PayGate.to review: fees, how it works, and what to check

PayGate.to is a payment gateway for card and crypto payments. Buyers pay through third-party card providers, and the merchant gets paid in crypto at their own wallet. There's no merchant account or sign-up. You paste a wallet into a plugin, or call its API with a wallet and a callback URL.

It's a capable product with a wide reach. What you pay depends on which route the buyer picks: PayGate's live provider list shows 2%, 3% or 5% plus the provider's own fee. In practice, our estimate of PayGate's average take is about 3.5% of payment value, based on public blockchain data. Caravel Pay charges 2% flat. This review explains how PayGate works, what it costs per route, how we arrived at that estimate, where PayGate is strong, and what to check before you depend on it.

PayGate.to at a glance#

How PayGate.to works#

The card product is a hosted redirect to a third-party on-ramp: a provider that sells crypto to the buyer by card and delivers it on the merchant's behalf.

1. You set a payout wallet. In the plugins this is the one required field. Over the API you request a forwarding wallet for your address and a unique callback URL. The docs say the API needs no account or keys.
2. The buyer is sent to a payment page. On the hosted multi-provider page, the buyer chooses from provider tiles. These are filtered by the buyer's country (passed in a PGTO-IPCountry header) and by each provider's minimum order.
3. The provider takes the card payment and delivers crypto to a per-order deposit address. PayGate's card page says the buyer "may be asked to perform instant ID verification (KYC) during checkout at the first time using this method", and that cards must be 3-D Secure.
4. PayGate forwards the payment to your wallet minus its fee, and sends a GET request to your callback URL.

The callback is signed with RSA. PayGate's API docs say verifying that signature "is optional — nothing changes for integrations that ignore it". If you build on the API yourself, verify it anyway: it is the only proof that a callback really came from PayGate.

What PayGate.to charges#

PayGate quotes its card fee in three places, and they don't match:

• Card product page: "Fees 1% + Provider fees".
• FAQ: "PayGate.to's own fee is less than 1%; the rest is charged by the licensed payment provider".
• Live provider list (api.paygate.to/control/provider-status/): a fee for each route, from 2% to 5% plus the provider's fee.

The API docs ask integrators to show the fees field "as it is returned", so the live list is the number to go by. On 9 November 2026 it showed:

The routes most buyers recognise, a plain card form, Apple Pay and Google Pay, are the 5% ones. Which tiles a buyer sees depends on their country and the order amount.

What "+ Provider" means#

The provider's fee is the on-ramp's own charge for selling the crypto: a processing percentage, often a spread in the exchange rate, sometimes a minimum fee. It is set by the provider, not by PayGate, and varies by method, currency and amount. Our guide to on-ramp fees lists published tariffs.

PayGate's card page says "You can control who will handle the payment fees the customer or you the merchant". So whether the buyer pays the provider fee on top, or it comes out of what reaches you, depends on your setup. In the WooCommerce plugin, the Fees Tolerance setting (default 40%) decides how far below the order total a payment may arrive before the order is marked failed. PayGate's guide explains that "Providers charge different fees, so a margin avoids failing honest orders".

Worked example: a $100 order#

If you absorb the provider's fee, here's what different routes leave you. To keep it simple, assume the provider's fee takes $4 and $96.00 reaches PayGate. That $4 is an illustration only; real provider fees vary.

If you pass the provider fee to the buyer instead, only PayGate's fee comes off your side, and the buyer pays more at checkout.

What PayGate takes in practice: our estimate#

The published tiers are only part of the picture. Based on public blockchain data, our estimate of PayGate's average take is about 3.5% of payment value, measured on what reaches PayGate after the card provider's fee. Caravel Pay takes 2% flat.

Two things make up the gap over the 2% base fee:

• Extra 1% and 3% fee transfers on some payments. They line up with the routes PayGate lists at 3% and 5%.
• A separate network-cost amount held back before the 98/2 split. Over the period we looked at, it came to around 0.9% of volume.

Month by month, the figure ranged from about 3.3% to 4.2%, and averaged about 3.5–3.7%. It moves with the mix of routes buyers choose.

You can check your own payments. Look up a payout on Polygonscan and compare what arrived in your wallet with what the buyer paid. The card provider's fee is part of that gap too.

How payouts work (and why there's nothing to withdraw)#

Payouts are pushed to the wallet you set, per order, as soon as the provider delivers. People search "how to withdraw from PayGate.to", but there is no PayGate balance: the money is already in your wallet, and moving it to a bank is up to your wallet or exchange.

The payout asset can vary. PayGate's card page says "Payouts maybe sent in ETH or USDC or USDT (Polygon or BEP-20) or POL native token. Same wallet should work to receive all." If you reconcile in dollars, plan for more than one token, and possibly two networks.

PayGate's WooCommerce guide also says never to use an exchange deposit address, because "exchanges can freeze or lose payouts sent to deposit addresses". That's sound advice for any gateway that pays out on-chain. See choosing a payout wallet.

Where PayGate.to is strong#

• Platform coverage. Eight store and billing platforms, each with a card module and a crypto module, plus PHP and Node SDKs and payment links. WHMCS, FOSSBilling and Paymenter are unusual to find supported at all.
• Many routes. 21 card routes, including US options such as Cash App, Venmo and Robinhood, and Interac in Canada.
• Crypto in. Buyers can pay with any of 111 coins and tokens across more than 20 networks.
• Currencies. The payment-link tool takes USD, EUR, CAD, INR, GBP or SEK.
• Setup. The WooCommerce guide says "About 10 minutes" with "no sign up, no account, no API keys". The card plugin is on WordPress.org with 2,000+ active installs, was added in May 2024 and was last updated on 5 November 2026.
• White-label and affiliates. Custom domains and affiliate splits are built in.

What to check before you rely on it#

1. Your real fee per route. Read the live provider list, not the "1%" headline, and work out what you keep on the routes your buyers actually use.
2. Amount tolerance. With the default 40% Fees Tolerance, a payment can arrive 40% short and the order still completes. Tighten it if your margins can't take that.
3. Callback verification. If you use the API, verify the RSA signature. It is optional on PayGate's side.
4. Testing. There's no test mode. Test with small real payments above the provider minimum.
5. Bookkeeping. Payouts can arrive in several tokens and on two networks. Record each one with its transaction hash.
6. Who you're dealing with. The terms choose Icelandic law and reserve the right "to terminate or restrict access to our Service without prior notice". Support is through Telegram. The sitemap and canonical tags now point to a second domain, withoutkyc.to. We didn't find a company name or registration number on the pages we checked.

Is PayGate.to legit?#

We can only say what's public. PayGate.to publishes open-source plugins and SDKs, a documented API and a live fee list, and its main WordPress.org plugin is actively maintained and has a few thousand installs. On the other side: the fee headline doesn't match the live list, nothing names the operating company, and support is chat-only. Whether that is enough depends on how much volume you'd run through it. Start small, read the fee list, and check every payout on-chain.

An alternative: Caravel Pay#

Caravel Pay is a newer gateway, not yet launched, built for merchants who want one card fee they can predict.

• Pricing. 2% Caravel fee, on every method. The buyer pays the card provider's fee on top; it's shown before they pay, and we take no cut of it.
• Example. On a $100 order, the buyer pays $100 plus the provider's fee, and you receive 98.00 USDC.
• Payouts. Card payments arrive as USDC on Polygon, never swapped.
• Webhooks. Signed, and verified by the plugin on every call.
• No KYC for your business. No documents and no account. Buyers may be asked by the card provider to verify their identity, usually only the first time.
• No chargebacks. Payouts are final on-chain transfers; a card dispute stays between the buyer, their bank and the card provider. Refunds are up to you.

PayGate covers more platforms and takes crypto in many more coins. Our PayGate.to alternative comparison sets the two side by side, including where PayGate is the better fit.

Sources#

1. PayGate.to live provider list (routes, fees, minimums), checked 2026-11-09.
2. PayGate.to card payment gateway page ("1% + Provider fees", payout tokens, buyer ID checks, who pays fees, platforms), checked 2026-11-09.
3. PayGate.to FAQ ("less than 1%", chargebacks handled by providers), checked 2026-11-09.
4. PayGate.to WooCommerce guide (setup time, Fees Tolerance, exchange addresses), checked 2026-11-09.
5. PayGate.to API docs index (no account or keys, Telegram support), checked 2026-11-09.
6. PayGate.to card API docs (callback signature optional, PGTO-IPCountry), checked 2026-11-09.
7. PayGate.to Easy Digital Downloads guide (no test mode), checked 2026-11-09.
8. PayGate.to payment link generator (currencies), checked 2026-11-09.
9. PayGate.to coin list (111 entries), checked 2026-11-09.
10. PayGate.to terms (governing law, termination), checked 2026-11-09.
11. PayGate.to sitemap (canonical host withoutkyc.to), checked 2026-11-09.
12. "Instant Approval Payment Gateway with Instant Payouts" on WordPress.org (version 1.4.8, 2,000+ installs, added 2024-05-08, updated 2026-11-05), checked 2026-11-09.
13. Caravel Pay estimate from public Polygon and Ethereum transfers to PayGate's fee-collecting wallets, July–September 2026 (method in How we estimated this). Not audited, and not confirmed by PayGate.
14. Caravel Pay docs: Payouts and fees.