Payment declined
PayFast not working on your WooCommerce store?
We'll connect and set up PayFast on your store, so payments go through and orders are marked paid, every time.
Does this look familiar?
Orders
| Order | Date | Status | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| #1042 Thandi M. | Today | Pending payment | R1 250.00 |
| #1041 Johan V. | Today | Pending payment | R489.00 |
| #1040 Aisha K. | Yesterday | Pending payment | R2 100.00 |
The customers paid. WooCommerce never found out.
The kind of message a customer sees on the payment screen when the passphrase or merchant details don't match.
Signs you’ve got this bug
- Customers pay, but orders stay on Pending payment or go to Cancelled.
- Customers see signature mismatch or invalid merchant errors on the payment page.
- Customers are charged twice because they thought the first payment failed.
- PayFast is still in sandbox (test) mode, so no real money comes in.
- Stock isn’t reduced and order emails don’t go out after payment.
Why it happens
Most PayFast problems come down to a handful of settings and one hidden step: the ITN (Instant Transaction Notification). That’s the message PayFast sends back to your store to say “this order is paid”. If your store never receives it, the order stays on Pending payment even though the money arrived.
The ITN gets blocked by security plugins, firewalls, caching, a broken SSL certificate or an outdated plugin. Signature errors usually mean the passphrase in WooCommerce doesn’t match the one in your PayFast account, or the merchant ID and key are wrong. PayFast also only accepts South African Rand, so a store set to another currency fails.
How we fix it
- Check your PayFast account and WooCommerce settingsMerchant ID, merchant key, passphrase, live vs sandbox mode, and currency.
- Make sure payment notifications get throughWe test the ITN end to end and fix whatever is blocking it: firewall, security plugin, caching or SSL.
- Run real test paymentsWe place test orders and check they arrive as Processing, with stock reduced and emails sent.
- Tidy up stuck ordersWe help you match past Pending payment orders against your PayFast transactions.
Questions
Why do my PayFast orders stay on Pending payment?
Usually because the ITN (PayFast’s payment notification) isn’t reaching your store. The payment went through, but WooCommerce was never told. A security plugin, firewall, caching or SSL problem is the usual cause.
What does “signature does not match” mean?
The details your store sends to PayFast don’t match your PayFast account, most often the passphrase. It needs to be identical in both places.
Can you set up PayFast on a new store from scratch?
Yes. We connect your PayFast account, configure the gateway and test real payments before you go live.
Let’s get it sorted
Tell us what’s happening. A screenshot of the error helps. We’ll tell you what’s wrong and how we’ll fix it.