Cashfree Payment Gateway Charges in India: Pricing Explained

Cashfree payment gateway charges are almost all per transaction. There is no setup fee, UPI is free for most merchants, domestic cards and net banking cost about 2%, international cards cost more, and 18% GST is added to every fee.

Cashfree is a domestic payment aggregator, so its published rates are built for collecting rupee payments from Indian customers, and that is where the fee card is clear and competitive.

The part that usually decides your real cost, if you also sell abroad, is the international leg: Cashfree publishes its international card rate, but prices Global Collections, its bank-transfer product for overseas receipts, on request.

This guide breaks down every charge, adds the GST that turns a headline rate into your effective cost, and shows where a domestic gateway ends and a cross-border layer begins.

The table below lists Cashfree's standard published charges as of September 2026. Add 18% GST to every fee to get the amount that actually leaves your account.

For a like-for-like view against Razorpay, PayU, Paytm and others, the payment gateway charges comparison covers all the major domestic providers in one table.

Cashfree prices each payment method separately, so your blended cost depends on how your customers pay.

• UPI is effectively free. Cashfree charges UPI as per applicable law, and the government's zero merchant discount rate on UPI means most merchants pay 0%. If most of your customers pay by UPI, your effective cost stays very low.
• Cards, net banking and wallets sit near 2%. Domestic Visa, Mastercard, RuPay and Maestro cards, net banking and wallets such as PhonePe, Amazon Pay and JioMoney are listed at 1.95% to 2.0%. This is the standard band across Indian aggregators.
• American Express and Diners Club are in the same group. Cashfree lists domestic American Express and Diners Club alongside other cards at 1.95% to 2.0%, but they are excluded from the 0% new-merchant offer, so you pay the platform fee on them from the first transaction.
• EMI and Pay Later carry their own rates. Credit-card EMI runs at 2.2%, debit-card EMI at 1.5%, and Pay Later options range from 2.20% to 2.50%, reflecting the lending cost built into those methods.

These are list rates. High-volume merchants and enterprises can request custom pricing from Cashfree's sales team, which usually lowers the card rate.

Cashfree charges no setup fee and no annual maintenance charge on its standard plan, so there is no fixed cost to keep the account open. You pay only when you transact.

Cashfree's optional premium services, such as a dedicated account manager, come with an annual maintenance charge.

On top of that, Cashfree is running a festive 0% platform fee for new merchants: it waives the platform fee on payment gateway transactions up to a cumulative ₹20,00,000 of gross merchandise value, valid through 31 March 2027. The offer excludes American Express and Diners Club cards, corporate credit cards, EMI, prepaid cards, Pay Later, subscriptions (e-mandates) and international payment gateway transactions, and GST at 18% is still charged.

This is a dated offer, so confirm it is still live and check the current terms before you plan around it.

If you disburse money, for example refunds, vendor payments or marketplace settlements, Cashfree charges per payout: about ₹3 to ₹15 per transfer depending on the rail and amount.

Collecting money into a virtual account through IMPS, NEFT or RTGS costs a flat ₹20 per credit.

Settlement on the standard plan lands the next business day (T+1). Cashfree also sells faster, on-demand settlement as a separate product, which is worth checking if cash-flow timing matters to you.

Every Cashfree fee attracts 18% GST, and that is the number too many merchants forget when they compare gateways.

Getting to your real cost is two multiplications, done in order: first the fee on the sale, then the GST on that fee.

The formula is:

• Fee = Sale value × fee rate
• GST = Fee × 18%
• Total deducted = Fee + GST
• You receive = Sale value − Total deducted

So a "2%" card rate is not 2%. It is 2% × 1.18 = 2.36% of the transaction once GST is added.

Step-by-step on a ₹1,00,000 card sale

Here is how each line is worked out:

The same two steps across sale sizes and methods

Only the rate changes with the payment method. The two steps stay the same:

If you are GST-registered, you can generally claim input tax credit on the GST portion, so the net cost falls back toward the base rate.

The GST on international transactions guide explains how this works when the payment comes from abroad, where the treatment differs.

Cashfree holds RBI Payment Aggregator - Cross Border (PA-CB) authorisation, so it is licensed to process international payments. What differs is how much of the price you can see upfront.

For foreign cards on a checkout, Cashfree publishes its rate: 2.99% on international Visa and Mastercard cards and 2.95% on international American Express, plus 18% GST. For bank-led international collections through its Global Collections product, the flow most services exporters actually use, Cashfree shows "Request Price" instead of a published rate, so you get a quote after you apply.

The other number to ask for is the exchange rate. Cashfree does not publish the rate at which it converts foreign receipts into rupees, so compare it with the live mid-market rate on the day.

Even a 1% gap below mid-market costs ₹1,900 on a $2,000 invoice, on top of the fee.

Here is a $2,000 invoice to a US client, at an illustrative mid-market rate of ₹95 to the US dollar, collected two ways: by international card on Cashfree's checkout at its published 2.99%, and through Xflow's published Starter plan (a flat $12 on invoices up to $2,000) converting at the live mid-market rate.

The visible fee difference is about ₹5,564 on this one invoice. Any gap between Cashfree's conversion rate and the mid-market rate comes on top, so ask for it when you compare.

If your client would pay by bank transfer through Global Collections instead, request Cashfree's quote and compare the rupees that land on the same invoice.

We don't charge GST on our fee, because the collection service is provided by our US entity. You may need to pay GST under the reverse charge mechanism, so check with your tax adviser.

Cashfree's international pricing works the same way whatever the currency: the payment converts to Indian rupees and settles to your Indian bank account. For foreign cards, the rate is 2.99% no matter which currency the card is in.

Global Collections covers 30+ currencies from 180+ countries, US dollars, euros, British pounds, Canadian dollars, Australian dollars and Singapore dollars among them, and is priced on request.

So the currency does not change the percentage. It changes the rupee amount, because a higher-value currency gives a bigger conversion base for the same number of units.

A 2,000-unit invoice in pounds converts to far more rupees than the same invoice in Australian dollars, so the same 2.99% card fee costs more in absolute terms.

The table below takes the same 2,000-unit invoice paid by international card in six currencies, at illustrative mid-market rates as of September 2026. The Cashfree cost is the published 2.99% fee plus 18% GST, before any conversion gap.

Rates move daily, so check the live rate before you rely on any figure.

The effective cost stays the same across currencies, about 3.53% of the invoice once GST is added. What changes is how many rupees you lose per invoice.

With Xflow, you can receive in 25+ currencies.

Clients paying in US dollars, euros, pounds or Canadian dollars pay local account details by ACH, SEPA, Faster Payments or EFT, and clients paying in Australian or Singapore dollars and other currencies send a SWIFT transfer.

Every receipt converts at the live mid-market rate and settles to your Indian bank account.

Here is an illustrative month for a GST-registered design studio in Bengaluru. It collects rupee payments from Indian clients through Cashfree and invoices two overseas clients who pay by card.

All figures use the two-step math above, at ₹95 to the dollar.

The studio processes, in one month:

• ₹4,00,000 from Indian clients by UPI
• ₹1,50,000 from Indian clients by card
• One $3,000 invoice and one $2,000 invoice to US clients ($5,000, about ₹4,75,000)

The domestic leg on Cashfree

is cheap, and there is no reason to move it:

The export leg is where the processor choice matters

The same $5,000 collected two ways:

Keeping Cashfree for the ₹5,50,000 of domestic revenue and moving only the $5,000 export leg to Xflow leaves the ₹3,540 domestic cost untouched while cutting the visible international cost from about ₹16,759 to about ₹2,850, a difference of roughly ₹13,909 in a single month.

Any gap between Cashfree's conversion rate and mid-market would widen it. If the clients paid by bank transfer through Global Collections instead, the Cashfree side depends on the quote you get.

On small-to-mid export invoices, a flat fee at the mid-market rate usually costs less than a percentage fee on cards. This is why the two processors sit alongside each other rather than in competition.

Cashfree is a strong, honestly priced choice for what it is built for: collecting rupee payments from Indian customers.

If your revenue is domestic, the 0% UPI and roughly 2% card rates, with no setup or AMC, are hard to fault.

It is different for ITeS and SMB exporters who bill customers abroad.

A domestic gateway treats international collection as an add-on, so you pay a higher card rate or a quoted rate on bank transfers, and the conversion rate isn't published.

This is where Xflow fits alongside, not instead of, your domestic setup:

• Mid-market rate, visible fees. Foreign receipts convert at the live mid-market rate, and you see the fee before you convert.
• Compliance handled as a feature. Xflow auto-issues eFIRA and payment advice for every inward payment, and the downstream FIRC, EDPMS and GST-refund workflow your accountant relies on stays intact. See export of services under GST for how that supports your refund claims.
• Built for receiving from abroad. Receiving accounts let you receive in 25+ currencies, with local account details for US dollars, euros, pounds and Canadian dollars, settled to your Indian bank account the next business day.

For international collection specifically, the two models compare like this.

If you are weighing a switch or a second provider for the international leg, the Cashfree alternatives roundup and the international payment gateways guide go deeper on the options.

Cashfree's domestic pricing is clear and competitive: 0% on UPI, about 2% on cards, no setup fee and no AMC. Add 18% GST to reach your effective cost, and request custom pricing if your volume is high.

The number to watch is the international leg. If you collect from customers abroad, the 2.99% card rate plus GST, and a conversion rate you have to ask for, are where a domestic gateway gets expensive.

Keep Cashfree for what it does well, and pair it with a transparent pricing cross-border layer for the money that comes from overseas.