South African Payment Gateway integrations
under review
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Onno Vrijburg
Hi, I have a few customers in South Africa and right now there is no way for them to actually accept payments through GHL as Stripe is not available in South Africa and as far as I could see PayPal does not allow linking to a South African Bank Account. Your new (planned) integration with Authorize.net is also not an option as it's also not available in South Africa. Could you please consider adding one of the payment gateways in this article ( https://sashares.co.za/payment-gateways/#gs.hl6esj ) so my customers can take payments through GHL.
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Debbie Hartmann
Why isn't Paystack available on the starter package? Do I have to upgrade to get this app installed?
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Nicola Savage
Debbie Hartmann I agree with this. how are we supposed to grow in developing markets if can can't get simple local online payment gateways? Did you find a solution or an answer?
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Debbie Hartmann
Nicola Savage I am forced to use Paypal but not happy with it. Many issues with them because my company is not registered in USA. And GHL is not willing to put Paystack on the lower package. Really making it difficult for us.
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Kevin Pohl
Debbie Hartmann GHL has a restriction on some marketplace Apps. Apps that are Agency level apps (Which mean they can be installed by agency owners in bulk across their subaccounts), are not yet available to their users on the Starter Plan, only from the $297 plan and up.
We're working on creating a solution for Starter Plan users so that they can install our Payfast or Paystack integration apps.
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Mark Alfred Mack
Please include Paystack. Pan-African payment gateway. Some of the ones in the list is quite expensive for South African businesses.
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Kevin Pohl
Mark Alfred Mack Paystack is live on the App Marketplace Mark. We released an integration a few weeks ago already. Just go to your Agency account, App Marketplace, and find it under All Apps, or Payment Provider...
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Mark Alfred Mack
Kevin Pohl thanks for your message. Found it. I am unable to install it. This is free until October but now I am requested to upgrade. Please help as I want to install it today. Thanks Mark
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Kevin Pohl
Mark Alfred Mack Why are you unable to install it? Are you on the $97 p/m plan? If so, that's a HighLevel restriction... nothing we can do.
Our "Free till October" clause is based on when we expected the GHL team to roll out SaaS Mode and Rebilling... which was supposed to be today. But that didn't happen, so for the time being the apps remain free. When we are able to enable SaaS Mode on them we will resume billing for our apps.
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Mark Alfred Mack
Kevin Pohl thanks. Sorted.
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Anel Korsten
Kevin Pohl What do "Free till October" and SaaS Mode and Rebilling mean? And also, on which plans of GHL is it available? On all plans or only on the unlimited and agency plans?
Sorry for the 20 questions.
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Kevin Pohl
Anel Korsten Hey there! We had our October timeline because the GHL team promised us a Feature by end of September that would enable agencies to use these custom payment apps (Paystack and Payfast) to run the agency billing just like Stripe does now. At that point we wanted to start charging for the apps. But the feature never shipped.
They call that SaaS Mode inside HighLevel, you essentially get a pricing configurator and when people buy your product via a funnel using one of those SaaS Configured pricing plans then it would automatically create the subaccount for the customer, invoice them, send receipts, setup their user profile... all that stuff. That's SaaS Mode.
Rebilling means you would be allowed to charge a Custom Markup on certain fees inside HighLevel... so your customers pay you, you take your markup cut, and you pay HighLevel their cost. Usually for things like Phone lines, Calls, SMS, Email, WhatsApp, AI credits, and all the other apps and charges HighLevel has that is usage based.
Right now, Full SaaS Mode & Rebilling is only available by using Stripe, and only on the $497 p/m package. On the $297 p/m package you only have some rebilling options...but it is a fixed rate of 5% markup, you cannot change it.
Currently the Paystack and Payfast Apps are only available on the 297 and 497 plan because HighLevel does not allow agency apps on the $97 p/m plan.
In short... because these SaaS mode features didn't get shipped end of September as we were told, our Apps remain free for now. BUT, Shaun said they will be shipping SaaS Mode next week at LevelUp Day. So we see if it happens or not.
Our planned pricing is $9 p/m, per subaccount you install it into.
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Kevin Pohl
Quick update for all our South African friends... Payfast is now also available on the App Marketplace, free to use for the next few months. GHL has promised us SaaS mode and rebilling by end of this quarter on these apps, so it's not going to be long now till your agencies can go to the Next Level! Go get Payfast installed, or Paystack (We have both now) and get going.
We've started work on Peach Payments next.
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Anel Korsten
Kevin Pohl Do agency owners pay additional transaction fees if they release this to sub account owners? Meaning will PayFast be charging agency owners as well for the transactions that goes through sub accounts?
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Kevin Pohl
Anel Korsten No because the agency will not be the Merchant. To use a gateway, you as a business, meaning your customers if the case, have to open an account with the Gateway, and Verify the account with that Gateway as a real business.
As an Agency, you should never touch or have access to their accounts with the Gateway as that is financial data and private to them.
Only the business who has the account with the Gateway will get charged for transactions they make.
The Only way you as an Agency would be charged is if you yourself use it as a Gateway in a sub-account with your own verified Payfast account and run transactions through it.
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Nicola Savage
Kevin Pohl please can you let us know if you can make these available to the $97 version. My agency is really going to struggle to grow without a payment gateway that works in South Africa. Stripe only works for subsidiaries of foreign companies. I have a new client but getting them on highlevel is dependent on the online payment solutuion. Thanks
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Kevin Pohl
Nicola Savage We're working on a solution Nicola. It has been a restriction by the GHL team that agency level apps are not available to Starter Plan users. We've petitioned on everyone's behalf but independently we're working on a solution to perhaps allow Starter Plan users to install our Apps privately. I'll have more updates about this in the coming days.
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Nicola Savage
Kevin Pohl that would be amazing Kevin. I can string the client's decision out until 6th December latest. it's really frustrating, everything else is perfect but if you can't take payments you actually can't grow
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Kevin Pohl
Nicola Savage We're not gonna solve your problem within 10 days unfortunately. I'm also looking at your other messages and it seems you are hoping this will replace the need for Stripe entirely.
You should know, that if you were hoping to use one of our integration apps, it does not have SaaS mode support in GHL at the moment. That is something the GHL team still has to provide. (January is looking positive for this...no promises though.)
Right now, Paystack and Payfast is suited to let your customers take payments inside their sub-accounts.
You as an Agency would have to connect it at a sub-account level for yourself, and run your billing by sending out Invoices or payment links to let your customers pay you.
If you Think this is stopping you from signing up a client...keep in mind that many of us here in South Africa have been on GHL for years, without Stripe, and literally just manually billing people. (Some local agencies have over 1600 users doing it this way and still do.)
There's Nothing stopping you from doing that...especially if you are starting out on the Starter Plan...just start. Get the clients signed up, collect money in literally any way you want. Charge them a bit more to account for usage credits, etc.
Once SaaS mode and rebilling is available to our integrated apps, then you can run a fully automated billing system.
If however you are saying you cannot close your first client because They want an integrated payment solution... I suggest you use the GHL Black Friday promos and see if there's an upgrade path for you to at least the 297 level... That should give you 3 months to close some more deals and offset the upgrade costs when they kick in.
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Kevin Pohl
Now that Paystack has been live for a while it was time we dropped the next payment gateway. Our Payfast App has been submitted for approval on the App Marketplace a few days ago. Within DAYS, you'll have your choice between Payfast and Paystack, the two biggest players in this space in South Africa.
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Kevin Pohl
🚨 Big News for Our South African Friends! 🚨
We’re thrilled to announce that our Paystack app is now officially FREE for the next 60 days! 🎉
We heard your feedback about the installation challenges due to the Stripe connection requirement at the agency level, and we’ve taken action.
Starting today, EVERY South African Agency, and agencies from Nigeria, Ghana, and Kenya can install and use our Paystack app at no cost, and without needing Stripe connected first.
When the GHL team releases SaaS mode for the custom payments apps, Stripe will no longer be required, at which point we will resume charging for our app. But until then, we wanted every South African Agency owner (and others) to get going today!
Go to the App Marketplace, look for the Paystack App, and get stacking!
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Nathan Visser
Kevin Pohl Hi, I've tried following this guide but with no luck. You can see the attached image that "Paystack" doesn't appear inside App Marketplace. Please assist.
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Kevin Pohl
Nathan Visser Hi there Nathan, the Search bar in there is notoriously buggy with surfacing the right app. Use the Categories and look for Third Party Providers. You can also click on All Apps. If you still don't see it, it is often a Browser Cache issue... just hard refresh your browser, or get rid of all cookies and try again. It's there, without a doubt :)
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Nathan Visser
Kevin Pohl I do apologize. However, I had to go to "Agency View" in order to find it. I couldn't access it through the sub-account. Thanks though
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Elmarie Van Staden
Kevin PohlHi Kevin. This is such great news and a much anticipated change. OBVS I immediately downloaded and started integrating - thing is, it's only available on sub acc level, is there a way to integrate with our agency acc as well so we can re-bill clients etc?
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Kevin Pohl
Elmarie Van Staden Hi there... GHL has only made subaccount payments available at this time, BUT they are working on SaaS Mode and Re-billing for these custom payment apps, which they have announced publicly. GHL has the timeline as before end of this quarter...so that's just a month away. We are in constant contact with their team and are working closely with them to make sure whatever they make available we support. We also just released Payfast this morning.
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Kevin Pohl
Happy to announce, our Paystack Integration is now live on the HighLevel App Marketplace!
Go To All Apps, or Third Party Providers, Install to a subaccount, in that subaccount under Payments > Integrations, connect Paystack and remember to set it as Default Payment Method.
We're so happy about this progress, and thankful for the HighLevel team who made this API available and helped us get Paystack ready and out there for all South Africans and those abroad.
HighLevel payments is now OPEN for business in Africa. 🎉
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Rijn x Create Hartman
Kevin Pohl works great so far!
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Kevin Pohl
Rijn x Create Hartman Thanks so much for the feedback Rijn and very happy you're enjoying it.
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Johan Lottering
Oh, this is excellent news. I've been begging for a South African payment gateway integration since the early days of GHL. Please get it up and running ASAP.
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Kevin Pohl
Johan Lottering It's days away. Just waiting for the HL team to approve the app on the app marketplace.
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Mark Alfred Mack
Kevin Pohl Due to Paystack payment gateway not being available on GHL I have decided not to use GHL in South Africa. No use using an app that has barriers / constraints in generating income in South Africa. Will not be joining GHL until this issue is sorted. Regards Mark
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Kevin Pohl
Mark Alfred Mack I'm just an agency owner myself (not on the HL team) who is making an effort to create the integrations we all need. Hasn't stopped me or a whole bunch of others from doing business here though.
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Kevin Pohl
Mark Alfred Mack Paystack is live on the App Marketplace NOW. Have fun!
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Kevin Pohl
Johan Lottering Paystack is out now! Enjoy!
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Johan Lottering
Kevin Pohl, I cannot get it installed as it needs a card for the sub account, Unless I miss something I cannot add card details in the sub account before I connect to stripe.
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Kevin Pohl
Johan Lottering Hey Johan, yeah it's a restriction on GHL's part on how they can handle payments in-app for Marketplace Apps at the moment. We have a sitdown with the payments team on Monday, they will provide a solution to get around this restriction.
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Kevin Pohl
Mark Alfred Mack Paystack is available on the App marketplace now, Free to install and you don't need a Stripe connection to install it. SaaS Mode is coming soon.
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Kevin Pohl
Johan Lottering We just made it free to install, you no longer need Stripe for the time being... Install it and start using it for free today.
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Elmarie Van Staden
Any feedback/update on this?
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Kevin Pohl
Elmarie Van Staden Our Paystack App is now available and free to use for everyone. Go to the App marketplace and install it for free today. No Stripe connection is required to get going.
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Rijn x Create Hartman
They're really slow on getting this done
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Kevin Pohl
Rijn x Create Hartman Not long now.... :)
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Rochelle Annette Muller
Kevin Pohl Any progress? its now 30 days later. Hopefully you guys have managed to get this so it can go live. We are battling on Agency level in South Africa.
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Kevin Pohl
Rochelle Annette Muller Our Paystack App went through Beta last week through flying colours. We've submitted to the HighLevel App Store for approval... you are days away from being able to accept Payments locally. It's in the HighLevel Teams' hands now to get it approved for the app store.
This new custom payments API only supports sub-account payments though, Shaun mentioned SaaS support will come soon. What exactly are you struggling with at the Agency level?
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Rochelle Annette Muller
Kevin Pohl Thank you for all that you are doing for us in SA! cannot wait for it to be released, will be sooo sooo glad.
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Rochelle Annette Muller
Kevin Pohl WRT struggling on Agency level with integrating other payment methods, it only has stripe to integrate. Ive loaded PayPal now under integrations
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Kevin Pohl
Rochelle Annette Muller There are agency owners in Pretoria and Joburg who have over 1000 users on their platforms. Don't struggle too much :) there are solutions, even if not the smoothest. That said, we're enabling every agency owner in South Africa. Subaccounts will finally now be able to do commerce, we're just days away from that reality, and as soon as SaaS mode is made available on this API our team will be on it.
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E P
Kevin Pohl thank you for all you do. Looking forward to having functions active
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Kevin Pohl
E P Incredibly welcome!
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Lara Sklaar
Any news? What about paystack? They advertize stripe integration??
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Rijn x Create Hartman
Lara Sklaar GHL is useless in helping with the payment gateway.. I'm also in SA, trying to use paypal but it's not loading on the invoices
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Kevin Pohl
Lara Sklaar our team is working on custom Paystack and Payfast integrations and will have them done soon.
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Chomba Chuma (isl)
Kevin Pohl That's great to hear. I was also thinking of getting it done, but will wait to see what comes out of this.
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Rochelle Annette Muller
Chomba Chuma (isl) have you heard anything from Kevin Pohl ?
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Chomba Chuma (isl)
Rochelle Annette Muller - Not yet... but by the current updates, he seems to be getting somewhere. I've shelved my plans to make one while we wait for his solution.
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Kevin Pohl
Lara Sklaar Our paystack App is available on the App Marketplace now, for Free for a limited time. You don't need a Stripe connection to get going. SaaS Mode is coming in near future.
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