How to Accept Online Payments for Your Restaurant in Nigeria with Paystack

Most restaurants in Nigeria still run on a manual system for online orders: a customer sends money to a personal or business bank account, then sends a screenshot or a text message as proof, and someone on staff has to check the alert before the order is confirmed. It works, but it is slow, it depends on someone being available to check their phone, and it puts the whole transaction on trust rather than on a system built to handle it. When a restaurant accepts payment directly through a proper checkout instead, the order is confirmed the moment the money clears, not whenever a staff member happens to see the alert.

This matters more for a restaurant than for most other businesses, because food orders are time sensitive. A customer who is asked to "send alert and wait" is a customer who might close the tab and order from somewhere else instead, especially if that other restaurant confirms instantly. Online payment removes that gap. It also builds trust: customers can see that their payment went through, get a receipt, and know their order is already being prepared, instead of wondering if their transfer was seen.

What Paystack does

Paystack is a Nigerian payment processor that lets a business accept card payments, bank transfers, and USSD payments online, and moves the money into the business's own bank account. It is one of the payment providers most Nigerian businesses already recognize, and it is the payment engine behind checkout on Restorant.

How payment works at checkout on Restorant

When a customer orders from a restaurant's storefront on Restorant, they build their cart, choose delivery or pickup, and get to a checkout screen powered by Paystack. From there, they can pay in any of three ways.

Card payment is the most familiar option to anyone used to shopping online, entering a debit or credit card number and confirming with a one-time PIN or OTP. But card payment is not the default choice for a large number of Nigerian customers. Many people do not save their card details online, and some do not trust doing so, especially on a site they are ordering from for the first time. That is a real and common hesitation, not a small edge case, and a restaurant's checkout needs to work around it, not assume it away.

That is where bank transfer and USSD come in. Bank transfer through Paystack generates a one-time account number for that specific order. The customer moves the money from their own banking app, and the payment is confirmed automatically once it lands, no screenshot needed and no one on the restaurant's side waiting to check an alert.

USSD payment is built for the customer who does not want to use a banking app at all, or does not have one set up. USSD is the short code system many Nigerian banks already support, the kind of code you dial on a basic phone to check a balance or send money without opening any app. On a restaurant's checkout, the customer picks their bank, gets a code to dial, follows the prompts on their phone to authorize the payment, and it is confirmed the same way a transfer is. For a customer without reliable data at that moment, or one who simply prefers the button and PIN flow they already know from years of banking by USSD, this option matters as much as card payment does, sometimes more.

Offering all three, card, transfer, and USSD, means a restaurant is not asking every customer to change how they pay. The customer picks whichever one they already trust.

Where the money goes

Once a payment clears through Paystack, it settles into the restaurant's own registered bank account, the account the restaurant owner provides when setting up online payments. The money does not sit in a Restorant account or pass through a middle step the owner cannot see. It is the restaurant's bank account, the same one they would use for any other business income.

What Restorant charges

Using Restorant comes with a monthly or annual plan fee, plans start at ₦30,000 a month on the Starter tier, with a 14-day free trial and no credit card required to start. On top of that plan fee, Restorant charges a 1.5% commission on online payments processed through Paystack. That commission applies specifically to online payments made through checkout. It is not charged on cash payments or on orders paid for in person.

For a restaurant owner budgeting for this, the way to think about it is simple: pay the plan fee to run the platform, and 1.5% goes to Restorant only when a customer pays online through Paystack at checkout.

What a restaurant owner needs to set this up

Setting up online payments on Restorant does not require a separate Paystack account to be built from scratch by the restaurant. What the restaurant owner needs on their side is their own registered bank account details, the account the business wants its money settled into. That account is entered once during setup, and from that point, every online payment a customer makes routes through Paystack and settles there.

If a payment fails or a customer disputes a charge

Payment failures happen sometimes, a card gets declined, a bank transfer times out, a network drops mid-payment. When that happens, the customer typically sees the failure at checkout and can try again with a different payment method. If a customer believes they were charged incorrectly or has a concern about a specific transaction, the right move is to reach out to Restorant support rather than try to resolve it directly with the bank or with Paystack. Restorant support can look into the specific transaction and help sort out what happened. This is not an area to guess about or assume a fixed process for, every case is different, and support is the right first stop.

Closing

Accepting online payments is one of the clearest ways a Nigerian restaurant can look and feel more professional to its customers, and it removes a genuine point of friction, the wait for someone to check a bank alert before an order even starts. With Paystack built into checkout, Restorant gives a restaurant's customers a real choice between card, bank transfer, and USSD, the same payment habits Nigerians already use every day, now working directly inside the ordering flow instead of around it. See the full breakdown on the pricing page.