Payment Gateway Philippines: GCash, Maya and Card Fees Compared 2026
A neutral comparison of Philippine payment gateways — PayMongo, Xendit, Maya Business, GCash for Business, Dragonpay, 2C2P and Paynamics — on card, GCash, Maya and over-the-counter fees, with BSP's 2026 transfer-fee reform explained.
The Philippines is an e-wallet-first market, not a card-first one — GCash and Maya both publish direct merchant rates that undercut what a third-party gateway charges to accept the same wallet. For a domestic-only store that wants transparent, published pricing, PayMongo, HitPay or accepting GCash/Maya directly are the simplest calls — on QR Ph PayMongo's 1.34% is cheaper below about ₱1,490 and HitPay's 1% (₱20 minimum) is cheaper above it, and the two are within a peso per ₱1,000 on GCash and domestic cards before VAT. For multi-country SEA expansion on one integration, Xendit. For customers who still pay cash at a physical counter, Dragonpay's over-the-counter network is the specialist, though its onboarding and pricing now run through Xendit. For enterprise orchestration or mass payouts, 2C2P and Paynamics respectively. On settlement, BSP's Circular No. 1238 (June 2026) forced banks toward cost-based transfer pricing, and several banks have since cut or waived InstaPay and PESONet fees — a fast-moving fact worth reconfirming before you quote a customer a transfer cost.
| Gateway | Card fee | GCash / Maya / QR Ph fee | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| PayMongo | 3.125% + ₱13.39 (international 4.02% + ₱13.39), excl. VAT | GCash 2.23%; Maya 1.79%; QR Ph 1.34%, excl. VAT | PH-only SMBs wanting published, transparent rates |
| Xendit | Rate card not readable when checked (Sep 2026) — confirm on Xendit's site | Rate card not readable when checked (Sep 2026) — confirm on Xendit's site | Multi-country SEA expansion on one integration |
| Maya Business | From 3.50% in person; from 3.50% + ₱10 online | Maya QR 1.0%; QR Ph 1.0%; GCash 2% | Businesses wanting a full per-method MDR table |
| GCash for Business | 3.2% | QR Ph 1.0% | Selling directly to GCash's own large wallet base |
| Dragonpay | No rate card published | Pricing now handled through Xendit | Customers who pay cash at 7-Eleven, Cebuana or other OTC |
| 2C2P | Custom/usage-based (enterprise quote) | Custom/usage-based | Enterprise, travel and cross-border orchestration |
| Paynamics | Custom/usage-based (enterprise quote) | 50+ PH channels via its DGATE payout rail | Mass payouts and a business wallet for SMEs |
| HitPay | 3% + ₱15 online, 3% in person (international 4% + ₱15 online) | GCash 2.3% online, 2% in person; QR Ph 1% or ₱20, whichever is higher | SMEs wanting published per-method rates and no monthly fee, online and in person on one account |
The Tools in Detail
PayMongo
Finance · Paid · Free tier · Philippines · EN / TL
PayMongo is a Manila-headquartered payment gateway and merchant SaaS that lets Filipino online businesses accept GCash, Maya, GrabPay, credit cards, online banking, and OTC payments through one API and dashboard. Used by 25,000+ Philippine SMEs and Shopify merchants as the local alternative to Stripe (which has limited PH coverage).
PayMongo is the default Filipino payment gateway for online businesses, and it publishes a full per-method rate card rather than one blended MDR. Read on paymongo.com/pricing on 2026-09-14: QR Ph 1.34% both in-store and online, local Visa and Mastercard 3.125% + PHP 13.39, international cards 4.02% + PHP 13.39, GCash 2.23%, Maya 1.79%, GrabPay 1.96% and ShopeePay 1.70%, all exclusive of VAT with no setup or monthly fee. QR Ph — the Bangko Sentral-mandated national QR standard — is the cheapest method on the page, at roughly two-fifths of the local card rate. For a Manila Shopify seller, PayMongo unlocks the buyers who pay with GCash, Maya, QR Ph or OTC instead of a credit card. Stripe in the Philippines covers cards but misses the dominant local rails entirely. Xendit is the cross-border SEA alternative; PayMongo is the right pick for Philippines-domestic operations.
Best for: Filipino Shopify and WooCommerce merchants accepting GCash and Maya; Manila-based SaaS startups billing PHP customers in recurring cycles; Online sellers wanting OTC payment options for unbanked customers; Cross-border SEA D2C brands selling into the Philippines
Xendit
Payments · Paid · Free tier · ID, PH, MY, TH, VN, SG, HK · EN / ID
Xendit is a payments platform operating in Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore and Hong Kong, offering 100+ payment methods: cards, e-wallets (OVO, GoPay, GCash, Maya, ShopeePay), QRIS, QR PH, virtual accounts and more. Pricing is per transaction (a processing fee plus a payment-method or payout fee) with free sign-up; it is licensed by the Bank of Thailand, and Xendit Philippines Inc and XenRemit, Inc are regulated by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.
Xendit publishes one rate card covering Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore and Hong Kong, so a team expanding from Indonesia into the Philippines keeps one provider for QRIS, QR PH and the regional e-wallets. It is licensed by the Bank of Thailand, and its Philippine entities are regulated by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas. Sign-up is free; every fee is per transaction.
Best for: Indonesian e-commerce and SaaS; Philippines digital businesses; SEA-wide marketplaces; Subscription startups across the region
Maya Business
Finance · Paid · Free tier · Philippines · EN / FIL
Maya Business (formerly PayMaya) is the merchant payment-acceptance product of Maya, letting Philippine businesses accept cards, Maya QR, QR Ph, GCash, WeChat Pay and ShopeePay through an in-store terminal, hosted checkout, digital invoices or payment links. It publishes a full per-method MDR table rather than one blended rate, and offers Shopify and WooCommerce plugins for online sellers.
Maya Business (formerly PayMaya) is one of the two dominant Philippine e-wallet-linked payment platforms, alongside GCash for Business. It publishes a full MDR table by payment method rather than quoting a single blended rate, and its own QR Ph and Maya QR rate (1.50%) is cheaper than its GCash-acceptance rate (2.0%), which matters for a merchant deciding which QR to promote at checkout.
Best for: Philippine SMEs wanting one provider for in-store and online payments; Sellers who want published, calculable MDR before signing up; Businesses accepting multiple PH e-wallets (GCash, Maya QR, WeChat Pay, ShopeePay) alongside cards; High-volume merchants who can negotiate custom/volume pricing
GCash for Business
Finance · Paid · Free tier · Philippines · EN / FIL
GCash for Business is the merchant payment-acceptance product of GCash, the Philippines' largest e-wallet by registered users. It offers QR Ph-compatible in-store QR and Webpay for online checkout, with a published 1.0% MDR on QR Ph payments and 3.2% on card payments, settling in real time to the merchant's GCash wallet.
GCash for Business sits on top of the Philippines' largest e-wallet network — Globe Telecom disclosed roughly 94 million registered GCash users and 6 million merchants in its FY2024 results — and a 2025 survey of sari-sari store owners by Packworks found 85% already accept GCash for business versus 15% for Maya, though no single authoritative source publishes an overall e-wallet market-share split between the two. Its own published MDR (1.0% for QR Ph, 3.2% for cards) is lower on the QR side than Maya Business's GCash-acceptance rate (2.0%), since here GCash is the wallet operator rather than a third party.
Best for: Philippine merchants who want to accept payments directly from GCash's large user base; Sari-sari stores and micro-merchants (majority already use GCash per industry surveys); Sellers wanting same-day wallet settlement; Businesses standardizing on QR Ph acceptance
Dragonpay
Finance · Paid · Free tier · Philippines · EN / FIL
Dragonpay, now operating as a Xendit company and a BSP-regulated Payment System Operator, is a Philippine payment aggregator unifying bank transfers, e-wallets (GCash, Maya, ShopeePay, GrabPay) and over-the-counter payments across more than 85 channels and 35,000+ branches (7-Eleven, Cebuana, M Lhuillier) behind one API. It no longer publishes rates of its own — its pricing page routes merchants to Xendit.
Dragonpay, now operating as a Xendit company and a BSP-regulated Payment System Operator, is best known in the Philippines for its over-the-counter reach — more than 85 payment channels and 35,000+ branches including 7-Eleven, Cebuana and M Lhuillier — which matters for the share of Filipino shoppers who still pay cash-in at a physical counter rather than by card or e-wallet. As of 2026-09-14 Dragonpay's own pricing page no longer lists any rates: it states that all merchant applications, onboarding, pricing details and integration services are now managed through Xendit, and links out. The itemized per-channel rates we previously recorded are no longer on the vendor's site and should not be quoted.
Best for: Merchants needing the widest OTC coverage in the Philippines (85+ channels, 35,000+ branches); Foreign or cross-border sellers without a Philippine entity; Digital goods, education, insurance or donation businesses (Dragonpay publishes industry-specific blended rates); Businesses that need one API for banks + wallets + OTC instead of several
2C2P
saas-tools · Paid · SG, TH, MY, ID, PH, VN · EN
2C2P is a Singapore-headquartered payments platform, part of Antom, offering over 400 payment options across six Southeast Asian markets (Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam) with offices in Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Manila, Jakarta, Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. It holds a Major Payment Institution licence from the Monetary Authority of Singapore and names Thai Airways, Malaysia Airlines, Cebu Pacific, Bangkok Airways, Nok Air and Thai Lion Air as airline customers.
2C2P operates in six Southeast Asian markets with local offices in each and covers the national QR rails (PromptPay, DuitNow, QRIS, VNPAY) plus the regional wallets under one contract. Its airline customer list is Thai-heavy (Thai Airways, Bangkok Airways, Nok Air, Thai Lion Air), and PromptPay is interoperable for cross-border payments with Malaysia, Singapore, Cambodia and Vietnam per its Thailand page.
Best for: Airlines and travel companies processing payments across multiple SEA markets; Large retail chains needing unified payment acceptance across Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia; Subscription businesses managing recurring billing with local payment methods; Marketplaces requiring split payment and multi-merchant settlement
Paynamics
saas-tools · Paid · SEA only · en / tl
Paynamics is one of the Philippines' most established payment gateways, processing card payments, e-wallets (GCash, Maya, ShopeePay), online banking, over-the-counter, and installment transactions through a single API. It also offers mass payout, business wallet, and Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) capabilities for platforms that need to disburse funds to sellers, freelancers, or agents. Regulated by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), it's a trusted choice for enterprise and mid-market merchants.
In the Philippines, GCash and Maya together account for the majority of digital payment volume, and Paynamics gives merchants one integration point to accept both alongside cards and OTC—crucial for reaching Filipino consumers who may not have credit cards but always have their e-wallets loaded. For companies entering the Philippine market, Paynamics is a well-regulated technical option with BSP oversight and a straightforward API.
Best for: Philippine e-commerce merchants needing GCash and Maya acceptance out of the box; Marketplace platforms disbursing payouts to multiple sellers or agents; Enterprise companies processing high-volume transactions in PHP; Fintech startups building embedded payment products on a BaaS foundation
HitPay
Finance · Paid · Free tier · Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines · EN / ZH / MS / ID
HitPay is a Singapore-headquartered payment platform designed specifically for SMEs and micro-merchants in Southeast Asia. It provides a comprehensive suite of payment tools, including a payment gateway for e-commerce, physical POS terminals, and a link-based payment system, supporting local payment methods like PayNow, GrabPay, and DuitNow.
HitPay is a payment provider for SEA SMEs, but its merchant footprint is narrower than its payment-method list suggests: its pricing page offers Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines and Global as merchant countries, and QRIS is not priced anywhere on it. Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam appear only under Cross-Border Payments, where an Indonesian, Thai or Vietnamese customer pays a Singapore, Malaysian or Philippine merchant in their own local method (IDR 2% online / 1.5% in-person for Indonesia, THB 3.4% online for Thailand) with a 1% FX markup at settlement. Read the QRIS, PromptPay, VietQR and QRPH support below as customer-side acceptance, not as domestic acquiring in those markets. Its domestic Singapore rates, read on 2026-09-14: PayNow 0.65% + SGD 0.30 on transactions of SGD 100 and above and 0.9% with a SGD 0.20 minimum below that, domestic cards 2.8% + SGD 0.50, international cards 3.65% + SGD 0.50 with a 2% foreign-currency fee, WeChat Pay 1.5%, Shopback 3.9% + SGD 0.20, ShopeePay Later 5%, Atome 5.5%, no setup or monthly fee. PayNow is the cheapest method on the page, at under a quarter of the domestic card rate.
Best for: SMEs and micro-merchants in Singapore and Malaysia; E-commerce sellers needing a simple payment integration; Service-based businesses using payment links; Retailers looking for an affordable omnichannel solution
SEA Operational Reasoning
Card-first playbooks from other markets don't transfer well to the Philippines, where GCash and Maya are the primary consumer payment habit. That changes the real decision: a merchant can accept wallets on a wallet operator's own published rates (Maya Business starts at 1.0% for Maya QR and QR Ph and 2% for GCash), or go through an aggregator like PayMongo, HitPay or Xendit that bundles both wallets plus cards and other rails behind one API. PayMongo (GCash 2.23%, Maya 1.79%, QR Ph 1.34%, excluding VAT) and HitPay (GCash 2.3% online and 2% in person, QR Ph 1% or ₱20) both publish per-method rates up front, which suits a domestic-only store that wants to calculate cost before signing up. HitPay also prices in-person acceptance on the same account, and publishes its BSP registration as an Operator of Payment Systems (OPSCOR-2023-0006). Xendit's Philippine rate card could not be read when this page was checked, so price it from Xendit's own site; it covers Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam too, which matters if this integration needs to follow you regionally. Dragonpay's edge is entirely about reach into cash-paying customers — 85-plus channels and 35,000-plus branches including 7-Eleven and Cebuana — a segment the wallet-first and card-first gateways don't cover as deeply. Its pricing page no longer carries rates; applications and pricing now go through Xendit. 2C2P and Paynamics sit at the enterprise end: full payment orchestration and mass payout/business-wallet tooling respectively, priced per merchant rather than published.
Related Expert Guides
- ↗PayMongo's Standard rate card lists cards at 3.125% + ₱13.39, international cards at 4.02% + ₱13.39, GCash 2.23%, Maya 1.79% and QR Ph 1.34% (in-store and online), states all prices are exclusive of VAT, lists a free setup fee and no monthly fees, and offers a Custom package for businesses with large payments volumeverified 2026-09-17
- ↗HitPay's Philippine rate card lists online payments at cards 3% + ₱15, international cards 4% + ₱15, GCash 2.3% and QR Ph 1% or ₱20 whichever is higher; in-person payments at domestic cards 3%, international cards 4%, QR Ph 1% or ₱20 and GCash 2%; no setup fees and no monthly fees. The page states no VAT treatment either wayverified 2026-09-17
- ↗HitPay's GCash page states online GCash is 2.3% and in-person GCash is 2% with no monthly fee, and that HitPay Payment Solutions Inc. is a registered Operator of Payment Systems under the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, registration OPSCOR-2023-0006verified 2026-09-17
- ↗Maya Business pricing lists rates 'starting at' 3.50% MDR for Visa/Mastercard, Bancnet and JCB/Amex on Maya Terminal (3.50% MDR + ₱10 per transaction on Checkout and Digital Invoice), Maya QR 1.0%, QR Ph 1.0%, GCash 2%, WeChat Pay 1.75% and ShopeePay 1.85%verified 2026-09-17
- ↗Dragonpay's pricing page carries no rate table; it states that all merchant applications, onboarding, pricing details and integration services are now managed through Xendit, and its footer names Dragonpay Corporation as a Xendit companyverified 2026-09-17
"Verified" means read on the vendor's own published pages on the date shown. We do not run hands-on tests, and a statement a vendor confirmed to us directly is labelled as vendor-confirmed. Software-listing.com is independent and may earn affiliate commissions from some links.
The questions operators actually ask.
Is GCash or Maya bigger in the Philippines?
By registered users, GCash is the larger network — Globe Telecom has disclosed roughly 94 million registered GCash users versus Maya's reported 50 million-plus. A 2025 sari-sari-store survey found 85% of store owners use GCash for business versus 15% for Maya, but no single authoritative source publishes an overall e-wallet market-share percentage across the whole Philippine market, so treat these as directional data points rather than a definitive split.
What is the difference between InstaPay and PESONet?
Both are BSP-regulated interbank transfer rails, but InstaPay settles in real time, 24/7, with a typical per-transaction cap around ₱50,000, while PESONet is a batch system with three daily settlement windows (10am, 1pm and 4pm) and no scheme-wide transfer cap. BSP Circular No. 1238, signed June 2026, requires transfer fees to be reasonable and cost-based rather than a flat markup, and several banks have since cut or waived fees on both rails — confirm current terms with your bank, since this is still settling in as of mid-2026.
Which Philippine gateway has the most transparent pricing?
PayMongo, HitPay and Maya Business publish exact rates by payment method on their own pricing pages, and GCash for Business did when last verified in July 2026. 2C2P and Paynamics use custom, quote-based pricing negotiated per merchant. Xendit's Philippine rate card could not be read when this page was checked in September 2026. Dragonpay's pricing page no longer lists fees and routes pricing to Xendit.