If your website is going to take M-Pesa, one of the first questions is which kind of number to get: a Paybill or a Till (Lipa na M-Pesa Buy Goods). Both can take payments on a website. They differ in how a payment tells you what it is for, who pays the charges and how the money reaches your bank. SiteBoma took its own Paybill, 1393006, live on 29 October 2026, and every invoice on this site can now be paid to it. This guide sets out the differences that matter for a website, using Safaricom's own published terms and what we saw when we went live.
The short answer
| Paybill | Till (Buy Goods) | |
|---|---|---|
| Account number on each payment | Yes, the customer types one | No |
| Payment prompt on the customer's phone (STK Push) | Yes | Yes |
| Payments from the M-Pesa menu reported to your website (C2B) | Yes | Yes |
| Matching a menu payment to the right invoice | Automatic, by account number | By hand, from amount, phone and time |
| Charge when a customer pays | Set by the tariff the business signs: the customer pays it, the business pays it, or they share it | Free for the customer (fuel stations excepted). The business pays nothing up to KSh 500, then 0.55%, capped at KSh 200 |
| Best for | Invoices, subscriptions, school fees, anything billed to a named account | Shops where the customer pays at checkout and the website starts the payment |
The difference that matters online: the account number
When someone pays a Paybill from the M-Pesa menu, they enter two things: the business number and an account number. Your website decides what the account number means. On SiteBoma it is the invoice number, so a customer who pays 1393006 with account INV-1234 has told our system exactly which bill to mark as paid. When Safaricom reports the payment to our server, the invoice is settled on its own, with nobody checking a statement.
A Till payment from the M-Pesa menu has no account field. The customer enters the Till number and the amount, and that is all. Your website learns that someone paid a certain amount from a certain phone at a certain time, and has to work out the rest. With a handful of orders a day that is manageable. With dozens, or with two customers paying the same amount within minutes, it turns into a job somebody has to do by hand.
The gap closes when your website starts the payment itself. With STK Push (Safaricom calls it M-Pesa Express), the customer types their phone number on your checkout page and gets a prompt on their phone asking for their M-Pesa PIN. Because your website sent the request, it already knows which order the payment belongs to, whether the number is a Paybill or a Till. That is why a Till is fine for a shop where every payment starts at checkout, and a Paybill is the better fit when customers pay later, from the menu, against a bill.
What each one costs
Till (Buy Goods). Paying a Till costs the customer nothing, except at fuel stations. The business pays to receive, according to Safaricom's charges page (last updated 4 August 2026):
| Payment (KSh) | Customer pays | Business pays |
|---|---|---|
| 0 to 500 | 0 | 0 |
| 501 to 36,363 | 0 | 0.55% |
| Above 36,363 | 0 | KSh 200 |
The free band used to end at KSh 200. Safaricom raised it to KSh 500 in August 2026, so some older guides, and even some of Safaricom's own older pages, still show the lower figure. On a KSh 2,000 order the business pays KSh 11.
Paybill. When a Paybill is opened, the business signs a tariff guide that decides who carries the charge on each payment. Safaricom offers three options:
- Business Bouquet: the customer pays the charge, and the business pays nothing.
- Customer Bouquet: the business pays the charge, and the customer pays nothing.
- Mgao: the charge is split between the two.
The names catch people out: Business Bouquet is the one where the customer pays. The amounts for each band are in Safaricom's Paybill tariff document. Read them there rather than on third party sites, which quote figures that do not agree with each other.
For a website this choice is visible. A customer paying a Till never sees a fee. A customer paying a Paybill on Business Bouquet sees one on top of your price, which is worth knowing if your buyers compare checkouts.
How the money reaches your bank
Paybill. Customer payments land in the Paybill's Utility account. Before the money can go to your bank it is moved to the Working account by a revenue settlement in Safaricom's M-Pesa Organisation Portal, which also clears any charges due. Withdrawals then go to the bank account named when the Paybill was opened. Safaricom's Paybill guide says a withdrawal made in the portal must be above KSh 5,000, and a scheduled withdrawal can be set from the phone through *234#.
Till. Safaricom lists three ways out of a Business Till: to the owner's nominated M-Pesa number, to the bank, or as cash at an M-Pesa agent. Sending from the Till to a phone number or to a Paybill carries a charge, shown on the same charges page.
We could not find a published charge for moving money from either one to a bank, so ask Safaricom's M-Pesa business team before you build your cash flow around it.
What you need to apply
Safaricom's Lipa na M-Pesa requirements (2026 edition) set out the documents by type of applicant:
- An individual with no registered business can get a Till only, with the signed application form and an ID. A KRA PIN and a bank statement or cancelled cheque are needed only if the money is to be settled to a bank.
- A sole proprietor adds a business registration certificate or a business permit.
- A limited company provides its certificate of incorporation, a CR12 less than 90 days old, the company KRA PIN, the KRA PINs of its directors and shareholders, a beneficial ownership form and bank details.
- A Paybill also needs the signed tariff guide described above.
One line in the requirements matters for anyone selling online: e-commerce businesses must provide a company profile and an active website or link. Put your site up first, even as a single page with your products and contacts, then apply. Safaricom says an individual Till is processed within 10 minutes and other categories within 24 hours.
Connecting it to a website
Either number connects to a website through Safaricom's developer platform, Daraja. Two products cover what a website needs:
- Lipa na M-Pesa (STK Push and STK Push Query): your site asks Safaricom to send the PIN prompt, then asks again to confirm it was paid. Credit an order only after that confirmation, never on the customer's word or a screenshot.
- C2B: Safaricom calls your website each time someone pays from the M-Pesa menu. On a Paybill the call carries the account number the customer typed.
Three things caught our attention when we connected ours:
- Payment links must use HTTPS on your own domain, and Daraja rejects addresses that contain certain words, among them "mpesa", "safaricom" and "query". A callback at /api/mpesa-callback is refused, so name it something neutral.
- In production, C2B addresses are registered once. Changing them later means a request through the Daraja portal, so decide the addresses before you register them.
- Test with real money before you announce it. We sent a KSh 1 prompt to our own phone, paid it, and watched the confirmation reach our server about 12 seconds later. Then we paid from the M-Pesa menu with a test account number, to check that a payment with no matching invoice is held for a person to look at instead of being lost.
Our step by step account of the go-live itself is in How to Go Live on Safaricom Daraja.
Why we chose a Paybill
SiteBoma sends invoices: hosting renewals, domains, email plans. Customers pay them when it suits them, which can be days after the invoice arrives, and not always from a checkout page. A Till would have meant reading every menu payment and deciding by hand which invoice it was for. With a Paybill the invoice number travels with the money, the right invoice is marked paid within seconds, and a payment that matches nothing waits in a queue for us instead of disappearing into a total.
If your business works the other way round, with customers paying at the moment they order, a Till with STK Push at checkout does the same job.
Questions we get asked
Which is cheaper for my customers?
A Till, because paying one is free for the customer. On a Paybill it depends on the tariff the business signed, and on Business Bouquet the customer pays the charge.
Can a business have both?
Yes. Some keep a Till for counter sales and a Paybill for invoices. Daraja's Go Live form takes one short code at a time, so each number goes through it separately.
Does STK Push cost extra?
Going live on Daraja cost us nothing. The normal charge for your Paybill or Till applies to each payment, the same as a payment made from the menu.
What if a customer types the wrong account number on a Paybill?
The money still arrives; your website decides what happens next. Ours holds any payment whose account number does not match an unpaid invoice and alerts us, so a person matches it and the customer is not left waiting.
Can my website confirm a Till payment automatically?
Yes, when the website starts the payment with STK Push, because it knows which order it asked for. A payment made from the M-Pesa menu to a Till reaches your website without an account number, so it has to be matched another way.
Want it set up for you?
If you already have a Paybill or Till and an integration, SiteBoma can take it live on Daraja with you for a one-time $38.46: the Go Live form, the right products, production keys on your server, callback addresses Safaricom accepts and a live KSh 1 test. Order the Daraja Go-Live package. Starting from nothing? See our M-Pesa integration service, or read how M-Pesa integration works.