricing of gateways like PayU and others is available at: Best Payment Gateways in India – Aureate Labs .
You can also check out this guide for insights on payment gateway services and integration tips: Best Payment Gateways in India on Infostans .
Vishwa T
January 2, 2026