How to accept UPI payments on your website — and stop checking screenshots

TL;DR

• • QR on WhatsApp: free and quick to set up, but you check every payment by hand.
• • Gateway on your website: automatic confirmation, a proper order record and refunds from a dashboard, for a small fee per payment.
• • What you need: KYC documents, a bank account, and a website with real products, a contact number and policy pages.
• • On SitesPlaced: Razorpay, PhonePe and Cashfree connect on the free plan with your own account. SitesPlaced takes 0%.
• • Settlement: usually one or two working days after the payment.
• • Not ready? Our free UPI QR code generator or the “Pay the store directly” option.

A UPI QR on WhatsApp vs a gateway on your website

Both use UPI, and the buyer pays from the same app either way. The difference is what happens after they press pay. With a QR, the only proof you get is whatever the buyer sends you. With a gateway, the proof comes from the payment system itself, straight to your store.

With ten orders a week, checking screenshots is a nuisance. With ten orders a day, or during a festive rush, it is where mistakes happen: a payment you thought arrived, an order shipped twice, a screenshot that was edited. That is the point where a gateway pays for its fee.

What happens when a buyer pays by UPI through a gateway

1. The buyer fills the cart, enters their address at checkout and picks Pay online.
2. The gateway’s payment screen opens. On SitesPlaced, Razorpay opens a window on the page; PhonePe and Cashfree take the buyer to their own page and bring them back.
3. The buyer chooses UPI and approves the payment with their UPI PIN, in the app they already use. On a phone that usually means tapping their UPI app; on a computer, scanning a QR code. The exact options depend on the gateway.
4. The gateway confirms the result. Your store checks it with the gateway before marking the order paid; it never trusts a screenshot or a web address.
5. The order lands in your Orders tab marked paid, and the buyer gets a confirmation email if they gave an email address.
6. The gateway pays the money into your bank account on its settlement schedule, usually after taking its fee.

For a plain-English walk through the whole checkout, see how online checkout works for a small business.

What you need before you apply

A gateway has to check who you are before it handles money for you. This check is called KYC (“know your customer”). Expect to be asked for your PAN and a bank account in your or your business’s name at least; depending on how your business is set up, the gateway may ask for more, such as GST or business registration papers. Each gateway publishes its own list.

Gateways also look at your website. Have real products with prices, a contact number and city, and policy pages for shipping, returns and refunds, privacy and terms. Policy pages are free on SitesPlaced. A brand-new store on a free address sometimes gets extra questions during the review, so apply to more than one gateway and go live with whichever approves you first. If a gateway asks for your own domain, that comes with Starter at ₹199/month.

Connecting Razorpay, PhonePe or Cashfree on SitesPlaced

All three are on the free plan. You connect your own account, so every payment settles into your bank account and SitesPlaced never holds your money or takes a cut. The settings are under Settings → Integrations:

• Razorpay: press Connect with Razorpay, log in to your Razorpay account and approve. Step by step: how to connect Razorpay.
• PhonePe: copy the Client ID, Client Secret and Client Version from your PhonePe Business account, then add the webhook details the settings page shows you into PhonePe. Guide: how to connect PhonePe.
• Cashfree: paste your App ID and Secret Key from Cashfree. Guide: how to connect Cashfree.

Each gateway you switch on appears at checkout as its own “Pay online” option with its logo. You can keep a second one connected but switched off, ready as a backup if the first has a problem. Once connected, place a small real order yourself and check that it arrives marked paid. Which gateway to pick first is covered in Razorpay vs PhonePe vs Cashfree for a small online store.

Settlement and fees, in plain words

Settlement is the gateway paying your money into your bank account. It doesn’t happen payment by payment; the gateway collects the day’s payments and sends them together on a schedule, written as T+1 or T+2. “T” is the day of the payment, so T+1 means the next working day. Our gateway comparison lists typical timings of one to two working days as indicative figures for September 2026. Your gateway confirms yours when it approves you.

Fees are a percentage of each successful payment, set by the gateway and usually taken out before settlement. The same comparison lists standard pricing of roughly 2% plus GST on most methods, with UPI often cheaper, again as indicative September 2026 figures; check each rate card before you connect. As an example with round numbers: on a ₹1,000 order at a 2% fee, the gateway keeps ₹20 plus GST on that ₹20, and the rest reaches your bank. SitesPlaced adds nothing on any plan.

Compare that with cash on delivery, where you pay for delivery on orders that get refused at the door. The free COD vs prepaid calculator shows the difference for your own numbers.

Not ready for a gateway? Two free in-between steps

1. “Pay the store directly” at checkout.On a SitesPlaced store this option is on by default. The buyer places a proper order, and your UPI ID, bank details and payment instructions (from Settings → Payments & invoices) appear on their order-placed screen and in their confirmation email. You still check your bank app before you ship, but the items, address and amount are already recorded with an order number, instead of scattered through a chat.

2. A proper UPI QR. Our free UPI QR code generator makes a QR from your UPI ID and name, with an optional fixed amount and note, that works in every UPI app. Set the amount for a specific order so nobody pays the wrong figure, and download it to print for a stall or counter.

Whichever you use, check payments the safe way: open your bank or UPI app and find the payment in your own transaction history, matching the amount, the time and the UPI reference number. A screenshot is only a hint. And never approve a payment request (a “collect request”) you didn’t expect; a UPI ID can only receive money, and anyone asking you to enter your PIN to “receive” a payment is trying to take it.

Where COD, WhatsApp and paid plans fit

A gateway doesn’t replace cash on delivery or WhatsApp. Some buyers will only order on COD, and some want to ask a question first. Keep both, and use an extra COD charge (Settings → Checkout) so paying by UPI is the cheaper choice. WhatsApp checkout, which sends the order to your WhatsApp, is free too. More on combining them in UPI and COD for Instagram stores.

Everything in this post works on the free plan. Paid plans add things around it. From Starter at ₹199/month: your own domain, no SitesPlaced badge, and store pages that answer about 4× faster than on the free plan, about 75 ms instead of about 330 ms in our 28 September 2026 measurements on live paid stores. “Answer” is the moment the page starts arriving on the buyer’s phone, before the photos load. On Growth at ₹499/month: 1-click checkouts with saved addresses, Razorpay Magic Checkout and Shiprocket Checkout.

Frequently asked questions