Shopify payment gateways in Saudi Arabia and Egypt: a practical comparison and how to choose

Why Shopify Payments is not available to you

Shopify Payments only works for businesses located in a country on Shopify's official list. If your country is not listed, you must use a third-party payment provider (1).

The United Arab Emirates is on that list and has its own Help Center page (2). This explains why some Gulf merchants can use Shopify Payments for a UAE-registered business while a merchant registered in Saudi Arabia or Egypt cannot. Check the official list yourself before you rely on it, because it can change.

If you have not picked a platform yet, you may want to read Shopify vs Salla vs Zid first.

Gateways available in Saudi Arabia

• Paymob: offers Visa, Mastercard, Amex, mada and OmanNet cards plus Apple Pay and Google Pay. Not every method is on by default, so what you get depends on your account setup (3). It has two Shopify apps that cover Saudi Arabia (4).
• Tap Payments: offers two apps. One accepts mada, Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Apple Pay and Google Pay inside Shopify's native checkout. The other covers the remaining local methods (wallets, cash-based, BNPL) through a Tap-built checkout page (5).
• MyFatoorah: its app is free on the Shopify App Store, targets merchants in the GCC and Egypt, and supports local methods including mada (6).
• Tamara: a pay-later option that integrates with Shopify in Saudi Arabia. You open a Tamara business account, install the plugin, then activate Tamara at checkout (7). It sits alongside your card gateway rather than replacing it.
• Moyasar: requires a Saudi commercial registration or freelance licence plus a linked Saudi bank account. Its FAQ does not list Shopify among supported platforms (8), so confirm with Moyasar directly before you plan a Shopify store around it.

We have no current official source on how Tabby and HyperPay integrate with Shopify or what they support, so they are not in this comparison. If they are on your shortlist, get the details from their official pages.

Gateways available in Egypt

• Paymob: its Shopify apps cover Egypt (4). valU and Sympl instalments are not switched on inside Paymob Accept. Each needs its own separate Shopify app, and both work in Egypt only (9).
• Kashier: describes itself as a gateway regulated by the Central Bank of Egypt. It accepts cards, Meeza, wallets and instalments, and settles in EGP (10). Its Shopify app uses embedded checkout with no redirect and is aimed at merchants operating in Egypt (11). The app can accept payments in four currencies: EGP, USD, GBP and EUR (12).
• MyFatoorah: a free app targeting Egypt and the GCC, with Meeza among its local methods (6).

If a large share of your orders is cash on delivery, an online gateway alone will not fix refused orders. See how to reduce refused COD orders in Egypt.

Embedded checkout or redirect?

Merchants often miss this difference when comparing gateways. With embedded checkout, the customer stays on your store's checkout. With a redirect, they move to a page run by the gateway to finish paying.

• Paymob Native Card Checkout: embedded in the checkout, but cards only (4).
• Paymob Accept: redirects to Paymob's Unified Checkout, which shows every enabled method (4).
• Tap: the app for cards, Apple Pay and Google Pay runs inside Shopify's native checkout, while the app for wallets, cash-based methods and BNPL runs on a Tap-built page (5).
• Kashier: embedded with no redirect, covering cards, wallets and bank instalments (11).

The recurring pattern is that cards are usually embedded, while some other local methods go through the gateway's own page. You may therefore need two apps from the same gateway to cover everything your customers want.

Fees: two layers, not one

With a third-party gateway you pay the gateway's own fees, and on top of them a transaction fee that Shopify takes. That fee appears under Settings > Payments once the gateway is activated, separate from the gateway's fees (13).

Processing fees are usually calculated as the transaction amount times a percentage rate plus a fixed fee, and that is how quotes from different gateways can be compared (14). So:

• Ask each gateway for its rate and fixed fee for every method you need, not just cards.
• Apply the formula to your store's average order value, since a fixed fee weighs more on small orders than on large ones.
• Add the Shopify fee shown in your settings to every quote before you compare.

We give no fee figures here because they change and we have no current official source for each gateway. Take the numbers from the written quote you receive and from your own settings page. Once you know your total payment cost, include it when you work out your break-even CAC.

Payout timing and settlement: what to ask

How quickly money reaches your account affects how you fund stock and ads, but payout timing does not appear in the official sources we have for these gateways. We will not quote timings that may be wrong.

The one documented point we have is that Kashier settles in EGP (10). Since its app accepts four currencies (12), ask how amounts collected in other currencies are converted at settlement.

Ask every gateway in writing:

• How many days pass between a payment and the money reaching your bank account?
• Does the timing differ between cards, wallets and instalments?
• Is there a minimum payout amount or a payout fee?
• In which currency, and to which bank, is settlement made? Moyasar, for example, requires a Saudi bank account (8).

How to choose the right gateway for your store

Start with the payment methods your customers actually use, then pick the gateway that covers them with the fewest redirects away from your store.

• In Saudi Arabia, if mada and Apple Pay inside the native checkout are your priority, Tap's card app covers that (5), and Paymob also covers mada and Apple Pay depending on your account setup (3).
• If you want pay-later in Saudi Arabia, add Tamara alongside your card gateway (7). To judge its likely effect on your store, read do Tabby and Tamara really lift conversion rate and AOV.
• In Egypt, if Meeza, wallets and instalments in an embedded checkout matter most, Kashier brings them together in one app (11) (10).
• If you need valU or Sympl with Paymob, plan for a separate app for each (9).
• If you sell in both Saudi Arabia and Egypt, look for one gateway that covers both with a single account, such as Paymob (4) or MyFatoorah (6), then confirm which methods are enabled in each country.

In every case, compare quotes with the same formula after adding Shopify's fee (13) (14), and get payout timing in writing before you sign.

Sources

1. (1) Shopify Help Center · 2026-11-14
2. (2) Shopify Help Center · 2026-11-14
3. (3) Paymob (developer docs) · 2026-08
4. (4) Paymob (official GitHub repository) · 2026-11-14
5. (5) Tap Payments · 2026-11-14
6. (6) Shopify App Store (MyFatoorah listing) · 2026-11-14
7. (7) Tamara · 2026-05
8. (8) Moyasar · 2026-11-14
9. (9) Paymob (official GitHub repository) · 2026-11-14
10. (10) Kashier · 2026-11-14
11. (11) Kashier (developer docs) · 2026-09
12. (12) Kashier (developer docs) · 2026-09
13. (13) Tamara (developer docs) · 2026-01
14. (14) Shopify (blog) · 2026-10