Satispay Review

Satispay is a Milan-based mobile payment network. Shoppers pay from the Satispay app instead of with a card, and merchants accept those payments through a free business account, with no card terminal. It is not a card acquirer. The merchant contract is with Satispay Europe S.A., an electronic money institution licensed in Luxembourg (CSSF register W00000010), which credits payments to the merchant's e-money account and sweeps them to the merchant's bank. As of October 2026, physical stores that sign up from September 2026 pay nothing on payments under €10 and 0.95% on payments of €10 or more. Tobacconists and newsagents pay 0.5% at €10 and above. Online payments cost 1.5%, plus €0.20 from €10, and vending machines pay 1%. Sign-up, payouts and cancellation are free, and the terms have no fixed term or exit fee. Optional Business Premium plans for visibility and loyalty run from €5.99 to €299.90 a month. Satispay says it has 6.5 million users and more than 450,000 merchants. Its website serves Italy, France and Luxembourg, but the user base is overwhelmingly Italian. The main caveat is pricing stability: in April 2025 Satispay replaced free sub-€10 payments with a flat 1%, which drew protests from bars and tobacconists. It reversed that change for new merchants from September 2026; existing merchants were told their updated terms by email.

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

What Satispay is

Satispay is a mobile payment network built in Italy. Consumers download the Satispay app, link their bank account and pay in shops, online, at vending machines and to each other from an app balance. Merchants open a free Satispay Business account to receive those payments. There is no card terminal: the shop displays a QR code, and payments arrive on whatever phone, tablet, computer or till the merchant already uses. Around that core, Satispay has built meal vouchers and shopping vouchers for employers (since 2023), a cashback-points loyalty scheme, a three-instalment 'Paga in 3' option for consumers, bill payments, pagoPA payments to public bodies, savings and investments. Since 2026 consumers can also get an IBAN and, from July 2026, a Satispay debit card issued in partnership with Mastercard. That card is a consumer product: merchants accepting Satispay app payments are still paid over Satispay's own network, not through a card acquirer.

The company was founded in 2013 by Alberto Dalmasso (CEO), Dario Brignone and Samuele Pinta, and its own announcements say it has been on the market since 2015. It is headquartered in Milan, with offices in Naples, Luxembourg and Barcelona and, by its own count, more than 750 staff. In June 2026 Satispay reported 6.5 million users, more than 450,000 affiliated merchants and annualised revenue above €116 million at 31 May 2026; in July it put annualised revenue at €120 million for June 2026. Its website serves Italy, France and Luxembourg, but the user base is overwhelmingly Italian.

Why we list Satispay as a platform

Satispay does not acquire card payments, and it is not a payment facilitator signing merchants up under someone else's acquiring licence. The merchant agreement is directly with Satispay Europe S.A., an electronic money institution authorised and supervised by Luxembourg's Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (register no. W00000010) and operating in Italy under EU passporting. Payments travel over Satispay's own closed network, from the payer's e-money balance to the merchant's e-money account, and Satispay sets the price and pays the merchant. That makes it a payment platform in our taxonomy. We considered 'bank payments', because consumers fund their balance from a bank account, but the merchant is paid in e-money on Satispay's network, not by an account-to-account bank transfer initiated at checkout. The group holding company is Momentum S.p.A.; Satispay says its founders retain a controlling position.

What it costs in store

Satispay repriced its network in September 2026. As of October 2026 its business page lists, for physical stores and mobile businesses that sign up from September 2026, no fee on payments under €10 and 0.95% on payments of €10 or more. Tobacconists and newsagents pay 0.5% at €10 and above, but only if that is the primary activity on their Italian Chamber of Commerce extract (visura camerale). Satispay's June 2026 announcement also mentioned special conditions for petrol stations, but the pricing page does not list a rate for them. Sign-up, payouts to the merchant's bank account and cancellation are all listed as free, and there is no monthly fee.

There is one important gap. The page says existing merchants 'have been informed by email' of how their conditions are being updated, and those conditions are not published. The merchant agreement says fees are agreed before activation and shown in the Dashboard. If you already accept Satispay, check the fee on recent payments rather than assuming the new public rates apply to you.

On a €8 coffee-and-pastry ticket a new merchant pays nothing. On a €25 sale the fee is about €0.24. Those figures are low for in-store payments, but they apply only to customers who pay with Satispay. Card payments still go through whatever terminal and acquirer you use for cards.

Online, vending and add-on pricing

Online payments (websites, apps and social media) cost 1.5% on payments under €10 and 1.5% + €0.20 on payments of €10 or more, as of October 2026. A €25 online order costs about €0.58. Vending machines pay a flat 1% per payment. Satispay's merchant page notes that fees may apply to specific value-added services, namely its meal vouchers, shopping vouchers and Paga in 3, so check your conditions if those make up much of your takings. Connect, Satispay's pagoPA software for businesses such as pharmacies, has fees set by type of business that are not published.

Satispay also sells optional Business Premium subscriptions through SatisWelfare S.p.A., a group company, to promote a store inside the app. Per the plan terms updated 6 July 2026, independent stores can choose Lite at €5.99 a month or €39.90 a year, Basic at €29.90 a month or €199.10 a year, Pro at €99.90 a month or €665.30 a year, or Advanced at €299.90 a month or €1,997.30 a year. The tiers add featured visibility, review management, partner discounts, cashback-point multipliers for customers, and (on Pro and Advanced) priority support. The Italian terms state these prices include VAT, while the English-language business page labels them 'VAT excluded'. Treat the Italian terms as the reference and confirm with Satispay before buying. Annual plans cost far less than twelve monthly payments, but a cancelled subscription is not refunded, even in part. None of these plans is needed to accept payments.

A pricing history worth knowing

Satispay built its network on free payments under €10. In February 2025 it announced that from 7 April 2025 merchants would instead pay a single 1% on every physical-store payment, explaining that it had added value-added services such as its meal vouchers. Bar owners and tobacconists, its heaviest small-ticket users, protested. Il Fatto Quotidiano reported that some merchants announced they would stop accepting the app, citing a tobacconist's sign, first reported by La Stampa, saying Satispay would no longer be accepted. In June 2026, after Italian law extended the obligation to accept electronic payments to at least one e-money instrument, Satispay announced it would return to zero fees under €10 from September, with 0.95% above that. The new pricing is good news, but the episode shows the price is Satispay's to set: the contract lets it change terms on 60 days' notice.

How it works for the merchant

Sign-up is online with a VAT number. Satispay verifies the beneficial owners and legal representatives under anti-money-laundering rules. It can decline or limit the service if checks fail, or if serving the business could harm its reputation. Once active, the merchant manages stores, staff devices and payments in the web Dashboard and Business app, and places a Satispay QR sticker at the till. Online stores can use official plugins for Shopify, Shopware, WooCommerce, PrestaShop and Magento 2, or the API, which supports web buttons, redirects, payment links, recurring payments and late-capture 'funds lock' payments. Stripe also offers Satispay as a payment method for customers in Italy, and in March 2025 myPOS announced that its roughly 50,000 Italian merchants could accept Satispay.

Payouts, refunds and disputes

Payments are credited to the merchant's Satispay account in euros as soon as they are approved. The terms say the balance is then swept automatically to the merchant's bank account at the frequency the merchant chooses, for example on the first working day after the payment. Satispay's own announcements describe takings as credited the next day, at no charge. Funds held in the merchant account earn no interest and are safeguarded under EU e-money rules, so Satispay's creditors cannot claim them if it becomes insolvent. A merchant can leave a balance in the account to cover refunds, and refunds can only be issued when there are enough funds there. Satispay's terms leave disputes over goods and services to the merchant and customer to resolve directly. When Satispay is accepted through Stripe, Stripe lists refunds within 180 days and disputes within 120 days. Satispay can suspend the service if it suspects fraud or unauthorised use.

Contract and cancellation

The Satispay Business agreement (version 3.1, in force since 2 May 2023) is an open-ended framework contract under Luxembourg law. The English text is binding, and disputes go to the courts of Luxembourg City. The merchant can terminate at any time, for any reason, with no penalty beyond fees already accrued. Satispay can terminate without reason on 60 days' notice, or immediately for cause. Changes to the agreement are notified 60 days in advance, unless required by law or neutral for the merchant, which gives a merchant who disagrees time to leave. Business Premium subscriptions are separate: they renew automatically and are not refunded on cancellation.

Funding, ownership and regulation

Satispay is privately held. In 2022 it raised €320 million in a Series D round led by Addition, with Greyhound Capital, Coatue, Lightrock, Block, Tencent and Mediolanum Gestione Fondi taking part, at a valuation above €1 billion. In November 2024 it closed a further €60 million from Addition, Greyhound and Lightrock, taking total funding past half a billion euros and raising the founders' voting rights so that they again controlled the majority. On 11 June 2026 the holding company, Momentum S.p.A., called a shareholders' meeting for 29 June to approve a capital increase of up to €120 million. Satispay said existing investors, including Greyhound, Addition and Lightrock, had committed to about half of it, confirming a valuation above €1 billion. Its 7 July 2026 release referred to the capital increase as recent, but Satispay has not published how much was finally raised. Investment services are provided by a separate Luxembourg investment firm, Satispay Invest S.A., and employee-benefit services by SatisWelfare S.p.A. in Milan.

We found one regulatory proceeding naming the company. In 2020 Italy's competition and consumer authority (AGCM) investigated whether Satispay discriminated against customers' bank accounts held in other EU countries. Until March 2020 such accounts could be linked only through a manual, case-by-case process; since then they have been accepted automatically. In November 2020 the AGCM made Satispay Europe's commitments binding and closed the case without finding an infringement. No fine was imposed. Satispay has since campaigned against the same practice, known as IBAN discrimination, by others. In September 2026 it co-hosted a meeting in the Italian Parliament on the issue with the consumer group Altroconsumo.

Reputation and complaints

Most public reviews come from consumers rather than merchants. On Trustpilot, satispay.com had a TrustScore of 3.9 from 4,910 reviews when we checked in October 2026: 68% five-star and 22% one-star. The company replies to 97% of negative reviews. Positive reviews praise ease of use and quick support. Negative ones focus on slow bank transfers and difficulty closing an account. The clearest merchant signal is the 2025 backlash over the 1% fee, which Satispay has since reversed for new merchants. Merchants contact support through the Business Suite or by email, and priority support is sold as part of the Pro plan. We found no published merchant-support hours or response targets.

Who it suits

Satispay makes most sense for Italian businesses with lots of small, frequent payments: bars, cafés, bakeries, tobacconists, newsagents, market traders and taxis. It also suits shops that want to take Satispay meal and shopping vouchers. At zero cost under €10 and with no hardware or contract, adding it costs a new merchant almost nothing. It also helps meet Italy's 2026 obligation to accept at least one e-money instrument. It is a complement to card acceptance, not a replacement. It is a weak fit for businesses selling mainly outside Italy, for e-commerce stores comparing it with card pricing, and for categories Satispay will not onboard. Stripe lists gambling, crypto exchanges, adult content and dating services, among others, as prohibited for Satispay payments.