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Payments & Billing
Cashfree Payments
India-first, RBI-licensed payment gateway and payouts platform supporting UPI, cards, net banking, and cross-border payments.
FindThatSoftware verdictEditorial ruling
Strong India-first choice for collecting payments online. Native UPI/RuPay support, full RBI licensing including cross-border (PA-CB), and competitive INR-denominated pricing make it well-suited for Indian D2C, SaaS, and marketplace sellers. The headline promotional rate carries volume and UPI-mix eligibility conditions, so verify your effective rate against your own transaction profile before committing, and confirm cross-border/forex charges if you sell internationally.
FindThatSoftware has source-checked this listing and keeps 6 public sources visible for buyer verification.
Should you use Cashfree Payments?
Use it if indian e-commerce and D2C brands collecting payments online. Avoid it if a merchant who needs next-day cash to fund inventory should not assume the default cycle works, because instant settlement is gated behind an eligibility check.
Spec sheet
- Starting price
- Freemium
- Free plan
- Available
- Free trial
- Not listed
- Status
- Source checked 29 Jul 2026
- Source trail
- 6 public sources
Work at Cashfree Payments?
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Claim this listing →In short
Cashfree Payments is a online payment gateways and billing tools for Indian buyers. It issues an India GST invoice, so you can claim input credit. FindThatSoftware rates it best for indian e-commerce and D2C brands collecting payments online, and a poor fit if a merchant who needs next-day cash to fund inventory should not assume the default cycle works, because instant settlement is gated behind an eligibility check.
The trade-off, weighed
What you gain, and what you give up.
The case for
- Cashfree publishes the whole dispute ladder with response windows, so you know you get 3 days to respond and 1 day for fraud cases
- Refunds, batch refunds, split settlements and vendor payouts are all documented with APIs and webhooks, which shortens integration work for an in-house team
- Settlement reversal reasons are published, so you can tell an invalid IFSC apart from a bank side failure without raising a ticket
The catch
- The default settlement cycle is T+2 bank working days, not T+1. Instant settlement needs an eligibility check through a support form, not a dashboard toggle
- Settlements to NRE bank accounts are not possible, which blocks a merchant whose only current account sits under an NRE mandate
- The refund button only appears on transactions that have already settled, and the money takes 7 to 10 business days to reach the customer
- Cashfree serves its pricing page only to a full browser session and returns 403 to everything else, so rate cards are hard to compare
True India price
What actually changes for a buyer in India.
- Try first
- Has a free plan, so you can start without a card.
- Watch for
- Verified June 2026 from Cashfree's official charges page. No setup fee and no annual maintenance charge (AMC); per-transaction pricing only. Promotional domestic rate of 1.6% (vs standard 1.95%) applies to UPI, domestic cards, net banking, wallets, and prepaid cards for merchants signing up between 18 Sep 2025 and 30 Apr 2026, locked in for 12 months from signup. Promotional rate eligibility requires monthly transaction volume not exceeding 1 Crore and UPI being at least 40% of monthly GTV. International cards run about 2.69% promotional and 2.99% standard (Visa/Mastercard), 2.95% (Amex), capped at 10 Lakh per month before reverting to standard. Virtual bank accounts carry a small platform fee; forex conversion fees apply on non-INR transactions. Multiple third-party sources cite UPI/RuPay as 0%, but this figure was not confirmed verbatim on the official charges page during this check, and exact category rates may vary by merchant and time. Confirm current figures at https://www.cashfree.com/payment-gateway-charges/ before relying on them.
India readiness
How well Cashfree Payments fits an Indian business operationally, from the verified pricing and company facts we hold.
- ✓GST invoice
Issues a GST-compliant invoice, so a registered business can reclaim input tax.
- ✓Bills in INR
Priced in rupees, so there is no forex conversion or card markup on top.
- ✓India HQ
India-headquartered, so support, timezone, and context are local.
How Cashfree Payments compares
Against the 8 other payment gateway toolswe list, from what we verified on each vendor’s own pages.
Less common among the other payment gateway tools
Recorded for Cashfree Payments and for at most a third of the 8 others we list.
- Developer API
- Instant settlements
- Video KYC
- Webhook triggers
- Credit card EMI
- Dispute management
- Ecommerce plugins
- Hosted checkout
Also in most alternatives
Recorded for at least half of the 8 others, and for Cashfree Payments.
- Payment links
- Wallet payments
- UPI autopay
This compares only the capabilities enough rival tools share for a comparison to mean anything — roughly a quarter of what we verified. The full list is under “What we verified” below, and anything absent from both is something we did not record rather than something the product lacks.
Paying for more than Cashfree Payments? See your whole stack's real India cost and where you could switch to save.
Audit my stackOverview
What is Cashfree Payments?
Cashfree Payments is a Bengaluru-based, RBI-licensed payment aggregator offering payment collection (180+ payment modes including UPI, cards, net banking, wallets, BNPL, and EMI), payouts and bulk disbursals, recurring payments via UPI AutoPay and eNACH, and cross-border collections in 140+ currencies with INR settlement. It holds RBI Payment Aggregator (PA), Payment Aggregator-Cross Border (PA-CB), and Prepaid Payment Instrument (PPI) licences, and serves over a million Indian businesses including Swiggy, Nykaa, CRED, and Meesho. It also offers a Secure ID KYC/verification suite (Aadhaar, GST, video KYC).
Best for
- Indian e-commerce and D2C brands collecting payments online
- SaaS and subscription businesses needing UPI AutoPay and eNACH recurring billing
- Marketplaces and platforms needing bulk payouts and vendor disbursals
- Businesses needing cross-border collections with INR settlement (PA-CB licensed)
- Companies wanting integrated KYC/identity verification alongside payments
Who should avoid it
- A merchant who needs next-day cash to fund inventory should not assume the default cycle works, because instant settlement is gated behind an eligibility check
- A buyer who wants to compare gateway rates before talking to sales will struggle, because the published rate card is not reachable without a browser
What Cashfree Payments does
What we verified about Cashfree Payments
Read from Cashfree Payments’s own pages. Each line is a finding and what it was based on, so you can check any of it yourself.
Features we confirmed44
- Webhook triggers
- our research found refunds and settlements documented with webhooks
- Wallet payments
- PhonePe, Airtel Money, Jio Money and Amazon Pay are supported wallets
- Video KYC
- Video KYC does instant Aadhaar-based verification
- UPI payments
- UPI is the lead payment mode on the charges page
- UPI autopay
- our product notes recurring payments via UPI AutoPay and eNACH
- Tokenisation
- card tokenisation is part of the payments stack for saved cards
- Subscription billing
- subscription e-mandate is a distinct payment method in the terms
- Split settlements
- split settlements and vendor payouts are documented capabilities
- Payment links
- Payment Links is a named product free with the gateway
- Payment forms
- Payment Forms collects payments through custom forms at no extra cost
- One click checkout
- Checkout360 is a named one-click checkout product
- Net banking
- net banking with named banks appears in the payment mode list
- International card payments
- international Visa and Mastercard run at 2.99 percent platform fee
- Instant settlements
- instant settlements is offered as an upgrade over the default cycle
- Instant refunds
- instant refunds is listed among the gateway's advantages
- Hosted checkout
- platform fee explicitly covers hosted checkout among its services
- Enach mandates
- eNACH recurring collection is part of the platform
- Ecommerce plugins
- e-commerce plugins are listed among gateway advantages
- Dispute management
- the whole dispute ladder with response windows is published
- Developer API
- Payment, Secure ID and Payouts APIs each have public docs
- Credit card EMI
- credit card EMI is priced separately with ten named bank partners
- Card payments
- Visa, Mastercard, Maestro and Amex are accepted card networks
- Cardless EMI
- cardless EMI is supported through CASHe, Snapmint, ZestMoney and others
- Aadhaar verification
- Video KYC is explicitly Aadhaar-based on the product menu
- Batch refunds
- our research found batch refunds documented with APIs and webhooks
- Debit card EMI
- HDFC debit card EMI carries its own 1.50 percent platform fee
- Dev studio sandbox
- Dev Studio and a test environment let you try integration before going live
- Embedded payments
- embedded payments lets platforms offer native payments via APIs
- Fraud detection
- RiskShield prevents fraud using ML-based anomaly detection
- KYC verification
- Secure ID automates KYC onboarding and fraud monitoring
- Merchant dashboard
- an easy to use dashboard is listed among gateway advantages
- Multi currency collection
- accepts INR plus 140 or more foreign currencies
- One click onboarding
- 1-Click Onboarding is a named identity product
- Pay later bnpl
- LazyPay and Simpl pay-later instruments are separately priced
- Payment gateway
- core product collects online payments on your website or app
- Reconciliation reports
- generation of reports is named as covered by the platform fee
- Rupay support
- RuPay including UPI on credit card is a listed payment mode
- Sdks and plugins
- plugins and SDKs are named as covered by the platform fee
- Softpos
- softPOS is one of three products bundled free with the gateway
- UPI collect
- FAQ names UPI collect among supported UPI integration styles
- UPI intent
- UPI intent is listed as a supported checkout flow
- UPI qr code
- UPI QR code is one of the named UPI integration options
- UPI WhatsApp link
- FAQ lists UPI WhatsApp link as an integration option
- Virtual account collections
- virtual account IMPS, NEFT and RTGS payments carry a ₹20 platform fee
What people use it for6
- Onboard customers remotely
- Secure ID and Video KYC onboard and verify customers
- Sell internationally
- international payments collect from India or from the world
- Reduce RTO losses
- e-commerce segment pitches tools to reduce COD reliance and RTO losses
- Collect recurring subscriptions
- SaaS segment targets recurring revenue and failed renewal reduction
- Accept online payments
- UPI acceptance with multiple flows is the headline India capability
- Accept in person payments
- softPOS turns a phone into an in-store acceptance device
Works with10
- Shopify
- a dedicated Shopify payment gateway integration page exists
- Phonepe
- PhonePe appears among accepted payment apps
- Paytm
- our payouts research confirms Paytm wallet is a supported rail
- Paypal
- an existing PayPal business account can be connected free of Cashfree charges
- Juspay
- pricing page announces Cashfree is now live on Juspay
- Amazon pay
- Amazon Pay is a supported wallet payment mode
- Lazypay
- LazyPay is a named pay-later instrument on the rate card
- Simpl
- Simpl Pay is listed among cardless EMI and pay-later options
- Snapmint
- Snapmint appears in the cardless EMI partner list
- Zestmoney
- Zest Money is a named cardless EMI partner
Terms, compliance and how you buy34
- Self serve signup
- sign up for free with paperless same-day onboarding is advertised
- RBI licensed payment aggregator
- holds RBI Payment Aggregator authorisation per our research
- No setup fee
- FAQ states you pay zero setup fees with Cashfree
- No annual maintenance charge
- our verified pricing note records no AMC on standard pricing
- KYC required
- the offer requires sign-up, KYC approval and account activation
- GST extra
- GST at 18 percent is deducted from settlements on top of platform fees
- Affiliate program
- an affiliate programme pays commissions for referrals
- Amex priced higher
- American Express carries a 2.95 percent platform fee versus 1.95 domestic
- Credit card mix disqualification
- offer withdrawn if credit cards exceed 60 percent of processed GMV
- Custom pricing for high volume
- customised charges are offered for high AOV or micro-transaction businesses
- D2C oriented
- e-commerce and D2C is the first named segment with RTO and COD tooling
- Dedicated account manager for GST registered
- offer terms assign an account manager to GST-registered businesses
- Developer friendly
- developer friendly integration kits are listed among advantages
- Enterprise quote only
- the enterprise tier shows custom pricing behind contact sales
- India built
- operated by Cashfree Payments India Private Limited from Bengaluru
- INR pricing
- all rates are quoted as percentages of rupee transactions
- Instant settlement gated
- instant settlement needs an eligibility check through a support form
- Mcc exclusions
- schools, correspondence schools and transit MCCs are excluded from the offer
- No nre account settlement
- settlements to NRE bank accounts are not possible
- One offer per pan
- the offer can be availed only once per PAN or bank account
- Pa cb licensed
- holds the RBI Payment Aggregator Cross Border licence
- Paperless onboarding
- paperless and same day onboarding is listed among advantages
- Per transaction pricing only
- there is no monthly subscription, only a per-transaction platform fee
- Ppi licensed
- holds a Prepaid Payment Instrument licence from RBI
- Premium support costs amc
- priority support and 30-minute response sit behind an annual maintenance charge
- Pricing page blocks bots
- our research found the pricing page returns 403 outside a full browser session
- Promotional rate with conditions
- the festive zero-fee offer has eligibility, GMV and mix conditions
- Refund only after settlement
- the refund button appears only on already-settled transactions
- Reseller referred merchants excluded
- merchants referred through partners or resellers cannot use the offer
- Settlement t plus 2 default
- our research found the default settlement cycle is T+2 bank working days
- Slow refund turnaround
- refunds take 7 to 10 business days to reach the customer
- Used by large indian brands
- Acko, BigBasket, Swiggy, Nykaa, CRED and Meesho are cited customers
- WhatsApp support for enterprise
- enterprise pricing adds support over WhatsApp alongside other channels
- Zero fee gmv cap
- the offer waives fees only on the first ₹20 lakh of GMV
Compare Cashfree Payments
Use these pages when you already know the tool name but need a plain-English decision against real alternatives.
Similar tools to Cashfree Payments
Compare practical options in the same category by price, fit, and caveats.
Comparison pages
Razorpay vs Cashfree for an Indian businessRazorpay is the safer default for Indian businesses' online payments. Cashfree wins for marketplaces and cross-border with its payouts and PA-CB licence.Cashfree vs PayU: India Payment Gateway Comparison (2026)Cashfree's lower headline rate and payouts versus PayU's coverage and enterprise reach.
Pricing caveat and source trail
Pricing and free-plan claims can change. FindThatSoftware keeps source URLs visible so users can verify before buying.
Verified June 2026 from Cashfree's official charges page. No setup fee and no annual maintenance charge (AMC); per-transaction pricing only. Promotional domestic rate of 1.6% (vs standard 1.95%) applies to UPI, domestic cards, net banking, wallets, and prepaid cards for merchants signing up between 18 Sep 2025 and 30 Apr 2026, locked in for 12 months from signup. Promotional rate eligibility requires monthly transaction volume not exceeding 1 Crore and UPI being at least 40% of monthly GTV. International cards run about 2.69% promotional and 2.99% standard (Visa/Mastercard), 2.95% (Amex), capped at 10 Lakh per month before reverting to standard. Virtual bank accounts carry a small platform fee; forex conversion fees apply on non-INR transactions. Multiple third-party sources cite UPI/RuPay as 0%, but this figure was not confirmed verbatim on the official charges page during this check, and exact category rates may vary by merchant and time. Confirm current figures at https://www.cashfree.com/payment-gateway-charges/ before relying on them.
Cashfree payment gateway charges page (pricing, promo rate, eligibility)https://www.cashfree.com/payment-gateway-charges/Cashfree pricinghttps://www.cashfree.com/pricing/Cashfree official homepage (products, capabilities, customers)https://www.cashfree.com/Business Standard: Cashfree gets RBI PA-CB licencehttps://www.business-standard.com/companies/start-ups/cashfree-payments-gets-payment-aggregator-cross-border-licence-from-rbi-124072201242_1.htmlCashfree (official site)https://www.cashfree.com/IBS Intelligence: Cashfree obtains RBI PPI licencehttps://ibsintelligence.com/ibsi-news/cashfree-payments-obtains-rbis-prepaid-payment-instrument-licence/
Verified against the sources above. How we research & rate software →
In practice
Where Cashfree Payments fits in a workflow
These stacks show when to use this tool, what comes before it, and what should be handled manually first.
Software Stack To Solo Founder Launching A B2B SaaS On A Tight Budget
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Does Cashfree Payments give a GST invoice in India?
Cashfree Payments issues an India GST invoice, so a GST-registered business can claim input tax credit on it directly.
Is Cashfree Payments good for Indian small businesses?
Cashfree Payments is worth evaluating for Indian buyers, but the final fit depends on pricing limits, support, integrations, and setup effort.
Does Cashfree Payments have a free plan?
Cashfree Payments lists a free plan, but check the official pricing page for current usage limits before choosing it.
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