status: active
timestamp: 2026-06-20
tags: [billing, razorpay, primary, india]
Razorpay
India-first subscription provider — UPI, cards, netbanking, webhook-driven
Razorpay
Role
Primary subscription provider for Indian-resident buyers. Issues
subscriptions, fires webhooks into the Hono Worker, which writes
entitlement to /users/{uid}/subscription in Firestore. Non-Indian
buyers route to Lemon Squeezy instead — see
max-payment-methods.
Methods supported
UPI (PhonePe / GPay / Paytm / BHIM apps + collect-flow), credit + debit cards (Visa / Mastercard / RuPay / Amex), netbanking (60+ banks), wallets (PhonePe, Paytm, Mobikwik, Freecharge, Amazon Pay), EMI (cards
- no-cost EMI), pay-later (Simpl, LazyPay, ICICI Pay Later). Indian-resident merchant onboarding only — international buyers use Lemon Squeezy.
Free tier
- No setup, no monthly platform fee
- Pay-per-transaction (2-3%, varies by method)
- Free test-mode environment, free dashboard, free webhooks
Card / subscription required?
NO to use the dashboard or test mode. The merchant onboarding needs KYC (PAN + bank account) but no card on file from us. Razorpay takes its cut from each transaction at settlement.
Buyer-side, Razorpay does NOT require card-on-file — UPI flows are intent-based per-transaction and satisfy the no-card-on-file rule.
Alternatives
- Stripe Checkout
- Lemon Squeezy
- Paddle
Swap cost
Medium — the webhook handler in the Hono Worker is wrapped behind
@chirag127/billing-razorpay. Swap = re-implement the webhook
verifier and the subscription create flow.
Why this is our pick
India-first, UPI-native, low-friction for the user’s primary market. Stripe is great in the US but conversion in India is meaningfully worse without UPI.