Payment Methods & Gateways in Saudi Arabia: What to Offer at Checkout

Saudi shoppers pay with mada debit cards, and most of them tap those cards through Apple Pay. Add a buy-now-pay-later option and cash on delivery for new customers, and you've covered almost everyone.

That's a big shift. A few years ago, cash at the door was normal. Today, Saudi Arabia is one of the most cashless markets in the region.

It's good news for sellers. Digital payments mean faster cash flow, fewer refused parcels and bigger baskets.

Below, you'll see how Saudis pay, which methods to switch on, what gateways really cost and how to pick one. Notes for Shopify stores, foreign companies and Chinese sellers come at the end.

How do Saudi shoppers pay online?

Most Saudis pay by card or wallet, and nearly all those cards are mada. Cash on delivery is now a small slice of online orders.

Wallets40%

• Digital wallets (Apple Pay, STC Pay)40%
• Debit cards (mada)19%
• Credit cards12%
• Bank transfer9%
• Cash on delivery8%
• Prepaid cards7%
• Buy now, pay later4%

Source: Worldpay data via Antom, 2025. Wallet payments mostly run on mada cards underneath.

One thing to know about that chart: the wallet slice and the mada slice overlap.

When a Saudi shopper pays with Apple Pay, there's usually a mada card inside it. So mada is really the rail under most online payments, and Apple Pay is the button people press.

Here's what each method means for your store:

• Mada. The national debit network, run by SAMA (the Saudi Central Bank). Almost every Saudi bank account comes with a mada card, about 30 million in all, and most are co-badged with Visa or Mastercard.
• Apple Pay. Live in Saudi Arabia since February 2019, and mada cards work inside it. On mobile, it's effectively the mada button, and it skips the SMS code step. See Apple Pay in Saudi Arabia for setup.
• STC Pay. The leading local wallet, which has now become STC Bank. Gateways still list it as "STC Pay". It needs its own integration, because it isn't a card.
• Credit cards. Visa, Mastercard and Amex. A minority, but common on big-ticket and cross-border orders.
• Buy now, pay later (BNPL). Tabby and Tamara let shoppers split a purchase into interest-free instalments. A small share of orders, but they lift basket size.
• Cash on delivery (COD). The shopper pays the courier in cash or by card at the door. It's shrinking, but still matters for brands shoppers don't know yet.

Samsung Pay, bank transfers through sarie (the instant payment system) and SADAD bill payments exist too. Most consumer stores can skip them at launch.

Which payment methods should your store offer?

Offer the five methods Saudi shoppers expect. Leaving out any of them costs you sales.

Here's the Saudi default stack, in the order I'd show them at checkout:

1. Apple Pay, with mada processed domestically underneath.
2. Mada card entry, with the mada logo clearly visible.
3. Visa and Mastercard for credit cards and foreign cards.
4. Tabby or Tamara (ideally both) for split payments.
5. Cash on delivery, with verification and a small fee or prepaid discount.

Add STC Pay if your gateway supports it at a fair price. It's popular with younger shoppers and expat workers.

Why does this matter so much? A checkout that shows only Visa and Mastercard looks foreign to a Saudi shopper. Many of them own only a mada card.

What does a payment gateway cost in Saudi Arabia?

A payment gateway is the service that takes the shopper's card or wallet payment and pays the money into your bank account. In Saudi Arabia, it must be licensed or authorised by SAMA.

You pay for it in several layers:

• A percentage per payment. It depends on the method. Published mada rates are about 1%, while credit cards cost about 2.25–2.8% plus SAR 1.
• A fixed fee per payment. Often SAR 1, which hurts most on cheap orders.
• Monthly and setup fees. For example, Amazon Payment Services charges SAR 200 a month on its standard plan.
• Your platform's fee. Shopify adds 0.2–2% when you use an outside gateway, which every Saudi Shopify store does.
• VAT on the fees. In Saudi Arabia, 15% VAT applies to the gateway's fee, not to the sale.
• Extras. Chargebacks, refunds, currency conversion and payouts can all carry fees, so ask.

Most Saudi gateways quote on application, based on your volume and category. Amazon Payment Services, PayTabs' Paymes and Telr are the ones that publish Saudi rates. SAMA caps mada online fees at 1.75%, so any quote above that is a red flag.

Worked example: a SAR 300 order on Shopify

Let's price a SAR 300 order on Shopify's Basic plan, using Amazon Payment Services' published rates.

The credit card payment costs nearly twice as much. And on the mada order, Shopify's fee is bigger than the gateway's.

That gives you two levers. Nudge shoppers to mada and Apple Pay. Then move to a higher Shopify plan once your sales justify it, which cuts the platform fee to 1% or less.

Compare gateway fees with your own numbers

Enter your monthly sales, order count and payment mix. The calculator uses published rates and adds the Shopify fee and VAT.

Want a deeper look at mada pricing? Our guide to mada fees for online stores shows how to negotiate a better rate.

How do you choose a payment gateway in Saudi Arabia?

Start with where your company is registered. That decides which gateways will take you, long before price does.

SAMA requires online stores based in Saudi Arabia to process mada through the domestic mada system. Stores based abroad charge mada cards through Visa or Mastercard instead.

A CR (commercial registration) is your Saudi business licence. If you hold one, use a local gateway. You'll get better approval rates and lower fees.

What you need to open a gateway account

Saudi gateways ask for the same short list:

• A CR or freelance licence, with an activity that matches what you sell.
• An IBAN letter for a Saudi bank account in the business's name.
• The owner's ID (national ID or iqama).
• A live store with a refund policy, contact details and prices in SAR.

Have these ready before you apply, and approval is usually quick. No CR yet? Our guide to Saudi business registration walks you through it.

Saudi gateways at a glance

	Published Saudi rates	Shopify app	STC Pay	Onboards
Tap Payments	Quote		Not in Shopify app	GCC entities
HyperPay	Quote		Ask	Saudi entities
Moyasar	Quote			Saudi CR or freelance licence only
PayTabs	Paymes: mada 1%, cards 2.25% + SAR 1	Plugin from PayTabs dashboard		Saudi, UAE and other GCC entities
Amazon Payment Services	mada 1%, cards 2.8% + SAR 1, SAR 200/month		0.90% + SAR 500 setup	Local entity in each country
Geidea	Quote		Ask	Saudi, UAE and Egypt merchants
Checkout.com	Quote (enterprise)			mada for Saudi entities only

Every gateway above supports mada, Apple Pay, Visa and Mastercard for Saudi entities. The differences are pricing, platform fit and support.

Follow these steps to pick yours:

1

Confirm your entity

A Saudi CR or freelance licence opens up local gateways with domestic mada. Without one, see the notes for foreign companies below.

2

List your must-have methods

Mada, Apple Pay, Visa/Mastercard, STC Pay, Tabby or Tamara, and COD through your courier.

3

Check your platform

On Shopify, pick a gateway with a proper Shopify app. On Salla or Zid, start with their built-in payments.

4

Get two or three written quotes

Ask for rates split by method, fixed and monthly fees, payout timing, reserves and chargeback fees.

5

Model the all-in cost

Add your platform fee and 15% VAT on fees. Use the calculator above.

6

Test with real cards

Pay with a real mada card, directly and inside Apple Pay. Then test a refund.

7

Keep a backup gateway

Onboarding delays and outages happen. A second gateway also lets you retry failed payments.

Payouts usually arrive one to five business days after the sale, and mada often settles faster than credit cards. Get the payout cycle written into your contract.

Ready to compare providers side by side? Browse our directory of Saudi payment gateway providers.

Buy now, pay later: should you add Tabby and Tamara?

For most stores, yes. BNPL lets shoppers split the price into instalments, and you get paid upfront. It lifts order value most in fashion, beauty and electronics.

Tabby and Tamara dominate the Saudi market. Tabby reports 25 million registered users and Tamara about 20 million. Shoppers stick with whichever app holds their credit limit, so many stores offer both.

Sellers add them for three reasons:

• Bigger baskets. Splitting the price into four makes a SAR 600 order feel like SAR 150.
• Less COD. Tamara says merchants see up to 50% fewer cash orders after adding it.
• No credit risk for you. The BNPL provider pays you and chases the shopper.

The cost is higher than cards. Neither company lists merchant rates; sellers typically report about 3–5% for Tabby and 4–6% for Tamara, depending on category and volume.

If you can only add one, ask both for approval rates in your category. Our Tabby vs Tamara comparison breaks down fees, payouts and setup.

Cash on delivery: is it still worth offering?

For a new brand, yes. COD lets first-time buyers see the product before they pay, and that trust gets you the first order.

Overall, COD is a small slice of Saudi online payments. But new direct-to-consumer stores often see 40–60% of orders come in as COD, because shoppers don't know them yet.

The catch? COD is expensive:

• Courier fees. Saudi couriers charge about SAR 3–14 per COD parcel through aggregators like OTO.
• Refused parcels. COD orders are refused or returned two to three times as often as prepaid ones. You pay shipping both ways.
• Slower cash. Couriers hold the money until they remit it, usually once or twice a week.

So keep COD, but control it. Confirm every COD order on WhatsApp before it ships, which one courier says cuts returns by 10–15 percentage points. Add a small COD fee, or a discount for paying online.

Run your own numbers in our guide to cash on delivery in the GCC. For the confirmation setup, see how to cut fake and refused COD orders with OTP checks and deposits.

How to stop shoppers abandoning your checkout

Around 70% of online carts are abandoned worldwide, according to Baymard. In Saudi Arabia, payment problems make it worse.

Payment failures hurt loyalty fast. Checkout.com found that about a third of shoppers in the region would switch stores after a single failed payment.

The usual Saudi culprits are missing mada, declined cards on foreign gateways, surprise VAT or shipping costs, and SMS codes that never arrive. Apple Pay fixes that last one, because it doesn't need an SMS code.

Notes for Shopify stores

• No Shopify Payments. It works in the UAE but not in Saudi Arabia, so you'll connect an outside gateway.
• Budget Shopify's extra fee. It runs from 2% on Basic down to 0.2% on Plus, charged on top of the gateway fee.
• Pick a gateway with a real app. Tap, HyperPay, Amazon Payment Services, Geidea and ClickPay have Shopify App Store listings. PayTabs installs from its own dashboard. Moyasar has no Shopify app.
• Check Apple Pay and STC Pay inside checkout. Tap's native app supports Apple Pay. Ask any gateway whether STC Pay works in Shopify's checkout or only on a redirect page.
• Add BNPL apps separately. Tabby and Tamara both have free Shopify apps, but you still need a merchant contract with each.

Our ranking of the best Shopify payment gateways in Saudi Arabia walks through setup for each one.

Notes for Salla and Zid stores

• Payments are built in. Salla and Zid both include mada, Apple Pay, Visa/Mastercard, STC Pay, Tabby, Tamara, bank transfer and COD.
• Salla needs a paid plan. The free Basic plan can't take online card payments, so most sellers start on Plus at SAR 99 a month.
• Zid publishes its rates. On the Growth plan, Zid Payments starts at 1% plus SAR 1 per payment, with no setup or monthly fee. The rate rises with card type.
• Outside gateways work too. Both connect to Moyasar, HyperPay, PayTabs and Tap if you get a better quote.
• Salla now owns a gateway. It bought Paylink, a SAMA-licensed payments company, in September 2026.

Notes for foreign companies

• You can still take Saudi cards. Co-badged mada cards go through as Visa or Mastercard. Expect more declines and higher fees than domestic mada.
• Some cards will fail. Debit cards not enabled for international online shopping, and some prepaid cards, decline on foreign gateways.
• A UAE entity is a good bridge. It gets you Shopify Payments and Stripe for GCC-wide sales, and you can add a Saudi entity later.
• BNPL is harder. Saudi BNPL needs SAR checkout, and non-SAR purchases need SAMA approval.
• Stripe won't onboard a Saudi company. In the GCC, it only supports UAE businesses.
• Marketplaces solve payments for you. Amazon.sa and noon collect mada, Apple Pay, BNPL and COD and pay you out.

Exactly when domestic mada becomes possible is covered in can a foreign company accept mada?.

Notes for Chinese sellers

• Start on a marketplace. Noon and Amazon.sa take every Saudi payment method and pay you out abroad, with no Saudi gateway needed.
• Your own site needs a local route. Domestic mada needs a Saudi entity, a local partner, or a merchant of record that sells in its own name.
• UnionPay acceptance isn't onboarding. PayTabs accepts UnionPay cards, but you still need an eligible entity to open an account.
• Price in SAR. Shoppers trust it, and Saudi BNPL requires it.

Our guide to selling in Saudi Arabia from China maps every entry route.

Why now is a good time

Saudi payments keep getting easier for sellers. In July 2025, SAMA introduced a unified technical standard for ecommerce payments, which includes linking mada with global card schemes.

Meanwhile, BNPL limits doubled to SAR 10,000 in December 2025. Local platforms are building their own payment companies too.

Every step pulls more shoppers away from cash and towards fast, prepaid checkouts. Set up the right stack now, and you'll catch that growth from day one. For the wider picture, head back to our payments hub.

Compare Saudi payment gateways

These providers were independently researched. Ask at least two for written quotes before you sign.