Update Sep 2, 2016: I wrote this article way back in 2010, since then the start-up ecosystem has completely changed in India. Several new payment gateways sprung up and others shut. My team has assessed almost all of them.
As of now, for India payments, we advise you to go with InstaMojo. No fuss, clean, fast payment gateway.
If you are looking for payments from outside India, PayPal is still the best. Do check my insights on PayPal. They will surely help you.
My software startup caters mainly to the market outside India. Off late we are seeing a growing interest in our products and services from people in India. Now PayPal has been very good with 
us till now. The issue with PayPal is that one can not accept payment from people in India if the merchant also happens to be from India. Moreover PayPal does not accept payment in INR (Indian currency). Also on a more personal note and experience over the years we have found people in India will readily spend in rupees for a particular product but would be reluctant to spend an equivalent dollar amount.
Due to these reasons we started a search for reliable Payment Gateways services in India. Our first Google search landed us on Pluggd.in and StartupDunia. These are a bit dated but still relevant articles on payment gateways in India. In case you are looking to integrate payment gateways I would suggest you to check them and come back to check my experience and review of various payment gateways.
As per my research, some of the major e-payment gateways operating in India are
- ccAvenue
- EBS
- DirecPay
- HDFC
- ICICI Payseal
My search started with visiting websites for each of them (except ICICI. I normally desist from dealing with anything that starts or end with an abbreviation ICICI) and sending a query through their contact forms. In fact this is something standard that I always do to gauge the responsiveness of the support. In case pre-sales support is lousy, in all probability you won’t get a good after-sales support.
EBS folks were the quickest to respond with a personalized reply to my query, this was followed by ccAvenue and DirecPay canned replies. HDFC folks never responded. I ruled out DirecPay instantly, first because they do not accept American Express credit cards and second because they sent me a canned reply.
The impressive list of clientele and the fact that ccAvenue accepts almost all credit cards and almost all banks in India for payment through netbanking kept me hooked to ccAvenue. So in the end it was EBS vs ccAvenue. Though EBS also does not support AmEx cards but EBS folks were excellent on support and responsiveness while ccAvenue folks never responded to my follow-up query after a canned reply from them. When I had almost made up my mind to go with EBS, I thought of directly calling ccAvenue, to give them and myself a last chance.
Speaking over the phone was a much better experience, person was knowledgeable and provided me some good suggestions on how to get started. A primary concern I have seen from people who have applied for ccAvenue is that ccAvenue won’t easily enable your payment gateway for credit card transactions. (I guess this is for credit card fraud prevention). The person over the phone suggested to first apply through the website and make sure that the site gets approved by ccAvenue and then only proceed ahead with the one time non-refundable payment and other formalities. Fair enough.
I was told my application will be looked within 48 hrs. I waited for more than 96 working hours and there was no response. I decided again to call them up and within 20-25 mins of my call I got an approval email from the ccAvenue team. Learning? While dealing with ccAvenue always contact them through phone and not rely on email/contact form.
Now I am done with all documentation and have sent one time non-refundable fee to ccAvenue. I “ll keep you guys posted on further developments. Feel free to comment below if you have any questions, also let us know your experience with payment gateways of India.
Here is a list of tools and software that we use at our start-up.
Ankur Jain is a Software Engineer in Test Automation. After a 5 years stint with Accenture and Oracle, he started his eLearning company. A long-time blogger and proud owner of the "Learn" series of websites. 
Great insights. One question though: why did you rule out ICICI ?
@Rohan: I have heard of several cyber security related issues with ICICI back then. Till date, I never do business with them. Just a personal preference.
i want to integrate payment gateway with my client’s website. Targeted users from india(80%) rest of the world (20%).Which one is best option ccavenue or ebs?
@Chinnadurai: Of late there are lots of gateways in India. Check PayZippy as well from the folks at FlipKart.
Dear all,
Please kindly share some informations about Direcpay payment gateway we have finalized to go with this payment gateway. Before sending documents to them i want some suggestion from you pplz. please kindly help with this.
Do any of these gateways support recurring billing.
Thanks for the review
Tushar
Hi All,
I am based in India, I have my small setup of the Remote Tech Support Business.
I contacted with almost all above gateway card payments but no one was ready for the business like us.
I got the refrence of high risk gateway http://www.highriskgateway.in from my friend, and they gave me the solution, but I can only process the visa, master with their solution.
Do you guys know any gateway where i can accept amex as well for my tech support business.
Today Somebody used CCAvenue as payment gateway fraudulently using my Debit card as i was going through the review i found that somebody commented that this gateway doesn’t allow indian debit card to inform …….it allows …..
Hi,
I am developing a web application and requires payment gateway. This website will be used by indians(90%) and NRI(10%). So, which payment gateway is best? Call 9677271790
Hi! Everyone,
This is Akash here actually i have a BPO running an International Tellemarketing process for which I wanted to intigrate a (secured & reliable) Payment Gateway with easy processing and low rate of payment failures…So i would be gratefull if anyone could suggest me such kind of Payment Gateway .
You can leave me a mail:- [email protected]
Skype- sky.williams111
Phone- 91 85093 67818
i need a payment gateway with easy sign-up and approval, a gateway which should approve my website on my individual documents and doesnt demands business documents like business pan, trade license etc? do anyone knows any such type of gateway.. your comments will be much appreciated..
my email: [email protected]
EBS is a pioneer to associate with multiple acquiring Banks for providing Payment Gateway services to offer Master, Visa, AMEX, JCB, Diners, Net Banking & Cash Card brands on a single platform. Our offices are spread out in the Metros of Mumbai, Hyderabad, Banglore, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Delhi & Chennai for easy reach and to provide personal attention, service and consultation. Please feel free to call on 98289 99663 or Drop mail at [email protected]
Hi,
I intend on starting a shopping site with target customers outside India. Can you please suggest which payment gateway would be well suited for this purpose?
Thanks in advance
Dear All,
I am looking for Integeration for my Mobile recharge Website, could you please guide me with which payment gateway i should go. Their are many -ve points about CCAvenue. Also could you please mention whether CCAvenue will provide the Transaction API’s for processing.
Please reply
@nitin: May be check what the leaders in mobile recharging like Paytm are using.
Dear All,
Can anyone tell me about the shipping of products to customers…whether i have to interact with different couriers or any dedicated shipping system is there in indian big cities..we r planning to start our own online shopping business…please reply.
I want to send $380 for a sample machine to china. How can I pay to the company??Any suggestion.please let me know.
thanks
Hello,
We are in the process of payment gateway integration for our upcoming website Diyaan. For me it is EBS vs Techprocess. CCAvenue is a big player, not to forget expensive too but the reason I am not choosing it is coz of got negative reviews regarding it’s services.
I am open to any suggestions.
Priyank Shah
Hello Priyank/Everyone else,
We are in process of finalizing a payment gateway for our e-shopping website.
We had almost finalized CCAvenue, but it seems there failure rate is high.
We need a dependable PG, a little expensive is fine.
Priyank, can you tell me what are the rates for techprocess, as nothing has been mentioned on their website.
Also, any other gateways which anyone would like to recommend.
I am looking at around 5000 transactions per month, around Rs.10000-15000 per transaction.
Appreciate an early reply.
Thanks in advance,
Piyu Y.
sorry, that was meant to be 500 transactions per month, not 5000.
Hi there !
This was a great article to go through. I was really looking forward to see some reviews of various payment gateways of India. I still think EBS is a good option.
Thanks
Someone please finally tell me which one to opt and WHY??, as i am confused from above discussion.
Thanks for the useful info. I will post my experience soon.
Dear Ankur,
Choosing a payment gateway has made it hell for us 🙁 Any updates? What about EBS, Transecute, Atom and techprocess? Good reviews about Techprocess. Any takes on this? Thanks in advance.
what about Transecute as they provide setup free of cost. Does this payment gateway operates in India?
Hi, i was using Paypal for the last 2 years but now days its like hell and is really very difficult to go with them. I did a deep search and finally landed on EBS. The lowest setup fees and lower TDS. The only problem i faced the delay in approving. its been 20 days and only debit card is enabled till now. Easy to integrate and good support. If you are a registered company then approval process will go faster. I am still waiting to start the credit card approvals.
I am using EBS and still my account not approved after submitting many documents. Also they are not providing proper API. Do CCAVENUE provide proper API also CCAvenue told me that they dont allow international Credit Card. Does any one have face this problem. Regarding support I always have direct response and never get any issue with CCAnvenue While in EBS all time staff are changing and they dont know even proper solution. I requested for 3rd party API with EBS and they are asking many certificate to providing. Does CCavenue provide proper API for site integration where user can work with this own site instead of going provider site redirect like EBS.
CCAvenue Do not accept Indian Bank Debit Cards.
Hi, Do not use ccavenue. It has a very high failue rate and is a pain for most customers. Go with a bank like ICICI / HDFC or Pay / EBS. CCavenue was once the only choice – because of which they signed up many many small websites. They can’t take the load or provide services anymore. Be very very careful – pay a slightly higher setup fees but go with someone better.
Aplogies .. i meant that you have used their services for around an year and not more than a year.
Hi Ankur, thats a nice article there. Now that you have used their services for more than a year, what do you feel about ccavenue? Are you satisfied with their services?
Also, could you please tell me if the users of your website or from India or outside India?
Also, could you please tell me the percentage of the customers who actually use AMEX cards. That would help us to decide on EBS and CCAvenue. Thanks a lot in advance for the answers.
@Suresh:
>>Now that you have used their services for more than a year, what do you feel about ccavenue? Are you satisfied with their services?
We do have an active subscription with ccAvenue but we use them rarely due to the huge transaction failure rate we have seen with them in the past.
Also, could you please tell me if the users of your website or from India or outside India?
>>Mainly our clients are from outside India but there is a minority from India too (that’s the reason we were looking for Indian payment gateway.) As of now we ask them to send a check or to send money via NEFT.
Also, could you please tell me the percentage of the customers who actually use AMEX cards.
>>Never got a chance to check the %ages but I guess they will vary from industry. IMHO, B2B businesses should look for AmEx.
Thanks for the info Ankur. Really appreciate it..
I am planning to integrate a payment gateway for my startup. Which one should I go for? CC Avenue or EBS. Comments guys??
CC Avenue a fraud company, please stay away from them. they cheaters are not making payments to us, not coming anyone on chat window, no one is replying to our mails, no one is reverting to our support tickets, are you shutting the company down? are you under financial crisis, Sent mails to your top management team but no revert from them as of now
I agree that EBS’s customer service is better.But I’ve summed up hassles of payment gateways in India. Just like gas, electricity, traffic – getting a payment gateway too is a hassle in India: (on link in URL)
Please comment your experience here.
Hey Ankur,
I was about to integrate CCAvenue in my website but your comments have made me skeptical. I am confused between EBS and CCavenue. Please suggest which one to go for?
Atul
@Atul: I have tried ccAvenue so can tell you the pros/cons of ccAvenue only other than what I write above about various PGs. Though I am hearing good reviews on EBS.
Hi Atul,
ok. Tell me about ccavenue.
I only know little about payment gateways, but everyone says ccAvenue is good.
That was a great article and just what I was looking for….only that when I got to the last para, I was hoping the decision was to go with EBS, since I am myself at that point and heavily leaning towards EBS for their lower rates! And if I may ask, why did you finally choose ccAvenue over EBS?
Any inputs from anyone who has actually signed up for EBS?
@Ashni – The only reason we went ahead with ccAvenue was because they accept AMEX cards while EBS does not. Having used ccAvenue’s service for quiet some time, I would suggest to try EBS. Transaction failure rate on ccAvenue is very high and on an average a customer has to initiate at least 2 transactions to successfully make the payment with ccAvenue.
Good article..But I want to caution you about CCavenue…As a customer I have used flipkart and rechargeitnow few times and though most of the times transaction went smoothly 2 times when it failed I have to be under tension for few days..In case of flipkart money was deducted from my bank account but failed at Ccavenue end,but fortunately I did not lose money,it was reversed in my account after nearly one month..In case of rechargeitnow same thing happened,money was deducted from my account,but failed at ccavenue end due to which reharge was not done..Now I have started the mails and pray to God that atleast there will be a refund or recharge..From a customer viewpoint there is lot of failures at sites dealing with Ccavenue..As far as EBS is concerned till now I have done only one transaction at a site and it went smoothly..so can’t say much about it..
@Sharath: Thanks for the info. Agreed this is something to be concerned about. I “ll check with CCAvenue folks about their “failure rate” for credit card transactions. (I don’t think this problem will be there for net banking transactions.)
Thanks Kusum.
Though CCAvenue may have higher rates but they support most of the major banks and credit cards which is a big plus.
Also as an update – my account is already set up with them and the process went quite smooth.
Thanks for the enlightening article. I want to warn you all that Ccavenu has complete monopoly in India and has highest rates in India. For general public:
there are some more payment gateways in India. Find them (in URL above)