PayMongo Review

PayMongo is a Philippine online payments company, launched in June 2019 by Francis Plaza, Luis Sia and Jaime Hing III as the first Filipino-owned fintech to go through Y Combinator, and headquartered in Bonifacio Global City, Taguig. It lets a business accept cards, GCash, Maya, GrabPay, ShopeePay, QR Ph, direct online banking and BillEase pay-later through one account, via payment links, hosted checkout, e-commerce plugins, an API and a printed in-store QR Ph code. Stripe led its US$12 million Series A in 2020 and was among its seed investors, but Stripe is an investor, not the owner: PayMongo is independent and run since February 2023 by chief executive Jojo Malolos, who took over from an interim chief executive after the founders left during a 2022 leadership upheaval, and who says the company has been net-income positive since November 2025. Merchants sign PayMongo's own Terms of Use with PayMongo Philippines, Inc., a BSP-registered operator of payment systems, and PayMongo Payments, Inc., a BSP-supervised e-money issuer that runs the PayMongo Wallet payouts land in. As of September 2026 the published rates, all before 12% VAT, are 3.125% + ₱13.39 for domestic cards, 4.02% + ₱13.39 for international cards, 1.34% for QR Ph, 2.23% for GCash and 1.70% to 1.96% for other wallets, with no setup or monthly fee. The trade-offs are slow default payouts (weekly, with cards clearing in three banking days), no card terminal or Tap to Pay, and terms that let PayMongo suspend accounts without notice and withhold settlement over pending or anticipated chargebacks.

Estimated annual cost at three realistic processing volumes, using PayMongo’s published online rate plus monthly fees. Real costs vary with average transaction size, chargeback rate, and any negotiated terms.

What PayMongo is

PayMongo is a Philippine payments company built for businesses selling online. Francis Plaza, Luis Sia and Jaime Hing III launched it in June 2019 (seed-round coverage also names Edwin Lacierda among the founders), and it was the first Filipino-owned fintech to go through Y Combinator. Its seed investors included Founders Fund, Peter Thiel, Stripe and Tinder co-founder Justin Mateen. Stripe then led a US$12 million Series A in September 2020, and a US$31 million Series B in February 2022 brought total funding to just under US$46 million, according to TechCrunch. Stripe is an investor, not a parent company: PayMongo is independent and headquartered in Bonifacio Global City, Taguig.

The company has been through a hard reset. Plaza left the chief executive role at the end of November 2022, after a period of leave during which PayMongo's board investigated allegations against him, which he denied; co-founder Luis Sia also left. After an interim chief executive, Jojo Malolos, co-founder of GoTyme Bank and a former chief executive of Maya (formerly SmartMoney), became president and chief executive in February 2023, Rappler reported. In a July 2026 interview with BusinessWorld columnist RJ Ledesma, Malolos said the founders had resigned and the business was unprofitable and bleeding cash when he took over, and that at one point 13,000 of its 20,000 merchants had no transactions. He said the business tripled in 2025, reached positive EBITDA in November and has been net-income positive since. TechNode reported in September 2026 that PayMongo is targeting about four times last year's revenue in 2026, with active monthly merchants approaching 11,000.

PayMongo's scale figures vary by page, so treat them with care. Its Philippine product page claims 10,000+ businesses. Its international site says it is built on 'the platform behind 350,000+ businesses and $18B+ in payments in the Philippines'. Its mid-2026 data report counted nearly 10 million completed transactions in the first half of 2026, up 89% year on year, with QR Ph at 55% of payment volume and cards at 19%. The gap between 350,000 and about 11,000 active monthly merchants is most likely registered accounts against active ones, but PayMongo does not say.

How the model works

PayMongo is a payment facilitator. A business signs up online, accepts PayMongo's own Terms of Use and starts on QR Ph, then requests each further method, and PayMongo and its partners review each request. The contracting entities are PayMongo Philippines, Inc., which is on the BSP's register of operators of payment systems (OPSCOR-2020-0067, issued April 2020), and PayMongo Payments, Inc., which the BSP authorised as an electronic money issuer in 2022 and which appears on its list of supervised EMIs as of May 2026. The BSP's OPS list does not flag PayMongo as authorised for merchant acquisition, and the terms define acquirers as separate financial institutions, so card transactions are acquired through partners. The merchant never signs a bank merchant agreement. Settlements land in a PayMongo Wallet, an e-money account that is not a deposit and not PDIC-insured, from which money can be forwarded to a bank or paid out to suppliers.

Onboarding depends on business type. Every account can take QR Ph. Individuals with a website can add Maya, GrabPay, ShopeePay and online banking. GCash, cards and Google Pay require a registered sole proprietorship, partnership or corporation, and a business type, once set, can only be upgraded from Individual; any other change needs PayMongo's team.

Pricing, as of September 2026

PayMongo publishes its full rate card. Every figure is before 12% VAT, which is charged on the fee:

• Domestic Visa and Mastercard: 3.125% + ₱13.39 (3.5% + ₱15 with VAT).
• International Visa and Mastercard: 4.02% + ₱13.39 (about 4.5% + ₱15 with VAT).
• QR Ph, online or in-store: 1.34% (about 1.5% with VAT).
• GCash 2.23%, Maya 1.79%, GrabPay 1.96%, ShopeePay 1.70% (about 2.5%, 2.0%, 2.2% and 1.9% with VAT).
• Direct online banking (BDO, UnionBank, BPI, Landbank, Metrobank): 0.71% or ₱13.39. The page does not say which applies when.
• BillEase pay-later: 1.34%.
• No setup fee and no monthly fee; payment links, plugins and the API carry the standard rate of the method used.

The rates for QR Ph and wallets are low. Card rates are ordinary, and the fixed fee makes small card sales costly: a ₱1,000 card sale costs about ₱50 including VAT, but a ₱100 sale costs ₱18.50, or 18.5%. The same ₱1,000 paid by QR Ph costs about ₱15. PayMongo's accept-payments page quotes 3% + ₱15 for cards and 2.5% for e-wallets and online banking in its FAQ. For cards, that matches neither the pricing page's pre-VAT figure nor its VAT-inclusive equivalent, so check the fee schedule in the dashboard, which the terms name as the governing source. The terms let PayMongo change fees with 60 days' written notice.

Beyond payments, the rate card prices Storefront, a store builder, at ₱349 a month, payouts and transfers from the Wallet at ₱10 each, and Protect fraud screening at ₱120,000 a month plus ₱2.45 to ₱2.90 per screen. Paid support runs from 0.3% of monthly volume with a ₱58,888 minimum, and Instant Settlement is listed at 2.23% 'bundled with QR Ph'. PayMongo's documentation describes Instant Settlement as an extra fee on top of the processing fee, confirmed on activation, so ask what the all-in rate is before switching it on.

Payouts

This is PayMongo's weak spot for a cash-flow-sensitive business. Cards take three banking days to clear, e-wallets two, and QR Ph, BPI and UnionBank online banking and BillEase one. Payments after 5 PM or on a weekend wait for the next banking day. Cleared money then waits for the payout schedule, which is weekly on Wednesdays for new accounts and every Tuesday and Friday for verified business accounts. Twice-weekly and monthly schedules are self-serve; daily payouts and T+1 clearing on every method have to be requested from support and depend on account standing. Instant Settlement removes the wait for QR Ph and e-wallets, 24/7, for an extra fee. Payouts land in the PayMongo Wallet by default, with a ₱1 minimum, and can be forwarded automatically to a bank account, where the minimum is ₱80.

What the terms allow PayMongo to do

PayMongo's Terms of Use (effective 15 May 2026) set no minimum term or exit fee, but they give PayMongo broad control:

• It may suspend, block or terminate an account or Wallet at any time, temporarily or permanently, with or without prior notice, including where it judges a business to pose an unacceptable financial, credit or reputational risk.
• It may withhold settlement for pending, anticipated or excessive chargebacks, suspected suspicious activity or where the law requires, and may hold disputed amounts in reserve.
• The merchant is liable for all chargebacks, refunds, reversals and network or acquirer fines, which PayMongo can recover from payouts, the Wallet or the merchant's bank account without prior demand.
• Under the Anti-Financial Account Scamming Act, PayMongo can hold funds tied to a disputed transaction while it is verified, and says this is not a breach of its payout obligations.
• Merchants must acknowledge customer complaints within two business days, keep complaint records for five years and supply dispute documents within five business days of PayMongo's request.
• Processing is limited to transactions within the Philippines, and a merchant cannot change its registered business profile, including its line of business, without PayMongo's written approval.
• PayMongo's liability is capped at 12 months of fees, and disputes go to the courts of Taguig City under Philippine law.

The prohibited list (last updated August 2024) covers unlicensed gambling, adult content, counterfeit goods, pyramid schemes, the sale of followers or in-game currency, virtual-terminal use and cross-border acquiring. A second list of restricted businesses needs PayMongo's prior written approval: lending and credit services, money transmitters, crypto and digital wallets, lotteries, tobacco and e-cigarettes, prescription drugs, airlines and travel, telemedicine, MLM, nutraceuticals, pawnshops and digital goods.

Reputation and support

There is little independent merchant feedback to go on. PayMongo has no merchant app in the Philippine App Store (its pricing page lists one as coming soon). Its claimed Trustpilot profile shows a TrustScore of 2.3 from six reviews, all one-star, complaining of slow or refused applications and slow support, which is too few to measure a company of its size. We found no BSP enforcement action, privacy-commission decision or lawsuit naming PayMongo. Support is by email and Facebook. The free plan promises a 30-minute first response, and dedicated account managers cost extra.

Who should use it

PayMongo suits a registered Philippine business that sells online or through social channels and wants cards, the main wallets, QR Ph and pay-later on one account at published rates. It also suits a shop or stall happy to take payment by QR Ph, which carried 55% of PayMongo's payment volume in the first half of 2026. It suits less well a business that needs a card terminal, same-day cash without negotiating, or cheap small-ticket card acceptance. Xendit, which we have reviewed, publishes its own Philippine rate card and integrated the Philippine payments company Dragonpay in July 2026; Maya Business and PayPal also serve Philippine merchants. Price each on your own mix of methods and ticket sizes before choosing.