Accepting Online Payments on Your Website in Georgia

You sign a merchant (e-commerce) agreement with the bank and connect its checkout to your site. TBC’s e-commerce product offers an API plus ready plugins for WooCommerce, CS-Cart and some local platforms, according to the TBC Checkout documentation. Bank of Georgia offers its own payments API and plugin partners for WooCommerce and CS-Cart, including online installments.

Best for: businesses with steady volume that want the bank’s rate and direct support, and that bank with that institution already.

Aggregators connect several methods through one contract and one plugin. For example, the Quickpay.ge plugin for WooCommerce lists card payments and installments from Bank of Georgia and TBC, plus Credo installments, Liberty Bank cards, Keepz, Flitt, UniPay and PayPal (USD/EUR) – which ones you get depends on the subscriptions active on your account.

Best for: shops that want installments from more than one bank, or several methods without signing several contracts.

Global platforms like Stripe have historically not onboarded Georgian-registered businesses, so check current availability before you design around one. PayPal works for receiving USD or EUR, but it is rarely what a Georgian customer expects at checkout. For local buyers, a Georgian bank card form is the default.

Before going live, banks review the site. TBC lists required information such as terms and conditions, a return policy, a privacy policy, a delivery policy and contact details including a physical or legal address. Bank of Georgia and aggregators ask for similar pages. Missing pages are the most common reason a launch slips by a week, whichever route you choose to accept online payments in Georgia.

• Terms and conditions – who sells, what, at what price, in which currency (GEL).
• Returns and refunds – Georgian consumer law gives buyers in distance sales a withdrawal right; state the period and how refunds reach the card.
• Privacy policy – what personal data you collect and why.
• Delivery policy – areas, timing, cost.
• Contacts – company name, identification code, legal address, phone, email.
• Clear prices on every product or service, and visible card logos at checkout.

Whichever provider you pick, every setup used to accept online payments in Georgia follows the same basic pattern. Understanding the flow helps you avoid the classic bug: an order marked paid when it wasn’t, or a paid order that stayed “pending”.

1. The customer clicks Pay. Your site creates an order and asks the bank’s API for a payment session.
2. The customer is redirected to the bank’s hosted page and enters card details there (with 3-D Secure confirmation in their banking app).
3. The bank redirects the customer back to your “thank you” URL.
4. Separately, the bank sends a server-to-server callback with the real status. Only this callback should mark the order as paid.
5. Your site sends the receipt email and, if you use a CRM, creates or updates the deal.

Step 4 is where cheap integrations cut corners. If your plugin trusts the redirect alone, a customer who closes the tab at the wrong moment leaves you with a paid order your system never recorded – or worse, the reverse.

1. Week 1: apply for a merchant agreement and publish the legal pages. Ask the bank about commission, settlement time and installment terms – rates are negotiated, so compare written offers.
2. Week 1–2: install the plugin or build the API integration in test mode; run successful, declined and refunded test payments.
3. Week 2: the bank reviews your site and issues production credentials.
4. Launch day: make one real small payment and refund it, check the callback marked the order correctly, and confirm the money appears in the next settlement.

If you are starting a store from scratch, our online store launch checklist covers everything around payments, and the WordPress vs Wix vs Shopify comparison explains why platform choice matters for Georgian banks: WooCommerce has the widest local plugin support.

There is no single price list, because commissions are negotiated per merchant. When you compare offers to accept online payments in Georgia, put these lines side by side:

• Transaction commission – a percentage per successful payment, often different for local and foreign cards.
• Fixed fees – monthly or setup fees, more common with aggregators.
• Installment cost – who pays the interest or merchant fee on installment sales.
• Settlement time – how many days until money reaches your account. Cash flow matters as much as the rate.
• Refund and chargeback handling – fees and the process when a customer disputes a payment.
• Development – a ready plugin on WooCommerce is cheap to install; a custom site or app needs API work and testing.

• Trusting the redirect instead of the server callback when marking orders paid.
• Prices without currency or mixed GEL and USD on one page – banks and buyers both dislike it.
• No refund path in the admin, so every refund becomes a bank phone call.
• Checkout only in English on a site whose customers are local – translate buttons, errors and emails.
• Never testing on mobile, where most Georgian buyers pay and where 3-D Secure switches to the banking app and back.

Once you accept online payments in Georgia reliably, the next gains come from the details around the checkout:

• Installments raise average order value for electronics, furniture and courses. Show the monthly amount on the product page, not only at checkout.
• Payment links sent in WhatsApp or Instagram DMs let service businesses take deposits without a full shop. They pair well with a WhatsApp chatbot.
• Saved cards and recurring payments for subscriptions, where the bank supports them.
• CRM sync so every payment updates the customer record automatically – see how to connect your website to a CRM.

Choosing the right setup to accept online payments in Georgia is less about the technology and more about matching your volume, your bank and your customers’ habits. If you want it done properly – contract checklist, plugin or API, callbacks, CRM and receipts – send us your project and we’ll recommend the simplest option that fits.