Tabby vs Tamara on Shopify: fees, settlement and which to pick
Short answer: on Tabby vs Tamara, most UAE Shopify stores should run both. Each installs free from the Shopify App Store, pays you weekly and carries the shopper’s credit risk, and neither publishes its merchant rate: your commission is set in a private contract. Whichever you add, Shopify still takes its own 0.6–2% third-party fee on every BNPL order unless you’re on Plus (0.2%).
Search “Tabby vs Tamara” in the UAE and you get Reddit threads about credit limits. Useful if you’re buying a phone. Useless if you’re the one paying the commission.
This is the merchant side: what each provider charges and how, when the money lands, how each app behaves inside Shopify, and what changes when you run both. For cards, Apple Pay, COD and the rest of the stack, see my guide to Shopify payment gateways in the UAE.
On this page: What BNPL does · Comparison table · Shopify integration · Fees and settlement · Which plan · Running both · FAQ
What BNPL does to conversion in the UAE
Both providers publish uplift numbers. Tabby’s business page claims a 33% increase in basket size and an 18% increase in conversion. Tamara’s Shopify page claims a 50% increase in average order value and a 15% increase in conversion. Neither says how those figures were measured, over what period or against which baseline, so read them as marketing, not a forecast.
What I’m confident about is the mechanism. BNPL turns an AED 1,200 basket into four payments of AED 300, which matters most in categories where the ticket is high enough to cause a pause: eyewear, electronics, furniture, beauty devices, fashion above a few hundred dirhams. On a low-ticket product the instalments are small enough that I wouldn’t expect BNPL to change much.
The test that matters is your own. Once BNPL is live, compare average order value and conversion rate for BNPL orders against card orders over the same period, and watch whether BNPL takes share from COD. That last one is the quiet win: every order moved from cash on delivery to a paid-upfront method is one that can’t be refused at the door.
Tabby vs Tamara for Shopify merchants: the table
| Tabby | Tamara | |
|---|---|---|
| Shopify app | Tabby Pay Later, by Tabby (Dubai), listed since March 2022 | Tamara Split Payments, by Tamara (Riyadh), listed since October 2023 |
| App cost | Free to install | Free to install |
| Shopper plans | 4 interest-free payments, or up to 12 months | Up to 4 payments |
| Where it appears | Payment method at checkout, then a Tabby-hosted payment page | Payment method at checkout |
| Product/cart messaging | Separate snippets, optional | Site messaging widgets, optional |
| Merchant fee | Commission set per merchant + small fixed fee per order | Fixed + variable fee set in your onboarding form |
| Payout day | Working Mondays | Tuesdays |
| If the shopper doesn’t pay | Tabby’s risk | Tamara’s risk, except non-delivery, returns and merchant breach |
| Countries in the Shopify app | UAE and KSA billing addresses (AED, SAR) | UAE, KSA and Kuwait merchant pages |
Last checked: October 2026, against each provider’s Shopify App Store listing, merchant help centre and documentation.
Shopify integration: what installing each one involves
Both are proper Shopify payment apps. They appear under Settings → Payments as a method at checkout, not as a redirect bolted on with code. The product page messaging is a separate, optional piece for both, and the app alone won’t show a “4 payments of AED 300” line under your price.
Tabby
Tabby’s Shopify documentation is unusually honest about the limits, and they’re worth knowing before launch:
- Six webhooks to create by hand. Without them, Tabby can’t sync the Shopify order number, and customers may be asked for their phone number again on the Tabby page.
- Order edits don’t sync. If you edit an order in Shopify, the change shows in Shopify only, not in Tabby’s dashboard or your settlement.
- Stock isn’t locked during payment. Turn on inventory tracking and switch off “Continue selling when out of stock”, or you can sell the last unit twice.
- Store settings it needs: email as the customer contact method, phone required on the shipping address, test mode off.
- Hiding or reordering methods now needs a payment customisation function or a checkout app; Shopify’s Script Editor stopped running on 30 June 2026.
Tamara
Tamara’s install guide is shorter: install the app, leave test mode unticked (Tamara doesn’t support it on Shopify), activate, then confirm Tamara appears under Settings → Payments, where Shopify also shows its own transaction fee for the method. You need an approved Tamara merchant account first, and Tamara puts new applicants on a waiting list before onboarding.
In both cases, test with a real order on a real phone before you announce it. Tabby’s own docs say its generic “There was an issue processing your payment” error usually means incomplete API keys, a country mismatch with your Tabby account, or an integration not yet switched on at Tabby’s end.
Merchant fees and settlement
Here’s the part the consumer comparisons skip. Neither provider publishes a merchant rate. Tabby’s pricing page says the commission varies by sector and business profile, plus a small standard fee per order, and that both include payment gateway costs. Tamara’s merchant terms put a fixed and a variable fee in your onboarding form, and let Tamara change fees on 10 days’ written notice. For planning, my payments page uses an indicative 4–6% per BNPL order; your contract is the only number that counts.
| Settlement | Tabby | Tamara |
|---|---|---|
| Fixed weekly | Every working Monday. AED 25 fee if under AED 2,500, AED 6 above | Every Tuesday. AED 25 fee if under AED 2,500 |
| Flexible | Held until net balance reaches AED 2,500, then next Monday. AED 6 fee | Paid once net balance reaches AED 2,500. No bank charge |
| Deducted before payout | Commission and VAT; refunds shown as adjustments in the payout report | Tamara fee; terms let Tamara keep its fees on refunded orders |
| Which orders are paid | Not stated in the help centre | Shipped (fully captured) orders only |
| Early holds | Not stated | Terms allow holding your first three transactions for a month |
Sources: Tabby’s payout cycles and non-payment pages; Tamara’s settlement documentation and Shopify page. Tamara’s published terms are its Saudi version; check the UAE contract you sign. Last checked: October 2026.
Two practical points. Below about AED 10,000 a month in BNPL sales, the fixed weekly option can cost you AED 25 a week in transfer fees; flexible is usually cheaper for a new store. And Tamara pays only on shipped orders, so a store that marks orders fulfilled late gets paid late.
Which Shopify plan you need
Any plan. Both apps work on Basic, Grow, Advanced and Plus. What changes is Shopify’s cut. Its Help Center says third-party transaction fees apply to all transactions through third-party and alternative gateways, even when Shopify Payments is active. BNPL counts.
| Plan | Shopify fee on BNPL orders | On AED 50,000 of Tabby/Tamara sales a month |
|---|---|---|
| Basic | 2% | AED 1,000 |
| Grow | 1% | AED 500 |
| Advanced | 0.6% | AED 300 |
| Plus | 0.2% | AED 100 |
Fees from Shopify’s UAE pricing page. Last checked: October 2026.
On Basic, that 2% sits on top of the BNPL commission. It’s one of the stronger reasons to move to Grow once sales pass about AED 25,000 a month; the full maths is in Shopify pricing in the UAE. Whether Advanced is worth it depends mostly on Shopify Payments, which I cover in Shopify Payments in the UAE.
Running Tabby and Tamara together
I’d run both. Approval is separate, limits are per shopper, and a customer declined by one may be approved by the other. Some shoppers use one app and not the other, so offering both removes a reason to leave.
- Apply to both in the same week. Have your trade licence, VAT certificate if registered, bank details and a live store ready. Go live with whichever approves first.
- Don’t surcharge BNPL. Tamara’s terms forbid charging customers more for choosing it. Price the commission into your margin.
- One message on the product page, both at checkout. Two instalment widgets under every price is noise and two more scripts to load on mobile. Show one on product pages and both as payment methods.
- Order the methods deliberately. Cards and Apple Pay first, BNPL next, COD last.
- Reconcile weekly. Monday and Tuesday payouts with different report formats need a routine, or refunds and fees go unchecked.
If you only want one: Tabby if your buyers are almost all in the UAE and you sell above a few hundred dirhams per order; Tamara if a real share of your orders ships to Saudi Arabia.
Where NKM fits
I set up Tabby and Tamara as part of a full UAE payment stack: applications, the Shopify apps and webhooks, product page messaging that doesn’t slow the page, and payment method rules alongside cards and COD. If you want it done once and checked properly, get in touch.