The full fee anatomy of UAE payment gateways — MDR, fixed fees, monthly plans, settlement holds, currency markup and chargebacks — with the numbers providers publish.
By Raqma Editorial · reviewed by Raqma Editorial · Updated 21 October 2026
Every UAE payment gateway quote decomposes into the same six components. The advertised percentage is only one of them — the merchants who overpay are the ones who compare headline rates instead of total cost.
Transaction rate (MDR) is the percentage of the processed amount. Use the published rate for the specific product, country, card type and applicable volume tier; there is no universal UAE gateway percentage.
A fixed per-transaction fee changes small-ticket economics. At AED 1 per transaction, 100 orders add AED 100 even if their total volume is unchanged.
Separate the advertised monthly subscription from minimum-volume, minimum-billing or other contractual charges. Paymob’s pricing FAQ advertises no subscription, while terms 4.5 reserve a possible AED 110 below AED 10,000 monthly volume.
Ask whether setup, implementation, annual, device or termination fees apply. A fee missing from a public rate card is not evidence that it is zero.
Separate foreign-card surcharges from currency conversion and settlement-currency charges. Request the calculation basis and applicable currency for each.
Include payout charges, chargeback/dispute fees, refund treatment and reserves. Reserves and delayed bank availability affect cash flow even when they are not a transaction fee.
Ziina publishes 2.6% + AED 1 for Tap to Pay on iPhone, with an international-card surcharge. Paymob publishes 2.9% + AED 1 for Standard online payments, subject to checking its separate minimum-volume terms. Telr publishes volume-dependent tiers. These examples concern different products and do not establish a universal cheapest provider.
For eligible flat quotes, monthly base processing cost = volume × rate / 100 + transactions × fixed fee + monthly fee. Add applicable conditional charges separately. With identical fixed fees, a crossover is monthly-fee difference divided by the percentage-rate difference expressed as a decimal. This formula does not make a volume-restricted tier eligible outside its band.
Bring comparable written quotes when negotiating. Ask which rates, fixed charges, currency costs and payout terms can change at your volume. Do not treat one arbitrary volume threshold as proof that every provider negotiates.
Live per-provider rates, settlement times and POS support are on the payment gateways comparison — and the cost calculator computes your effective rate per provider.
For an illustrative AED 100,000 of domestic-card volume and 400 transactions, Ziina’s published base formula gives AED 3000; Telr’s published AED 50,000+ tier gives AED 2450. These are processing examples, not equivalent hardware quotes. Taxes, international cards and agreement-specific charges are excluded.
For a quoted plan, send every provider the same volume, transaction count, card mix and channel requirements. Compare the rate, fixed charges, monthly/minimum-volume conditions and bank availability together.
Treat availability of funds as a separate decision. Ask about the contractual bank-payout cycle, cutoffs, first-transaction holds, reserves and refunds. Do not infer bank-settlement speed from instant credit to a provider balance.
For subscriptions, verify tokenisation, recurring-payment support, retries and cancellation handling in the exact product and platform integration.
We distinguish published base prices, contractual conditions and merchant-specific quotes. The sources below identify what each example supports. Where applicability is unresolved, we require confirmation rather than converting the missing condition to zero.
Request comparable offers that match your operating model. Ziina, Paymob and Telr publish useful pricing components, while their products, tiers and contractual conditions differ. No single provider’s headline tariff is a complete benchmark for every merchant.
For Shopify or another store platform, verify the current UAE-compatible integration, refunds, recurring payments and reconciliation. Test any BNPL integration separately; an extra checkout option is not a guaranteed conversion or margin gain.
At higher volumes, compare written effective rates and cash-flow conditions. Confirm which published tier applies before comparing it with a negotiated offer.
For marketplace and platform models: you need split payments and sub-merchant onboarding, which not every gateway offers — confirm marketplace support explicitly; it is a product line of its own (e.g. Stripe Connect-style flows), not a checkbox on the standard tariff.
The pricing page advertises a 2.9% + AED 1 Standard online rate with no monthly subscription. Separately, terms clause 4.5 allows Paymob to impose AED 110 per month below AED 10,000 monthly volume. Confirm the exact product and signed agreement: the base subscription and the possible minimum-volume charge are different costs.
| Monthly volume / 100 transactions | Published base processing | Conditional charge in this scenario | Modelled subtotal |
|---|---|---|---|
| AED 5,000Primary source | AED 245 | AED 110 | AED 355 |
| AED 10,000Primary source | AED 390 | AED 0 under this clause | AED 390 |
| AED 15,000Primary source | AED 535 | AED 0 under this clause | AED 535 |
Illustrative transaction count. This is not a provider quote: taxes, device fees, foreign cards, refunds, disputes and other agreement-specific charges are excluded. Unknown applicability is not converted to zero.
Paymob merchant terms, clause 4.5
Paymob published UAE Standard pricing
Ziina published Tap to Pay fees
Before signing, confirm product/channel, eligible entity, applicable tier, domestic/foreign cards, fixed fees, minimum-volume charges, VAT, equipment, refunds/disputes, reserves and bank payout. Record the quote date and recheck conditions when your volume changes.
Best-in-class APIs, docs and plugins (Shopify, WooCommerce). Flat pricing, no monthly fee — but settlement is slower and approval for brand-new UAE entities can be picky.
2.9% + AED 1 for UAE-issued cards; +1% for international cards. Per Stripe AE pricing, Sep 2026.
MENA payment orchestrator — Flexi entry plan with no monthly fee; rates improve meaningfully with merchant history.
1.75% + AED 1 is the established-merchant floor; new merchants typically see ~2.85–2.9% + AED 1. Paid tiers to ~AED 180/mo lower the rate. Sep 2026.
Local UAE acquirer with strong SME track record — among the lowest local-card rates on a modest monthly plan.
Bands by monthly volume: AED 0–9,999 → AED 249/mo at 0%; AED 10,000–24,999 → AED 199/mo at 2.45% + AED 1; AED 25,000–49,999 → AED 99/mo at 2.35% + AED 0.50; AED 50,000+ → AED 0/mo at 2.25% + AED 0.50. Per telr.com/pricing, verified Oct 2026.
Global acquirer for enterprise and high-volume merchants: local acquiring, strong auth optimisation and granular data — pricing is negotiated per merchant.
No public rate card for the UAE — acquiring fees are quoted per merchant based on volume and card mix.
Use the rate for the exact product and plan. Ziina’s published Tap to Pay rate is 2.6% + AED 1; Paymob advertises 2.9% + AED 1 for Standard online payments, with separate contractual conditions to check. Telr rates depend on monthly volume. These are not all-in quotes.
It can be, but compare percentage, fixed transaction fees, monthly charges and all eligibility conditions together. A crossover calculation is only valid while both compared plans apply at that volume.
Check minimum-volume charges, setup/device/annual fees, foreign-card and FX charges, payouts, refunds, disputes, reserves and termination terms. Read the contract as well as the pricing page.
Calculate on your own volume, ticket count and channel mix. Paymob terms4.5 allow a possible AED110 below AED10,000/month; a zero advertised subscription is not enough to prove the lowest total cost.
Raqma Editorial · reviewed by 
Paymob’s pricing FAQ advertises no subscription, while terms 4.5 reserve a possible AED 110 below AED 10,000 monthly volume.
Ziina publishes 2.6% + AED 1 for Tap to Pay on iPhone, with an international-card surcharge.