Compare Saudi payment gateways on effective cost, not headline rate. Split your expected volume by payment method (mada, international cards, Apple Pay, BNPL), apply each gateway's rate and fixed fee to each slice, then add refunds, chargebacks, FX, monthly minimums and settlement delay. The cheapest headline rate is often not the cheapest gateway.
Why the headline rate misleads
Gateway pricing pages lead with one number, usually the international card rate or a blended rate. But a Saudi store's volume is not one kind of payment. Most of it is mada, some is Visa and Mastercard, some is Apple Pay, and some may be buy now pay later. Each is priced differently, and several costs never appear on the pricing page at all.
The only fair comparison is to model your own payment mix against each gateway's full fee schedule.
The fee lines to ask every gateway for
- mada rate: domestic debit processing is usually the cheapest line, commonly well under 1% plus or minus a small fixed fee.
- International card rate: Visa, Mastercard and Amex issued inside Saudi Arabia, commonly in the 2% to 3% range plus a fixed fee per transaction.
- Cross-border surcharge: an extra percentage for cards issued outside Saudi Arabia.
- FX margin: the markup applied if you charge in a currency other than SAR, or settle in a different currency.
- Refund fee: whether the original processing fee is returned on refunds (often it is not), and whether there is a separate refund charge.
- Chargeback fee: a fixed fee per dispute, charged whether you win or lose.
- Setup, monthly and minimum fees: a monthly minimum can make a low rate expensive at low volume.
- Settlement time and rolling reserve: how many days until the money reaches your account, and whether a percentage is held back.
Rates change and are negotiable above modest volumes. Treat any published number as a starting point and get the full schedule in writing before signing.
A worked example
Take a store processing SAR 100,000 a month: 70% mada, 20% international cards issued in Saudi Arabia, 10% foreign cards. Assume 3% of orders are refunded and there are two chargebacks a month. The rates below are illustrative only, to show the method.
Gateway A advertises a low 2.2% card rate but charges 1.0% on mada, 1.5% extra cross-border, keeps the fee on refunds, and has a SAR 500 monthly minimum. Gateway B advertises 2.6% on cards but charges 0.7% on mada and has no minimum.
On this mix, Gateway A costs about SAR 700 on mada, SAR 440 on local cards and SAR 370 on foreign cards: SAR 1,510 before refunds and chargebacks. Gateway B, with the same 1.5% cross-border surcharge, costs about SAR 490 on mada, SAR 520 on local cards and SAR 410 on foreign cards: SAR 1,420. Because 70% of the volume is mada, Gateway B is cheaper despite the higher headline rate, and the gap widens as the mada share grows.
Costs that are not fees but still cost money
- Settlement delay ties up working capital, which matters for stores that restock weekly.
- Authorisation rate: a gateway that declines more genuine mada payments costs more in lost sales than any fee difference.
- Integration quality: a gateway without a solid plugin for your platform means custom development and more maintenance.
- BNPL fees for Tabby and Tamara are charged separately and are higher than card fees; model them as their own line.
How to offer local methods without complicating checkout
Use one gateway for mada, cards and Apple Pay where possible, and add BNPL as a separate button rather than a second card form. Show mada and Apple Pay first on mobile, keep international cards available, and avoid sending shoppers to a different page for each method. Fewer redirects means fewer abandoned payments.
