We are happy to announce that ChargeAutomation is integrated with Payfast!
Setting up your ChargeAutomation account with Payfast
Login to your Payfast account
On your dashboard, take note of your Merchant ID and Merchant Key
On the Left Navigation, please click on Settings and then Developer Settings
Enter a Security Passphrase and Click Save
IMPORTANT NOTE: kindly refrain from using special characters (such as /, ~, !, @, #, $, etc.) when setting or updating your passphrase. Instead, use a combination of uppercase and lowercase letters and numbers only
Now go to Settings >> Recurring Billing and enter do the following steps
Toggle "Enable Tokenization" to "Enabled On"
Click on Save
If it is not saving correctly and the values are not updating, please contact Payfast to request for assistance
Next Steps within ChargeAutomation
Login to your ChargeAutomation account here chargeautomation.com
Go to Settings >> Gateway Connection and select "Payfast" from the dropdown
Fill out the form with details from previous steps
Important Notes – Payfast
Important Notes – Payfast
1. No Authorization Support
Payfast does not support authorizations — only charges.
Security deposits are processed as a charge.
When releasing a security deposit, it is processed as a refund.
Payment requests and payment pages can only process charges, not authorizations.
2. Refund Processing
Refunds can take 7–10 business days to reflect.
Refunds are deducted directly from your Payfast wallet.
You must have sufficient funds available in your Payfast wallet to process a refund.
If a refund attempt fails in ChargeAutomation, please process the refund directly in the Payfast dashboard, as some transactions require manual refunds there.
For more information about refunds, please click here.
3. Card Detail Access (Whitelisting Required)
Please contact Payfast and request that your account be whitelisted so ChargeAutomation can retrieve masked card details along with the card expiry date.
4. 5 Rand Card Validation Charge
Due to Payfast and certain issuing bank requirements, ChargeAutomation may perform a R5 authorization charge when guests enter their card details.
This helps improve the success rate of transactions.
5. Failed Transactions – Email Conflict
If transactions are failing, please ensure that the merchant email address in Payfast is different from the email address being used to process the transaction in ChargeAutomation.
We have 24/7 support. Please be sure to use the chat and someone will attend to your question.
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