What do payment gateways charge in India?

Published rates are starting points and are negotiable above modest volume, with variation by payment method: UPI, cards and international transactions are priced differently. Confirm current terms directly rather than relying on any published comparison, including this one.

Can I use more than one gateway?

Yes, and above meaningful volume it is worth doing. A fallback gateway protects you when the primary has an outage, which does happen. On WooCommerce this is straightforward to configure; on hosted platforms it may need an app.

Which is better for subscriptions?

Razorpay, in most implementations we have built. Its recurring payment and mandate handling is more mature and the failure paths (retries, expired mandates) are better documented, which matters more than the initial setup.

Does the gateway affect my conversion rate?

Yes, through checkout experience and transaction success rate. A gateway that fails more transactions on your traffic costs real revenue, and most merchants never measure it. Compare success rates, not just fees.

Razorpay vs PayU for Indian Businesses

The short answer

For most WooCommerce and Shopify stores, Razorpay is the easier choice, better documentation, a cleaner dashboard, and recurring payments that work without a fight. PayU is competitive on pricing at volume and worth negotiating if your monthly processing is substantial. But the rate you negotiate matters less than the two things nobody compares: success rate on your actual traffic, and how quickly support responds when settlements stop.

What is the difference between Razorpay and PayU?

Both are Indian payment gateways handling cards, UPI, net banking and wallets, charging a percentage per transaction with settlement to your bank account on a defined cycle. Razorpay is generally regarded as the more developer-friendly of the two, with stronger documentation and dashboard tooling. PayU is longer established and often competitive on rates at higher volumes. The functional overlap is large; the differences are in integration quality, support and edge-case handling.

Gateway comparisons online are dominated by rate tables that go out of date within months, because published rates are starting points and anything above modest volume is negotiated. Treat any specific percentage you read, including anywhere here, as indicative and confirm current terms directly.

What does not change month to month is the thing that actually costs you money: transaction success rate. A gateway that fails two per cent more transactions on your traffic mix costs you far more than a rate difference, and it is invisible unless you look for it. Test both on real traffic before committing if the volume justifies it.

Side by side

Where each one wins

The considerations that actually change the decision, rather than a feature list.

Consideration	Razorpay	PayU
Integration quality	Strong. Clear documentation, well-maintained plugins	Adequate. Documentation is thinner in places
WooCommerce and Shopify plugins	Officially maintained, reliable	Available and functional, updated less frequently
Dashboard	Modern, good reporting and reconciliation tooling	Functional, less refined
Recurring payments	Mature. eMandate and subscription handling works well	Supported, historically more setup friction
Pricing	Standard rates, negotiable at volume	Standard rates, often competitive at higher volume
Settlement cycle	Standard cycle, faster settlement available at a cost	Standard cycle, similar options
Onboarding	Generally quick, though documentation checks apply	Comparable, sometimes slower for newer businesses
Support responsiveness	Reasonable, better at higher tiers	Variable by account size
Payment methods	Cards, UPI, net banking, wallets, EMI, international	Broadly equivalent coverage
Best suited to	D2C stores, subscriptions, developer-led setups	Higher-volume merchants negotiating on rate

Deciding

Which one is yours

Razorpay

Choose Razorpay when

You are on WooCommerce or Shopify and want an integration that works without custom development
You need recurring payments or subscriptions, where its tooling is more mature
Your team values dashboard quality and reconciliation reporting
You are early stage and want faster, simpler onboarding
You want good webhook reliability, which matters more than most merchants realise

PayU

Choose PayU when

Your processing volume is high enough that a negotiated rate difference is material
You have an existing relationship or account manager who responds well
Your platform already has a stable PayU integration you would rather not replace
You have tested both and PayU shows a better success rate on your traffic mix
You need specific payment methods or arrangements it supports better for your category

What actually matters more than the rate

Three things, in order. Transaction success rate on your real traffic: a two per cent difference dwarfs any rate negotiation, and it varies by customer mix and payment method. Webhook reliability, because a gateway that occasionally fails to notify your store means orders that were paid for and never recorded, which is a support nightmare and a genuine revenue leak. And support response time when settlement stops, which will happen at some point and is when the relationship is actually tested. Running two gateways with automatic fallback is worth considering above meaningful volume; it costs little and removes a single point of failure on the one system you cannot afford to have down.

Our take

What we would actually do

Razorpay for most stores, particularly on WooCommerce or Shopify and particularly if subscriptions are involved. PayU is worth a serious look at higher volume where a negotiated rate genuinely moves the number. The condition that overrides both: whichever you choose, verify webhook handling properly during setup, because silent webhook failures produce paid orders your store never records, and merchants usually discover this weeks later through customer complaints rather than monitoring.

Talk it through with us More comparisons

FAQ

Questions that follow this one

Published rates are starting points and are negotiable above modest volume, with variation by payment method: UPI, cards and international transactions are priced differently. Confirm current terms directly rather than relying on any published comparison, including this one.
Yes, and above meaningful volume it is worth doing. A fallback gateway protects you when the primary has an outage, which does happen. On WooCommerce this is straightforward to configure; on hosted platforms it may need an app.
Razorpay, in most implementations we have built. Its recurring payment and mandate handling is more mature and the failure paths (retries, expired mandates) are better documented, which matters more than the initial setup.
Yes, through checkout experience and transaction success rate. A gateway that fails more transactions on your traffic costs real revenue, and most merchants never measure it. Compare success rates, not just fees.

If you want help

The services behind this decision

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