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India now has the highest number of WhatsApp users, more than most countries across the globe. For a lot of small and mid-sized sellers, the app isn't a side channel anymore, but has transitioned into a storefront, the support desk, and increasingly, the checkout counter too.
For years, chat commerce meant a customer messaging you, then getting redirected to a website to actually pay. Every redirect was a chance for them to drop off; you might not even know the reason behind it. Now, with WhatsApp Business API payments, the entire loop, starting from browse to ask, decide, and payment, can be completed without the customer ever leaving the thread.
So which gateways actually make this work well, and what should a D2C brand weigh before picking one? Here's a practical look.
Top Payment Gateways for WhatsApp Commerce In India
| Gateway | Checkout stays inside chat | BSP setup needed to start | E-commerce plugins (Shopify/WooCommerce) | Where it fits best |
| Cashfree Payments | Yes with interactive card | No as it happens via Cashfree's own WABA | Yes, native | D2C brands wanting checkout without leaving the chat |
| Razorpay | No, link opens outside WhatsApp | Yes, for the automated bot flow | Via App Store add-ons | Sellers already on Razorpay for their website |
| Zoho Payments | No, link shared manually | Not applicable (manual sharing) | Through Zoho ecosystem apps | Businesses running invoicing on Zoho already |
| PhonePe PG | No, link opens outside WhatsApp | Yes, via third-party connector | Yes, native (for web/app, not WhatsApp) | Sellers wanting brand familiarity from UPI users |
Cashfree
Cashfree's WhatsApp setup is built around three pieces working together
- Payment links
- UPI Intent
- Direct WhatsApp Business API integration.
What that means in practice is that a customer can get an interactive payment card inside the chat, not a link that bounces them to a browser, tap pay, choose UPI or a card, and confirm without switching apps.
There are two ways to execute this process;
- Merchants can send payment links from Cashfree's own WhatsApp Business Account.
- Merchants can route it through their own WABA if they want their brand name showing as the sender.
For a founder who just wants to start collecting payments on WhatsApp this week, that first option removes a genuine bottleneck; most other setups assume you already have a BSP relationship sorted.
On the developer side, Cashfree's documentation leans into use-case based guides rather than a wall of API reference, and there's an AI integration assistant (Cashien) built specifically to help teams wire this up faster. For brands running Shopify or WooCommerce, the plugin layer means the WhatsApp payment flow doesn't require a parallel engineering project.
Razorpay
Razorpay's WhatsApp play is mature and well-documented among the other payment gateways for WhatsApp commerce today. Their system is largely built on payment links you can send to your customers through a WhatsApp bot on the Razorpay App Store, or via BSP partners for a more automated flow.
A merchant can text a simple command to generate a link, and payments received flow into the same dashboard and settlement cycle as every other channel.
It's a solid, no-fuss option, particularly for sellers who are already deep in the Razorpay ecosystem for their website checkout and want WhatsApp to be an extension of that, not a separate system to manage.
Zoho Payments
Zoho's approach is less WhatsApp-native and more like it works alongside WhatsApp. Payment links generated on Zoho Payments can be shared manually over WhatsApp, email, or a QR code, and the broader Zoho One ecosystem where you can cover billing, CRM, and FSM.
This means you can internally push WhatsApp notifications for invoices and payment reminders. This works well for businesses already anchored in Zoho for invoicing and operations, where WhatsApp is one distribution channel among several rather than the primary sales surface. However, Zoho Payments is not built for the interactive, in-chat checkout experience the way a dedicated WhatsApp Business API integration is built.
PhonePe PG
PhonePe's payment gateway supports link generation that can be shared over WhatsApp, SMS, or email. But if you want to connect your PhonePe merchant account with WhatsApp, you will need to use automation tools to connect the two platforms. As a result, you can send payment requests directly in chat. Given PhonePe's own reach as a UPI app, there's a certain familiarity advantage for customers who already trust the brand.
Where it currently falls short of a true conversational commerce setup is the native, in-app WhatsApp integration; most PhonePe-WhatsApp flows today run through a third-party connector rather than a first-party product built for it.
Core Features to Look for in WhatsApp Conversational Commerce Platforms
Picking a gateway for using WhatsApp to collect payments without redirecting to another platform isn't the same exercise as picking one for your website. A few things matter more here than they would elsewhere:
- In-chat Checkout: A link that opens a browser tab and takes the customers away from the main page is still a friction point. An interactive card the customer can pay from without leaving WhatsApp is a different conversion outcome entirely.
- UPI Intent Support: For Indian customers, being able to trigger their UPI app directly instead of typing a VPA or scanning a QR removes an extra step that quietly kills conversions.
- No Mandatory BSP Dependency: If a gateway requires you to first set up a Business Solution Provider relationship before you can send a single payment message, that's weeks added to your go-live timeline.
- Easy Reconciliation: WhatsApp payments still need to show up cleanly against orders, refunds, and settlements; otherwise your support team ends up doing manual matching during your busiest sales days.
- Multi-bank Routing: A chat checkout that fails silently is worse than a slow website checkout, because the customer has nowhere obvious to retry from and all they are left with is to leave the page and switch to another one.
Payment Gateway Automation Through WhatsApp
Follow these steps to integrate WhatsApp payment automation with Cashfree.
- A customer messages the business and asks about a product, confirms an order, or responds to a cart-abandonment nudge.
- The business or an already created automated flow triggers a Cashfree payment link, scoped to UPI only or all supported methods, based on the conversation.
- The customer receives it as an interactive card inside WhatsApp, not a redirect, with the merchant name and amount clearly shown.
- They tap Pay Now, pick UPI, card, net banking, or wallet, and confirm.
- Both sides get a receipt: the customer gets a transaction ID inside the chat, and the merchant sees it land in the dashboard in real time.
Choose whether payment links go out from Cashfree's WhatsApp Business Account or your own, decide which methods to allow, and connect it to your storefront if you are on Shopify or WooCommerce.
What makes this genuinely different from "sending a payment link over chat," which businesses have technically done for years, is that the entire transaction from trigger, pay, to confirm now happens inside a single WhatsApp thread instead of hopping between three surfaces.
Conclusion
Conversational commerce on WhatsApp is still early in India, which is exactly why the choice of gateway matters more right now than it will in two years. Once a customer base gets used to paying inside a chat with one provider, switching that habit later is harder than getting it right from the start.
For most growing D2C brands, the decision comes down to three questions;
- Does the checkout actually stay inside the chat?
- Does it work without a BSP contract slowing the launch?
- Does the payment infrastructure behind it hold up during a traffic spike?
Cashfree's combination of payment links, UPI Intent, and a direct WhatsApp Business API integration answers all three without requiring a business to bolt together separate tools to get there.