WooCommerce Payfast Gateway

77 Quality Score

Active Installs

20/30

With 30,000 active installs and strong regional demand, the plugin shows solid adoption for a country-specific gateway, though it cannot match global processors in raw numbers.

Update Freshness

25/25

An update on 2026-06-29 and full marks here indicate the developer is actively keeping pace with WordPress 6.8 and PHP 7.4 requirements.

User Rating

9/15

A 60 out of 100 from only 7 ratings is a thin dataset, so the score is more directional than definitive; it suggests acceptable but not glowing user sentiment.

Support Health

8/15

Only 1 support thread exists, and while it is resolved, the low volume means there is very little public track record to lean on for confidence.

WP Compatibility

15/15

Perfect compatibility marks reflect up-to-date testing against current WordPress, WooCommerce, and PHP standards.

Scores higher than 52% of indexed plugins

About

Give customers more flexibility and increase your bottom line with Payfast — one of South Africa’s most popular payment gateways.

Active Installs 30k+

Rating ★★★ 3/5

Last Updated 2026-08-31 11:43am GMT

Requires WordPress 6.9+

Tested Up To 7.1

Requires PHP 7.4+

✓ No known vulnerabilities

What It Does

The WooCommerce Payfast Gateway plugin connects your WooCommerce store to Payfast, a leading South African payment processor that handles credit card, instant EFT, and mobile payments. It adds a Payfast payment option at checkout and routes transactions through Payfast's secure hosted environment. Setup involves entering your Payfast merchant ID and key, then enabling the gateway in your WooCommerce payment settings.

Who It's For

This plugin is built for South African WooCommerce merchants who need a locally trusted payment processor with support for ZAR transactions and South African bank methods. It suits small to mid-sized online retailers, digital product sellers, and subscription businesses serving customers in South Africa. If you already have a Payfast merchant account or want one, this is the standard integration path.

Who Should Skip It

If your store operates outside South Africa or your customers prefer international processors like Stripe or PayPal, you have no reason to install this gateway. Stores that need advanced subscription billing features or recurring tokenized payments beyond Payfast's native capabilities should also evaluate alternatives first.

The Bottom Line

The WooCommerce Payfast Gateway is a focused, well-maintained integration for South African merchants who want to accept payments via Payfast. With 30,000 installs and a quality score of 76.55 out of 100, it is a competent but narrowly scoped option that gets the job done for local stores. Anyone outside the South African market should look at Stripe-based gateways instead.

Pick Stripe instead if you sell internationally, need subscriptions with strong recurring billing, or operate outside South Africa.

Payment Plugins for Stripe WooCommerce 88/100

Choose this Stripe variant when you want a more modern checkout experience with Apple Pay, Google Pay, and detailed subscription controls.

Germanized for WooCommerce 91/100

Pick Germanized if your store targets German-speaking markets and you need localized invoicing, shipping, and legal compliance features.

PDF Invoices & Packing Slips for WooCommerce 90/100

Choose this when your priority is generating professional invoices and packing slips rather than adding a payment gateway.

Customer Reviews for WooCommerce 89/100

Pick this if you want to build social proof on product pages, which is unrelated to payment processing but useful for conversion.