"What will this actually cost me?" is the right first question. Fortpesa publishes the complete fee schedule — no sales call required — and every transaction shows the exact fee charged. This post explains how to read the schedule and what it means in practice.
The short version
- Fees are flat per amount band, not percentages. A KES 2,000 payment costs the same fee whether your margin is 5% or 50%.
- The lowest band is free (KES 0.01 – 9.99), then a flat KES 3 from KES 10 up to KES 49.99.
- From KES 50 the fee steps up gradually — KES 5, 6, 7, 8 — and grows slowly from there. The full table lives on the pricing page.
Why flat bands beat percentages
Percentage pricing punishes high-ticket sales exactly when your margin matters most: a 1.9% fee on a KES 50,000 order is KES 950 of pure margin gone. Flat bands scale much slower than a percentage does.
Concretely, using the published schedule:
| Amount (KES) | Platform fee |
|---|---|
| 5 | Free |
| 30 | KES 3 |
| 75 | KES 5 |
| 150 | KES 6 |
| 450 | KES 8 |
| 900 | KES 12 |
| 2,500 | KES 22 |
| 7,500 | KES 45 |
Run your own typical order values through the full schedule — it is the same table your dashboard uses, and the same number printed on each receipt.
The fee is visible before you charge it
When you initiate a collection, Fortpesa quotes the fee up front and reserves it from your prepaid wallet. After settlement you see a single line — platform fee — on the transaction and in your statement. There is no month-end reconciliation puzzle: the number you were quoted is the number you are charged.
A useful habit: check the fee on your first transaction of each new amount band. It builds instant trust in the schedule, and it takes five seconds from the transaction detail page.
What you are paid is what the customer paid (minus the fee)
The customer pays your full amount on M-Pesa — money goes directly to your M-Pesa account — while the platform fee is settled from your prepaid Fortpesa wallet. So your pricing can simply be "KES X, fee included" or "KES X + fee", whichever your customers understand best. Most merchants fold the fee into their sticker price and never mention it.
Volume, invoices and receipts
Every receipt and statement line item carries the fee, which makes your own bookkeeping painless: your accountant sees revenue and cost per transaction without a second system. Need to show customers the schedule? The pricing page is public — link it directly.
Common mistakes to avoid
- Guessing fees from a competitor's percentage. Band pricing does not convert cleanly to a percentage — check the table for your actual amounts.
- Forgetting small payments are free. The KES 0.01 – 9.99 band has no fee — useful for tests, micropayments and verifying a channel end to end.
- Comparing fee to payout timing. Fees follow the schedule; settlement speed follows M-Pesa. They are unrelated questions.
Next steps
- See the full fee schedule.
- New to collecting? How to accept M-Pesa payments on your website.
- Developers can see fees computed per call in the API quickstart — every response carries the platform fee alongside the amount.
