Take payments in Southern and East Africa with Peach Payments and Chapa

Peach Payments and Chapa let members in Southern and East Africa pay you the way they already pay for things: an instant EFT, mobile money, or a card.

You use your own Peach Payments or Chapa account, and the money goes straight to it. Yclas doesn’t take a cut. You can connect one, both, or either alongside Stripe and PayPal: members choose at checkout.

What they can be used for

Both gateways take payments to you, the site owner:

• featured listings and bring to top,
• pay to post,
• membership plans,
• eWallet top-ups,
• and the other extras you sell (boosts, renewals, badges and so on).

They are not offered for sales between members (Buy Now, offers, auctions or the shopping cart), not even when you collect payments for your sellers. Those need a method that can pay sellers: see Let members sell with Buy Now.

A membership plan paid with Peach Payments or Chapa doesn’t renew by itself: when it ends, the member gets an email with a link to pay again. See Renewals.

Peach Payments

Peach Payments works in South Africa, Kenya and Mauritius. Buyers click Pay with Peach Payments at checkout and pay on Peach’s hosted checkout page, with whichever methods are enabled on your Peach account: for example card, EFT or M-PESA. Then they come back to your site.

What you need from Peach Payments

• A Peach Payments merchant account.
• From your Peach dashboard (Checkout › API keys): your Entity ID, Client ID, Client Secret and Merchant ID. The sandbox dashboard has its own set for testing.
• Your site’s domain added in the Peach dashboard under Checkout › Allowlisted domains. Without it Peach refuses to open the checkout. The setup page shows the domain to add.
• Your site’s currency must be ZAR, KES, MUR or USD, and enabled on your Peach account. Set it in Settings › Payments (see Currency and price format). For any other currency the Peach Payments button doesn’t appear.

Set up Peach Payments

1. In your admin panel, go to Add-ons, open the Payments tab and click Peach Payments.
2. Paste your Entity ID, Merchant ID, Client ID and Client Secret.
3. To try it first, tick Sandbox and use the keys from your Peach sandbox dashboard.
4. If you use webhook security in your Peach dashboard, paste its secret in Webhook secret (optional).
5. Click Save.
6. Add the domain shown on the page to Checkout › Allowlisted domains in your Peach dashboard.

Setting	What it does
Entity ID	From Checkout › API keys in your Peach dashboard.
Merchant ID	From the same page.
Client ID	From the same page. Your site uses it with the Client Secret to sign in to Peach’s API.
Client Secret	From the same page. Once saved it isn’t shown again (Saved: leave empty to keep it).
Sandbox	Uses Peach’s sandbox (testsecure.peachpayments.com) with the keys from your sandbox dashboard, so no real money is charged. Turn it off to accept real payments.
Webhook URL	Read only. Sent to Peach with every checkout, so you don’t need to add it in the dashboard.
Webhook secret (optional)	The secret from the Peach dashboard’s webhook security settings. When it is saved, only webhooks signed with it are read. Tick Remove the webhook secret to clear it.

All four keys are needed: until they are filled in, the Peach Payments button doesn’t appear. To switch Peach off, empty Entity ID and save.

Why the webhook matters. Some payments, such as EFT or M-PESA, finish after the buyer has left Peach’s page. Peach then tells your site through the webhook, and the order is confirmed by itself. Either way your site asks Peach for the payment’s status before it marks an order paid.

One Peach account can serve more than one of your sites: each payment carries the site it was made on. Add every site’s domain to the allowlist.

What buyers see

1. At checkout they click Pay with Peach Payments.
2. They pay on Peach’s checkout page.
3. They return to your site’s payment-complete page, and what they bought is applied straight away.

If the payment is still going through (for example an EFT or a mobile money payment), they see Your payment is being processed. We will confirm your order as soon as it completes. The order is confirmed when Peach calls your webhook. If the payment failed they see Transaction not successful! and can try again.

If Peach can’t open a checkout (wrong keys, or the domain isn’t allowlisted), buyers see an error asking them to try another payment method. Check the keys and the allowlist.

Chapa

Chapa is a payment gateway for Ethiopia. Buyers click Pay with Chapa at checkout and pay on Chapa’s checkout page with telebirr, CBE Birr, M-Pesa, bank or card, whichever your Chapa account offers. Then they come back to your site.

What you need from Chapa

• A Chapa account.
• Your Secret Key, from your Chapa dashboard (Settings › API). A test key (it starts with CHASECK_TEST) takes test payments; your live key takes real ones.
• Your site’s currency must be ETB or USD. For any other currency the Chapa button doesn’t appear.

Set up Chapa

1. Go to Add-ons, open the Payments tab and click Chapa.
2. Paste your key in Secret Key.
3. Optional: in your Chapa dashboard (Settings › Webhooks), choose a secret hash and paste the same value in Webhook secret.
4. Click Save.

Setting	What it does
Secret Key	The key that lets your site create payments in your Chapa account and check them. Once saved it isn’t shown again (Already set. Leave blank to keep it.). Tick Remove the saved keys (switches Chapa off) to switch Chapa off.
Webhook secret	Optional. The secret hash you choose in your Chapa dashboard: webhooks not signed with it are refused.
Webhook URL	Read only. Each payment already tells Chapa to call it. You can also add it in your Chapa dashboard (Settings › Webhooks).

Every payment is checked with Chapa before an order is confirmed, with or without the webhook secret. The webhook lets payments that complete after the buyer leaves, such as mobile money, still confirm the order.

Test mode

Chapa has no separate switch: the key decides. Save your test Secret Key and pay with Chapa’s test details. While a test key is saved, the page warns: This is a test key: Chapa’s test payments will pay real orders on your site. Use your live Secret Key once you have finished testing.

That warning is meant literally: a test payment marks the order as paid and gives the member what they bought. Swap in your live key before you tell your members.

What buyers see

1. At checkout they click Pay with Chapa.
2. They pay on Chapa’s checkout page, titled with your site’s name (shortened to 16 characters).
3. They return to your site’s payment-complete page, and what they bought is applied straight away.

If a mobile money payment is still pending, they see Your payment is being processed. We will confirm your order as soon as it completes. The order is confirmed when Chapa calls your site. If the payment failed they see Transaction not successful! and can try again.

Refunds and double payments

Neither gateway refunds from your admin panel. To give money back:

1. Refund the payment in your Peach Payments or Chapa dashboard.
2. In Orders, open the order’s menu and click Mark as refunded. This takes back what the order gave (for example the featured days).

See Refunds and cancellations.

If a buyer pays the same order twice, the second payment doesn’t apply the order again. Your site emails the address in Sender email (Settings › Email) with the subject Peach: an extra payment for order #… (or Chapa: …), so you can check it in your dashboard and refund it.

Before you go live

These gateways are new on Yclas and haven’t yet been tried on real merchant accounts. Before you tell your members:

• Test the whole flow in test mode, signed in as an ordinary member: Peach with Sandbox ticked and your sandbox keys, Chapa with your test key. Try a mobile money payment too, so you see a pending payment get confirmed.
• Check that the order shows as Paid in Orders and that the listing changed.
• Untick Sandbox and paste your live Peach keys, or swap in your live Chapa key, and make one small real payment.

Related guides

• Take payments in Africa with Paystack and M-Pesa — Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya and South Africa.
• Take payments on your marketplace — what members can pay for and how to test.
• Other payment gateways — every other regional provider, including PayFast for South Africa.
• Currency and price format — set ZAR, KES, MUR, ETB or USD.
• Orders and refunds — find a payment and mark it refunded.