How to Add PayNow to Shopify in Singapore (October 2026)

No. Shopify Payments in Singapore accepts cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay and Shop Pay, but not PayNow, so PayNow on a Shopify store has to come through a third-party payment app or a manual payment method. Shopify's own list for Singapore covers Visa, Mastercard, American Express and UnionPay, the three express checkouts, and GrabPay, which is still in early access and not open to every store.

That gap matters more here than almost anywhere else. PayNow had about 11 million registrations by December 2025 and reaches more than 90% of Singapore's adults, and consumers paid about S$154 billion through it in 2025, according to the PayNow report MAS and the Association of Banks published in June 2026. Plenty of your customers would rather scan a QR code than type in a card number.

There are three ways to add PayNow to Shopify in Singapore: the HitPay app, the Airwallex app, or a manual payment method you check by hand. Here's how they compare on a S$100 order on Shopify's Basic plan.

Airwallex lists PayNow on its Shopify plugin, and its app sends the customer to an Airwallex page to pay. 2C2P and Fiuu (the new name for Razer Merchant Services) also have Shopify apps and PayNow channels, but neither app listing mentions PayNow and both price on application, so ask them in writing before you plan around it. For the full field, including the gateways that don't work with Shopify, see my comparison of payment gateways in Singapore.

To add PayNow to Shopify with HitPay, open a HitPay account, install the free HitPay Payment Gateway app, connect the two, switch PayNow on and test it with a real order. Step by step:

1. Sign up for a HitPay business account and finish its verification.
2. In your Shopify admin, install HitPay Payment Gateway from the Shopify App Store. It's free to install.
3. Connect the app to your HitPay account, following HitPay's Shopify guide.
4. Choose the methods HitPay should show. Start with PayNow and leave cards on Shopify Payments (the next section shows why).
5. Activate it in Settings > Payments, so it appears at checkout beside your card options.
6. Place a real order on a phone and on a laptop, pay it by PayNow, check it arrives in Shopify as paid, then refund it.

Once it's live, HitPay shows up as an option on Shopify's checkout page. The customer scans a PayNow QR code in their banking app, comes back to your order confirmation, and the order is marked paid without you touching it. HitPay credits PayNow payments to your HitPay balance the next calendar day.

PayNow through HitPay on Shopify carries three fees: HitPay's PayNow rate of 0.65% + S$0.30 (0.9% on orders under S$100), HitPay's own 0.5% Shopify plugin fee, and Shopify's third-party transaction fee of 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow or 0.6% on Advanced. Added up, it still usually costs you less than a card.

The card column uses the online rates for Singapore cards on Shopify's Singapore pricing page: 3.2% + S$0.50 on Basic, 3.1% on Grow and 3% on Advanced. The PayNow column uses HitPay's published fees. On a S$30 order the gap holds: about S$1.02 by PayNow against S$1.46 by card on Basic.

Two things catch people out. First, the 0.5% belongs to HitPay. One of HitPay's own guides calls it a Shopify surcharge, but its pricing page lists it as HitPay's Shopify plugin fee (its WooCommerce and Wix plugins charge 0.2%), and Shopify's percentage still comes on top. Second, Shopify's fee applies to everything paid through HitPay, not just PayNow. So don't move your cards over for HitPay's lower 2.8% card rate: on Basic that becomes 2.8% + S$0.50 + 0.5% + 2%, or S$5.80 on a S$100 order, against S$3.70 through Shopify Payments.

Yes. A manual payment method called "PayNow" costs nothing, because Shopify doesn't charge its third-party fee on manual payments, but every order stays unpaid until you find the money in your bank account and mark it paid yourself. To set one up:

1. In your Shopify admin, go to Settings > Payments.
2. Under Manual payment methods, choose Create custom payment method.
3. Name it "PayNow". In Additional details, write the line customers see beside it at checkout, such as "Pay by PayNow after you place your order".
4. In Payment instructions, give your UEN or PayNow number and your registered business name, and ask for the order number as the payment reference. Shopify shows this on the order confirmation page.
5. Activate it, then place a test order to see exactly what a customer sees.

The steps follow Shopify's help page on manual payments, which also says plainly: "You aren't charged third-party transaction fees for manual payments."

The catch is the work, plus one risk. Each PayNow order arrives unpaid, so you find the transfer in your bank app by its order number, mark the order paid, and only then ship. And never ship on a screenshot. The Singapore Police Force reported a 2023 case built on forged PayNow screenshots and told sellers to confirm transfers in their own bank accounts. Checking by hand is fine at five orders a week. At fifty, the app's fees cost less than your evenings.

No. Shopify doesn't let Singapore stores add Stripe as a payment provider, because it hides Stripe in every country where Shopify Payments is available, and Singapore is one of them. Shopify staff say so on the Shopify Community forum, and Singapore merchants there report that the option simply isn't in their settings.

The odd part is that Shopify Payments is itself built on Stripe. Stripe does take PayNow, at 1.3% a payment, but on your own site, Payment Links and invoices, not inside Shopify. If you also sell outside Shopify, my guide to accepting PayNow with Stripe covers that. Some apps get round the block with a Stripe-powered checkout that sits outside Shopify's own, and I wouldn't build a store on one: your orders, discounts and stock all depend on the Shopify checkout.

On a phone, a customer can't scan a QR code on their own screen, so they save the QR image, open their banking app and upload it from their photos. Most Shopify shoppers in Singapore buy on their phones, so this is the step that loses orders. MAS and the Association of Banks describe the same save, switch and upload routine in their June 2026 announcement, and want a direct jump into the banking app ready within a year.

Until then, help people through it:

• Name the option so it says what happens, for example "PayNow (scan or upload QR)".
• Add one line to its checkout description: on a phone, save the QR and upload it in your bank app.
• Test with the apps your customers use, DBS, OCBC and UOB at least, on an iPhone and an Android phone.
• Keep cards, Apple Pay and Google Pay beside it, so a customer who gives up on the QR still has a way to pay.

Shopify charges its third-party transaction fee on PayNow payments made through an app such as HitPay: 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow, 0.6% on Advanced and 0.2% on Plus. It charges nothing on PayNow taken through a manual payment method. The fee sits on top of whatever the payment app charges, which is why a busy store on Grow pays noticeably less per PayNow order than the same store on Basic.

HitPay is a Singapore company licensed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore as a Major Payment Institution, a licence it received in 2024 that covers merchant acquisition and money transfers. You can confirm it in the MAS Financial Institutions Directory under HitPay Payment Solutions Pte Ltd. Its Shopify app has only a couple of reviews so far, so test it on your own store well before launch day.

Yes, and for most Singapore stores that's the set-up I'd use: Shopify Payments for cards, Apple Pay and Google Pay, and HitPay or a manual method for PayNow only. Shopify lets payment apps and manual methods sit beside Shopify Payments, and the customer picks at checkout. Keeping cards on Shopify Payments keeps the third-party fee off what is usually your biggest payment type.