PayU is a poor payment gateway for a small business that sells abroad. I asked PayU to switch on international payments for MailMyCard, my digital greeting card startup, on 14 October 2026. Twenty-three days and dozens of emails later, it is still off, and customers from outside India are being turned away at checkout.

This is one merchant's experience. Every number comes from my email thread, PayU dashboard and PostHog analytics, with names removed.

10 reasons PayU failed my small business

1. Its own pages promise "a few days"

PayU's international payments page says "Go live within a few days" and "Accept payments in 135+ currencies". Its guide for small businesses and startups says "most small businesses and startups can go live within a few business days." My request is 23 days old and was rejected once.

2. The documents are a catch-22

PayU first asked for a Foreign Inward Remittance Certificate (FIRC), invoices and proof of delivery. A FIRC exists only after a foreign payment arrives, which is what I was asking PayU to allow. PayU's own page lists three steps to activate international payments: sign up and verify, integrate, start accepting. A FIRC is not one of them.

3. "Show INR on your website" for foreign buyers

I was asked to show prices in rupees to buyers who pay in dollars and euros. PayU's own post on international payments says the opposite: "what is crucial in making this experience more seamless is enabling a localized currency experience for customers."

4. "No international traffic" was not true

The rejection on 25 October said PayU "could not identify any international traffic". PostHog counted 540 engaged visitors from outside India between 14 October and 6 November, against 454 from India. Ten, from eight countries including the US, UK and Australia, started a wallet top-up. I sent the dashboard. The answer did not change.

5. A paying customer on the thread was not enough

On 24 October a founder from a US company who wanted to buy joined the email thread and wrote: "please resolve, I should be able to pay." The rejection came the next day.

6. Customers bounce at checkout

This is what the dashboard shows for the attempts between 31 October and 5 November:

Six customers, ten attempts, one payment. PayU's checkout guide defines this exactly: "Payment drop-off is the loss of customers between entering the payment stage and completing a purchase." PayU does not show each customer's country, so I cannot prove all were foreign, but it matches what the founder in reason 5 hit.

7. Support wants a phone call

Replies kept asking for "an alternative contact number" instead of answering in writing. My "urgent" email on 16 October got its next reply on 22 October. PayU's grievance policy lists chatbot and email for merchant complaints, with no phone line at any level.

8. The requirements keep moving

First FIRC and invoices. Then domestic transaction history. Then target countries and expected volumes. Then, on 5 November, "increase the international traffic and content visibility on your website" and they would ask the risk team to look again.

9. Escalation goes nowhere

One senior address I escalated to bounced with a mail loop error. The grievance desk sent two auto-replies, one asking me to fill in the complaint details I had just sent. Under PayU's grievance policy, the Customer Care Head has 5 business days and the Nodal Officer 4. I escalated on 5 November and will update this post when those deadlines pass.

10. You pay for traffic it will not let you keep

My foreign visitors come from Google Ads, search and ChatGPT. Every paid click that bounces at checkout is acquisition spend thrown away, the same "loss of customers" PayU's own guide tells merchants to fix.

To be fair to PayU

Indian payment aggregators must run stricter checks on cross-border payments under RBI's cross-border rules, which PayU's own guide acknowledges, and new merchants are a fraud risk. My complaint is not that PayU checks. It is that a new business cannot pass the checks, while PayU's marketing tells that business it will be live in a few days.

Should a small business use PayU?

If you expect customers from abroad, or are comparing PayU and Razorpay for a new business, ask in writing before you integrate: "What do you need to enable international payments for a business with no transaction history?" If the answer is a FIRC, keep looking.

I am moving MailMyCard to Razorpay, Cashfree or Inflowpay and will update this review with how their international activation goes.