Payment Gateway Website Requirements in India: Razorpay Checklist

Razorpay’s website requirements are short but strict: to get live payment keys, you need a live website (or app) with six pages linked in your dashboard: About us, Contact us, Pricing, Terms and conditions, Privacy policy and a Refunds policy, plus a sample invoice. Razorpay runs instant automated checks on the site, the policy pages and your business category.

Why payment gateways check your website before you go live

A payment gateway (strictly, a payment aggregator) collects money on your behalf and settles it to your bank. The RBI’s Master Direction on Regulation of Payment Aggregators, issued on 15 September 2025, requires it to carry out due diligence on every merchant, do a “background and antecedent check”, and monitor that later transactions match the merchant’s business profile. Merchants onboarded from 1 January 2026 must meet these checks from the start, and gateways had until 15 September 2026 to bring existing merchants up to the same standard.

Your website is the easiest evidence of that profile: what you sell, at what price, who runs the business and how refunds work. Razorpay’s merchant terms also require you to display your refund policy, “including the timelines for processing such returns, refunds or cancellations”, and your terms of use.

Razorpay’s business website details guide is clear: without website or app details you can’t get live API keys, so you can’t take payments on your site. You can still collect money with Invoices and Payment Links sent from the Razorpay dashboard while the site is being built.

Razorpay website requirements: the pages gateways expect to see

Razorpay’s website form asks for links to six pages, a sample invoice (PNG, JPG or PDF), and test login details if customers must log in to pay. Cashfree’s onboarding FAQ splits its list into mandatory and conditional items. Side by side, as of October 2026:

If a page fails Razorpay’s instant check, the form lets you re-enter the URL or create policy pages with Razorpay. Generated pages are a starting point, but edit them so they describe what you actually do.

What each page should say

• About us: who runs the business, what you sell and where you are based, using the same business or brand name you gave during KYC.
• Contact us: an email address, a phone number that someone answers, and a physical address. Razorpay’s own compliance guide (April 2026) says a PO box will not do and suggests listing your business hours.
• Pricing: real prices in rupees for your products, plans or courses. If you quote per project, show packages or starting prices. “DM for price” gives a reviewer nothing to check.
• Terms and conditions: what the customer is buying, delivery or access, cancellations and disputes. Razorpay’s guide says the terms should be reachable from the checkout page.
• Privacy policy: what personal data you collect, why, and who you share it with (your gateway, courier or email service).
• Refund and cancellation policy: when a refund is allowed and how many days it takes. Razorpay’s guide gives “refunds processed within 5-7 business days” as an example and says vague lines like “refunds at seller’s discretion” will trigger rejection. Under the RBI rules, refunds go back to the original payment method unless the customer asks for them to be credited to another account or method of their own.
• Shipping and delivery: for physical goods, delivery areas and timelines; for courses, downloads and services, how and when the customer gets access.

Domain, HTTPS and contact details: the technical must-haves

Neither Razorpay nor Cashfree strictly requires your own domain, but both want a live, public website whose details match your KYC, and your own domain is the simplest proof of a real, lasting business. Submit the URL you plan to keep: Razorpay reviews extra websites by hand, allows them only for e-commerce businesses (up to five), and asks for a reason of at least 50 words.

• Your own domain. For an Indian business, .in or .co.in is a natural fit. A .in domain at HostEthical costs ₹1,003 for the first year and the same to renew, and registering one now involves identity verification; see .in domain eKYC, compare .co.in and .in, or read how to buy a domain name.
• HTTPS on every page. Razorpay’s compliance guide lists TLS 1.2 or higher on all pages, and its webhook settings recommend an HTTPS URL. HostEthical hosting issues a free Let’s Encrypt certificate automatically once your domain points at the server. More in what an SSL certificate is and connecting a domain to hosting.
• A finished, public site. No “coming soon” page, maintenance mode, password-protected folder or placeholder text.
• Working links. Link every policy page from the footer, with no 404s or redirects to another domain.
• Consistent names. The name on the site, your sample invoice and your KYC should match. Razorpay’s guide says to show your legal name as registered, not just a brand name.
• A grievance contact. Razorpay’s guide also says to publish a grievance officer’s name, designation, email and phone number, typically on a grievance page.

Common reasons websites get rejected, and how to fix them

Gateways don’t publish a full list of rejection reasons, but most problems trace back to the requirements above:

On prohibited businesses, Razorpay’s terms and Cashfree’s FAQ both exclude dropshipped merchandise, gambling and betting, and cryptocurrency businesses. Razorpay also excludes anything its partner or acquiring bank considers “detrimental to the image and interests” of the bank. A business that neither list names, such as the panels in our SMM panel guide, is not guaranteed approval: the bank’s “detrimental” clause and the gateway’s own due diligence still apply.

Don’t describe your business as something else to get approved: the gateway must check that your transactions match your profile, and Cashfree warns that accounts found non-compliant later may be deactivated.

Can you get a payment gateway without GST?

Yes, with both Razorpay and Cashfree, going by their own documentation as of October 2026.

• Razorpay asks at sign-up whether you are registered or unregistered. Its KYC list covers individuals and unregistered businesses (such as freelancers and influencers), who verify with a personal PAN, address proof from CKYC, DigiLocker or Aadhaar, and bank details. Registered businesses need a GST or Udyam (MSME) certificate plus one more document, and the form has an “I don’t have a GSTIN” option.
• Cashfree answers “Is GSTIN mandatory for account activation?” with “No”, and tells unregistered businesses to sign up as an Individual.

Expect some limits. PhonePe’s guide to gateways without GST (updated June 2026) says unregistered accounts often have lower monthly limits until more business proof is provided, and that many gateways lock international payments until a GST number and current account are added.

Whether you must register for GST depends on your turnover and what you sell, which is a question for a chartered accountant. Either way, make your sample invoice match your real status: don’t show a GSTIN you don’t have.

A free UPI QR on your site vs a real payment gateway

Some small sellers skip the gateway and show a UPI QR code at checkout. It works, and it is cheap: NPCI’s MDR FAQ dated 15 September 2026 keeps zero MDR for small merchants receiving up to ₹1 lakh a month through UPI QR into their own accounts (the “P2PM” category), with no GST registration needed. Above ₹1 lakh a month for three months in a row, you move to the regular merchant category.

Connecting the gateway once you are approved

WordPress and WooCommerce

Razorpay’s WooCommerce plugin lists minimum requirements of WordPress 3.9.2, WooCommerce 4.0 and PHP 7.0 with php-cURL; there is also a native WordPress plugin without WooCommerce.

Start in test mode, which moves no real money and uses separate API keys, and run complete orders before switching to live keys. On HostEthical you can copy the site to a staging site, test checkout there, then publish back to live with an automatic backup first. See WordPress hosting in India.

Check order emails too. HostEthical servers don’t send mail directly and outgoing SMTP ports are blocked, so WooCommerce emails need a mailer plugin, such as WP Mail SMTP or FluentSMTP, set to an email service’s API. See WordPress not sending email.

Custom PHP or Laravel sites

• Create orders and verify payments on your server. Razorpay’s PHP integration steps create the order with a server-side API call and check the payment signature before marking an order paid. Never trust the browser’s “success” message alone.
• Webhooks. Razorpay sends webhooks only to public URLs on port 80 or 443, and recommends HTTPS and a webhook secret. Failed deliveries are retried for 24 hours, then the webhook is disabled until you turn it back on.
• Reconcile. If a webhook hasn’t arrived, Razorpay’s docs suggest fetching the status from its API. A cron job (on HostEthical hosting, at most every 5 minutes) can check pending orders this way.
• Never store card details. Razorpay’s terms forbid keeping customers’ payment-instrument data, and the RBI direction says card credentials must not be stored on servers the merchant can access.
• Keep keys out of your code. Put the API secret and webhook secret in a config file on the server, not in your Git repository.

Fees in 2026: what to check before you choose

Fees change often, so treat this as a snapshot from October 2026.

• Razorpay’s standard rate. Its pricing page lists a 2% platform fee plus GST per successful payment on most domestic methods, UPI included (slightly more, 2.15%, on some cards such as corporate credit cards), with no setup or annual fee.
• The new UPI MDR. NPCI’s FAQ introduces a 0.4% MDR on most person-to-merchant UPI payments above ₹2,000 from 15 October 2026, capped at ₹300 for payments of ₹75,000 and above. Some categories pay less (a flat ₹5 for railways, telecom, insurance, fuel and utility bills; 0.02% for capital-market payments), and UPI AutoPay mandates carry no MDR. Payments up to ₹2,000 carry no MDR, and merchants cannot pass the charge on. Gateway pricing pages may not reflect this yet, so ask yours how UPI will be billed.
• Settlement. Razorpay’s settlement docs give T+2 working days as standard for domestic payments, while its pricing page says “typically T+1 or Instant”. Your dashboard shows your actual cycle.
• Comparing gateways. Cashfree, PayU and others publish their own rates. Compare the cost on your typical order size, and see what a website costs in India for the rest of your budget.

Final checklist before you submit

1. A domain registered in your own name, with the site live on it over HTTPS.
2. Real products or services, with descriptions and prices in rupees.
3. About us, Contact us, Pricing, Terms and conditions, Privacy policy and Refund/cancellation pages, plus a Shipping and delivery page if you sell physical goods. Link them all from the footer and test every URL.
4. Contact details: email, phone, physical address and a grievance contact.
5. The same business name on the site, the sample invoice and your KYC.
6. A sample invoice saved as PDF, PNG or JPG.
7. Test login details ready if checkout needs an account.
8. A check that your business is not on the gateway’s prohibited list.
9. Test-mode orders completed on a staging copy, with order emails arriving.
10. A fresh backup before you switch to live keys.

New to running a site? Start with how to host a website, then come back to this list.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need a website to get a Razorpay account?

You can sign up and collect money with Razorpay Invoices and Payment Links from the dashboard without a website. To get live API keys and take payments on your own site, Razorpay needs live website or app details, with links to About us, Contact us, Pricing, Terms and conditions, Privacy policy and Refunds policy pages, plus a sample invoice.

Can I get a payment gateway without GST registration?

Yes. As of October 2026, Razorpay lets individuals and unregistered businesses sign up with a personal PAN, address proof and bank details, and Cashfree says a GSTIN is not mandatory. Unregistered accounts often have lower limits, and whether you must register for GST is a question for a chartered accountant.

Why was my website rejected by Razorpay?

The usual causes are an unfinished site, missing or broken policy pages, policies copied from another business, no visible prices, missing contact details, a name that doesn't match your KYC, or a business category the gateway doesn't support. Fix the pages, then re-check the URLs from your Razorpay dashboard.

Is there a free UPI payment gateway for websites?

Not a real one. A UPI QR code on your site has zero MDR for small merchants in NPCI's P2PM category (up to ₹1 lakh a month), but you match each payment to an order by hand, and scripts that read payment-app notifications are best avoided. Gateways such as Razorpay charge a fee on each successful payment.