M-Pesa is Kenya’s financial backbone. Launched by Safaricom in 2007, M-Pesa has grown into East Africa’s most transformative financial technology — processing over 130 million transactions per day across Kenya and reaching over 51 million users across Safaricom’s East African network. For Kenya businesses selling products or services online, accepting M-Pesa on your website is not an optional feature — it is a fundamental requirement for converting Kenya’s digital consumers. East Africa Website Designers integrates all forms of M-Pesa payment into Kenya e-commerce and service websites.
M-Pesa Payment Options for Kenya Business Websites
M-Pesa Till Number (Buy Goods)
A Till Number is the simplest form of M-Pesa business payment. Customers send money directly to your Till Number via the M-Pesa menu on their Safaricom line. Till Numbers are issued by Safaricom to registered merchants and are suitable for straightforward retail payments — a customer pays KES 3,500 for a product to Till Number 123456 and sends you the confirmation SMS. The limitation for e-commerce: payments are not automatically verified or matched to orders, requiring manual reconciliation. For low-volume businesses, this is manageable. For automated e-commerce, a more integrated solution is required.
M-Pesa Paybill (Business Pay)
A Paybill Number allows customers to make payments with an account reference — enabling basic payment matching. When a customer pays to your Paybill Number with their order number as the reference, you can match the payment to the correct order manually or with simple accounting software. Paybill numbers are widely used by Kenya utilities, schools, and businesses collecting recurring or reference-linked payments. Like Till Numbers, Paybill payments require manual or semi-automated reconciliation rather than real-time automated order confirmation.
M-Pesa Daraja API (STK Push)
The M-Pesa Daraja API is Safaricom’s developer platform that enables fully automated M-Pesa payment processing integrated directly into your website or application. The STK Push (also called Lipa Na M-Pesa Online) feature sends a payment prompt directly to the customer’s phone when they confirm an order on your website. The customer sees: “M-Pesa payment request for KES 3,500 to [Your Business Name] — Enter PIN to confirm.” They enter their M-Pesa PIN, the payment is processed in real time, and your website’s order management system is automatically notified of the successful payment, triggering order confirmation emails and inventory updates.
This seamless experience is the standard expectation for Kenya e-commerce websites. Safaricom’s Daraja API requires a registered Safaricom business account, a Daraja API developer account, and technical integration by a developer familiar with the API’s OAuth authentication and callback handling. East Africa Website Designers has experience implementing the full Daraja API integration in WooCommerce and custom Kenya web applications.
M-Pesa Through Payment Aggregators
Payment aggregators — companies that provide a single API connecting multiple payment methods — simplify M-Pesa integration alongside card payments for Kenya websites. Leading Kenya payment aggregators include:
- Pesapal: Widely used in East Africa, supports M-Pesa, Airtel Money, Visa, Mastercard, and bank transfer. WooCommerce plugin available. Transaction fees approximately 3.5%
- Flutterwave: Pan-African gateway supporting M-Pesa alongside 20+ African payment methods. Strong for Kenya businesses with cross-border operations
- Stripe + M-Pesa via DPO Group: For Kenya businesses already using Stripe for international payments who need a local M-Pesa option
- Kopokopo (now Mobi): Kenya-founded payment company with deep M-Pesa integration and merchant tools
- IntaSend: Nairobi-based payment gateway with clean M-Pesa API, card payments, and a developer-friendly integration
M-Pesa for Services and Subscriptions
M-Pesa is not only for one-time product purchases. Kenya service businesses use M-Pesa for: monthly subscription payments (SaaS products, membership fees, magazine subscriptions), service deposit collection (security deposits, booking confirmations), instalment payment plans (school fees in instalments, furniture hire purchase), and retainer fee collection for professional services. M-Pesa’s C2B (customer to business) API supports all these use cases, allowing Kenya businesses to send payment requests and receive automated payment confirmations without manual intervention.
M-Pesa for Kenya E-Commerce: The Full Customer Journey
A Kenya customer shopping on a well-integrated WooCommerce store experiences: browsing products with KES pricing, adding items to cart, proceeding to checkout, entering name and delivery details, selecting “M-Pesa” as payment method, entering their Safaricom number, receiving the STK Push on their phone, confirming with their PIN, seeing immediate on-screen order confirmation, and receiving an order confirmation email. This entire journey — from cart to confirmed payment — takes under 60 seconds and requires no card details, no bank account, and no complex authentication beyond the M-Pesa PIN the customer uses daily.
This simplicity is why M-Pesa payment integration is the single most important e-commerce feature for Kenya websites. East Africa Website Designers implements M-Pesa payment on every Kenya e-commerce site we build. Contact us to discuss M-Pesa integration for your new or existing Kenya website.
