iGaming Payment Solutions
Conekta ReviewIs It the Right Payment Solution for Your iGaming Business?
Weak
Conekta is the leading homegrown Mexican payment aggregator, founded in 2012 by three University of Waterloo grads and supervised by the CNBV as a payment aggregator rather than a full Fintech Institution. About 190 employees, 6,000+ Mexican merchants, 3M+ monthly transactions, marquee clients like Uber, Rappi, Cabify and Netflix Mexico. Native Mexican payment stack with cards (3.4% + $3 MXN), SPEI bank transfers ($12.50 MXN flat), and Conekta Efectivo cash vouchers at 19,000+ retail points. The Fortress in-house fraud engine and Smart Retry recovery sit on top. The brutal honest part for iGaming operators: Conekta explicitly prohibits casinos, betting, crypto and forex in their current legal Business Profiles terms — you cannot use Conekta for gambling, period. They sold OXXO PAY to Digital@FEMSA in 2024 and pivoted to general e-commerce. For Mexican operators looking at LATAM expansion, this entry exists to tell you to look at Mercado Pago, AstroPay, PayRetailers, EBANX or dLocal instead — not at Conekta.
Quick Info
iGaming Score
Our iGaming Score: 4.1/10
Weighted scoring across six criteria
| Criterion | Weight | Score | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|
| iGaming Fit iGaming, casinos, betting and crypto are explicitly listed as prohibited business profiles in Conekta's legal terms. No SoftSwiss, EveryMatrix or Slotegrator connectors exist because the vertical is banned outright | 25% | 3.5 | Weak |
| Geographic Coverage Mexico only for merchant onboarding. Earlier plans for Colombia, Peru and Brazil never materialized. Cards from anywhere in the world can be charged, but the merchant must be Mexican-incorporated | 20% | 3.0 | Weak |
| Security & Compliance PCI DSS Level 1, CNBV supervision as a payment aggregator (not a full ITF under the Fintech Law). Fortress fraud engine kept network chargeback rate at 0.39% in March 2024, below the 0.49% Mexican average | 20% | 4.0 | Weak |
| Fees & Pricing 3.4% + $3 MXN per card, 3.7% on cash, $12.50 MXN flat on SPEI. Mid-range for Mexico but no enterprise interchange-plus pricing on offer | 15% | 4.2 | Weak |
| Tech & Integration REST API, SDKs in PHP, Node, Ruby, Python, .NET, Java, Go, Dart, iOS, Android, React Native. Plugins for WooCommerce, Magento, PrestaShop, Odoo. 1-5 day self-serve onboarding | 10% | 6.5 | Adequate |
| User Trust No Trustpilot, no meaningful G2 or Capterra. Glassdoor 3.0/5 with 34% recommend and senior leadership at 2.4/5. Reputation signal is thin and skews mixed-to-negative | 10% | 5.0 | Adequate |
| Overall | 100% | 4.1 | Weak |
We score each provider on six criteria using a 1 to 10 scale. iGaming Fit carries the most weight at 25% because that is what matters most for gambling operators. Geographic Coverage gets 20%. Security and Compliance, Fees and Pricing, and Tech and Integration each get 15%. User Trust rounds it out at 10%. The final score is a weighted average of all six.
Score Explanation
iGaming Fit is the dominant drag here and it's not close — Conekta's legal Business Profiles page explicitly lists 'Casinos y Apuestas' as a prohibited merchant category, alongside cryptocurrencies and currency exchange. That's a categorical no, not a 'higher review needed' situation. The provider belongs in the catalog because operators researching Mexico-LATAM payment stacks need to know to skip it, not because it's a real option. Geographic Coverage scores low at single-country Mexico — earlier press from 2017-2019 talked about Colombia, Peru and Brazil expansion but none of that happened. Security and Compliance scores honestly: PCI DSS Level 1, CNBV oversight as an aggregator, the Fortress engine with 10+ years of Mexican transaction data, partnered fraud checks via Kount on enterprise accounts. The pricing dimension lands mid-range — 3.4% + $3 MXN per card is fine for SMBs but doesn't beat what Nuvei, Solidgate or even Stripe will negotiate at scale. Tech is the bright spot: REST API, comprehensive SDK coverage, fast self-serve onboarding. User Trust is the second weakness — no Trustpilot profile, no Capterra activity worth citing, only a thin Glassdoor signal (3.0/5 from 17 reviews, leadership at 2.4) that reflects the post-2024-restructuring period.
Who Is Conekta Best For?
Weighted scoring across six criteria
Recommended For
Mexican-incorporated e-commerce SMBs. Mexican-incorporated SMB e-commerce merchants who want a homegrown card-plus-cash-plus-SPEI stack with self-serve onboarding in 1-5 days. Conekta's published rates (3.4% + $3 MXN on cards, 3.7% cash, $12.50 MXN SPEI) work fine at small scale and the dashboard is in Spanish without translation friction. This is the original target audience and they're served well.
Mexican retailers wanting cash acceptance via Conekta Efectivo. Mexican retailers who genuinely need cash acceptance in physical retail networks. Conekta Efectivo covers 19,000+ points (7-Eleven, Farmacias Benavides, Circle K, Extra and others) since the OXXO PAY business was sold to Digital@FEMSA in 2024. For an e-commerce business selling to the 60%+ of Mexicans without banking access, this is still a real distribution moat — just smaller than it was when OXXO was included.
Mexico-only DTC brands needing SPEI rails. Mexico-only DTC brands, subscription apps and mobility platforms that want SPEI interbank transfer acceptance at a $12.50 MXN flat rate. SPEI has no chargeback by design (final settlement), which makes the cost structure clean for high-ticket recurring billing. This is where Conekta's Smart Retry engine adds real value — it retries failed card attempts up to 5 times across acquirers to recover sales that would otherwise abandon.
Mexican mobility, delivery and subscription apps. Enterprise Mexican operators in approved verticals (mobility, delivery, food, subscription, SaaS) who want a dedicated Mexican PSP rather than routing everything through Stripe or Nuvei. Uber, Rappi, Cabify and Netflix Mexico use Conekta — they get account managers, custom acquirer routing through Fortress, and Kount fraud rules layered on top for enterprise accounts.
Not Recommended For
iGaming operators of any size (explicitly prohibited). Any iGaming operator. Conekta's Business Profiles legal page explicitly lists 'Casinos y Apuestas' (casinos and betting) as a prohibited merchant category. This isn't a 'subject to compliance review' situation — it's a categorical exclusion. There is no SoftSwiss, EveryMatrix, Slotegrator or BetConstruct connector because the vertical is banned. Trying to onboard as a gambling operator results in either denial at sign-up or termination if the activity is detected after launch.
Crypto and forex businesses (explicitly prohibited). Crypto businesses, exchanges, on/off-ramps or any merchant whose products or services are denominated in or paid out as cryptocurrency. Conekta lists 'criptomonedas' under prohibited activities. NOWPayments, BitPay, CoinsPaid, CoinGate or Triple-A are the right names if crypto matters.
Operators outside Mexico. Forex platforms, currency exchange houses (casas de cambio) or any business buying and selling foreign currency. Explicitly prohibited in Conekta's terms.
Operators needing mass payouts to players. Operators with players or customers outside Mexico who need a payment provider that processes deposits across multiple LATAM countries. Conekta is single-country. Mercado Pago covers seven LATAM countries, AstroPay does LATAM plus India, PayRetailers does 100+ methods across LATAM, dLocal and EBANX both extend beyond LATAM into APAC and Africa.
Operators that need to mass-pay winnings to thousands of players in batch. Conekta is collection-only — there is no payouts product comparable to what Inpay specializes in or what AstroPay and PayRetailers offer as part of their iGaming stack. Even for non-gambling mass disbursement, Conekta doesn't have a payroll-style batch API.
Foreign operators trying to take Mexican deposits without Mexican incorporation. Conekta only onboards Mexican-incorporated entities with Mexican bank accounts. A UK, Curacao or MGA-licensed operator cannot directly contract with Conekta — they need a Mexican subsidiary or they need to integrate Conekta through an orchestrator that handles the Mexican entity layer (Corefy, Primer, IXOPAY).
Geographic Coverage
Supported regions and market focus
Regions
Coverage Analysis
Mexico only for merchant onboarding. The company has been Mexico-focused since founding in 2012 and the 2017-2019 expansion talk about Colombia, Peru and Brazil never produced active operations in any of those markets. Card transactions from cardholders anywhere in the world can be processed (international card surcharge ~1% on top of the 3.4% domestic rate) but the merchant of record has to be a Mexican-incorporated entity with a Mexican bank account. For comparison: Mercado Pago covers seven LATAM countries with deep wallet penetration; AstroPay covers LATAM plus India; PayRetailers covers 100+ payment methods across the region; dLocal and EBANX both extend beyond LATAM into APAC and Africa. Conekta deliberately stayed Mexican rather than scaling regionally, which is partly a regulatory choice (CNBV aggregator status doesn't scale across borders) and partly a strategic one (the founders chose to focus on the Mexico opportunity rather than chase regional expansion).
Regional Breakdown
Inside Mexico the local-method coverage is solid. Cards: Visa, Mastercard, American Express, plus interest-free installments (meses sin intereses) with most Mexican banks including Banamex, BBVA, Santander, HSBC, Banorte and Banjército. Cash: Conekta Efectivo voucher numbers redeemable at 19,000+ retail points — 7-Eleven, Farmacias Benavides, Circle K, Extra, Farmacia del Ahorro and a long tail of regional chains. Note that OXXO is NOT in the current Conekta Efectivo network as of 2024 — that business was sold to Digital@FEMSA. SPEI: real-time interbank transfers with no transaction limit, $12.50 MXN flat fee, lands in seconds. BNPL: Aplazo and Creditea Pay partnerships for installment purchases without a credit card. Apple Pay: live since 2022 on Conekta Checkout. Direct debit through BBVA's mobile app for the ~30M Mexicans who bank there. What's missing: Google Pay as a separate checkout button, PayPal, MercadoPago wallet, native crypto, and any non-Mexican local methods.
Key Features for iGaming Operators
Products, payment methods, and verticals
Key Products
Card processing, Conekta Efectivo (cash at 19,000+ points), SPEI bank transfer, BNPL (Aplazo, Creditea Pay), Apple Pay, BBVA Direct Payment, Fortress anti-fraud, Smart Retry, FYND analytics
After the 2024 OXXO PAY divestiture, Conekta's current product set is: Conekta Checkout (hosted redirect that handles all available payment methods in one flow), Payment Button (drop-in JS widget), Payment Links (shareable URL for invoicing-style flows), Direct API (full server-side control), Conekta Efectivo (cash voucher at 19,000+ non-OXXO retail points), SPEI direct integration, Fortress anti-fraud engine, Smart Retry payment recovery, FYND analytics dashboard, and BNPL partner integrations with Aplazo and Creditea Pay. The whole stack reports through one Spanish-language merchant dashboard with English available. Subscriptions and recurring billing supported through the customer-and-payment-source tokenization model. No payouts product, no payroll-style batch disbursement, no e-wallet (the original wallet plan was scrapped in 2019 after Mexico's Fintech Law landed and Conekta decided to stay an aggregator rather than become a full ITF).
Payment Methods
Roughly seven core methods on the current product set after the 2024 OXXO PAY divestiture. Cards stay the dominant rail at ~70% of transaction count — Visa, Mastercard and Amex with interest-free installments through most major Mexican issuing banks. Conekta Efectivo cash at 19,000+ retail voucher points covers the unbanked share of the Mexican market (about 60% of adults lack traditional banking access). SPEI interbank transfers handle the high-ticket flow because they have no chargeback exposure by design and cost just $12.50 MXN flat regardless of transaction size. BNPL flows through the Aplazo and Creditea Pay integrations let customers pay in installments without a credit card. Apple Pay is supported in Conekta Checkout. BBVA Direct Payment is a niche but well-used flow that lets the 30M+ BBVA Mexico app users authorize a debit from inside the bank's own app. What's notably absent: any crypto product (explicitly prohibited), Google Pay button (works via underlying network tokens but no dedicated UI), PayPal acceptance, and any non-Mexican local methods like Pix, OXXO Pay direct (now FEMSA's product), or LATAM cash networks outside Mexico.
Verticals
Approved verticals: general e-commerce, SMB retail, SaaS, subscription services, mobility (Uber, Cabify and similar), delivery and food (Rappi and competitors), digital content (Netflix Mexico, GAIA), education, travel within Mexico, and most non-regulated B2C and B2B sectors. Prohibited verticals per the legal Business Profiles page: casinos and betting, cryptocurrencies, currency exchange houses, unregulated lending, prostitution and adult content, illegal drugs, weapons and explosives, certain telecommunications and travel reseller models, and unlicensed pharmaceuticals. This is a categorical list — there is no path to onboarding as an iGaming or crypto merchant through Conekta. Compare this with Mercado Pago, which serves regulated Mexican gambling operators where licensed, and AstroPay/PayRetailers/Solidgate, which actively market to iGaming operators.
| Feature | Status | Details |
|---|---|---|
| Deposit Processing | Roughly 7 main methods on the current product set: Visa/Mastercard/Amex credit and debit (domestic and international), Conekta Efectivo cash vouchers redeemed at 19,000+ retail points (7-Eleven, Farmacias Benavides, Circle K, Extra and others — but NOT OXXO since the 2024 FEMSA sale), SPEI interbank transfers, Pago en BBVA app-based direct debit, BNPL through Aplazo and Creditea Pay partnerships, Apple Pay. No Google Pay yet on the main checkout, no direct crypto, no PayPal integration. payment methods, Instant (cards) / 1-3 days (cash) / Instant (SPEI) | |
| Withdrawal / Payout | N/A — Conekta is collection-only, not payouts | |
| Instant Withdrawals | N/A — Conekta is collection-only, not payouts | |
| KYC / AML Built-in | Full auto | |
| Chargeback Protection | Merchant | |
| Multi-Currency | MXN | |
| API Integration | REST API + SDKs + plugins | |
| Local Payment Methods | Roughly 7 main methods on the current product set: Visa/Mastercard/Amex credit and debit (domestic and international), Conekta Efectivo cash vouchers redeemed at 19,000+ retail points (7-Eleven, Farmacias Benavides, Circle K, Extra and others — but NOT OXXO since the 2024 FEMSA sale), SPEI interbank transfers, Pago en BBVA app-based direct debit, BNPL through Aplazo and Creditea Pay partnerships, Apple Pay. No Google Pay yet on the main checkout, no direct crypto, no PayPal integration. methods across multiple categories | |
| iGaming Specialization | Native Mexican payment stack, Fortress fraud engine, Smart Retry, 19,000+ cash points, T+2 settlement | |
| Geographic Coverage | 1 countries across Latin America |
Pricing & Fee Structure
Fee structure and pricing model
Pricing & Fee Structure
% per transaction + fixed pricing model
3.4% + $3.00 MXN (cards)
N/A (no player payouts)
T+2
Roughly 7 main methods on the current product set: Visa/Mastercard/Amex credit and debit (domestic and international), Conekta Efectivo cash vouchers redeemed at 19,000+ retail points (7-Eleven, Farmacias Benavides, Circle K, Extra and others — but NOT OXXO since the 2024 FEMSA sale), SPEI interbank transfers, Pago en BBVA app-based direct debit, BNPL through Aplazo and Creditea Pay partnerships, Apple Pay. No Google Pay yet on the main checkout, no direct crypto, no PayPal integration.
None standard
~1% on international cards
None
None
No
Pricing Details
Published Mexican-peso rates as of Q2 2026. Cards: 3.4% + $3.00 MXN per domestic transaction, with American Express running closer to 4-4.5% and international cards adding roughly 1% on top of the domestic rate. Conekta Efectivo cash voucher: 3.7% per transaction. SPEI bank transfers: $12.50 MXN flat fee regardless of transaction size — this is the structural advantage on high-ticket flow because the fee is independent of the amount. No setup fee, no monthly minimum on self-serve, no contract on self-serve. For an SMB processing $500k MXN/month entirely on cards at the published rate, fees come out to roughly $17,000 MXN plus the per-transaction fixed component. The same volume entirely on SPEI would cost a fraction of that. Settlement runs on a T+2 cycle into the merchant's Mexican bank account. Enterprise contracts (Uber, Rappi, Cabify scale) get custom pricing but Conekta does not aggressively underbid Stripe or Nuvei at the enterprise tier — their pitch is the Mexican-local advantage, not the rate. Rates verified May 2026.
Negotiation Tips
If you are an iGaming operator reading this section, the relevant advice is to close the tab and look at Mercado Pago, AstroPay or PayRetailers — Conekta will not onboard you regardless of pricing because casinos and betting are explicitly prohibited. For non-gambling Mexican merchants: push for the SPEI flat-fee structure on any transaction above ~$400 MXN where it becomes cheaper than the 3.4% + $3 card rate. Negotiate enterprise pricing once your monthly volume crosses roughly $5M MXN — the basics drop but don't expect Stripe-style interchange-plus disclosure. For card-heavy international acceptance, compare Conekta's 4.4% effective rate (3.4% + 1% international surcharge) against what Stripe Mexico (about 3.6% + $3) and Nuvei (custom interchange-plus) will quote, and ask Conekta to match. Big picture: Conekta's pricing is mid-range for Mexico, not aggressive. The reason to pick them is the local stack and Fortress fraud engine, not the rate card.
Speed & Settlement
Transaction processing and settlement timelines
Instant (cards) / 1-3 days (cash) / Instant (SPEI)
Player-initiatedN/A — Conekta is collection-only, not payouts
Operator payoutT+2
To operator accountMXN only
Settlement optionsCard deposits credit to the merchant dashboard instantly and settle to the merchant's Mexican bank account on a T+2 cycle. SPEI bank transfers land in seconds and settle the same day. Conekta Efectivo cash vouchers take longer — the customer pays in cash at the retail point, that retail chain settles to Conekta on its own schedule (typically 24-48 hours), and from there it lands in the merchant's dashboard. Refunds on cards run 5-10 business days back to the cardholder, which is slower than Nuvei or Worldpay's 3-5 days. SPEI refunds are effectively instant. Conekta does not run player-payout flows because the gambling vertical is prohibited — even for non-gambling merchants there is no batch payouts product comparable to AstroPay or Inpay. Withdrawals to the merchant's own bank account follow the T+2 settlement schedule automatically. Updated Q2 2026.
Integration & Tech
Developer experience and technical capabilities
API Type
REST API + SDKs + plugins
Onboarding
1-5 business days (self-serve) / 2-3 weeks (enterprise)
Sandbox
Full sandbox available at developers.conekta.com with test API keys, test cards for approved/declined/risk-blocked scenarios, simulated SPEI references and cash voucher numbers.
Mobile SDK
Official iOS, Android and React Native SDKs maintained on GitHub. Flutter community SDK via the Dart package. SDKs handle card tokenization client-side so card data never hits the merchant's servers.
White-Label
No
Docs Quality
Good
3-7 days
Integration Assessment
REST API with Bearer-token authentication, documented at developers.conekta.com in both English and Spanish. Three integration tiers: Checkout (hosted redirect, fastest deploy), Payment Button (drop-in JS widget), and Direct API (full server-side control with custom UI). Sandbox is full-featured with test cards covering approved, declined, and risk-blocked scenarios. Official SDKs maintained on GitHub: PHP (90 stars, most popular), Node.js (39 stars on the official package), Ruby (33), Python (25), .NET (17), Java (16), Dart, Go, iOS, Android, React Native, plus community Flutter and Kotlin wrappers. Plugins: WooCommerce, Magento/Adobe Commerce, PrestaShop and Odoo, mostly community-maintained with patches landing irregularly. Webhooks for all major transaction events. The integration experience itself is straightforward — sample integration time is 3-7 days for Checkout, 1-2 weeks for full Direct API custom UI. What you don't get: any iGaming platform connector (because the vertical is banned), any multi-PSP orchestration layer (Smart Retry is intra-Conekta only), and any cross-border settlement option.
Risk & Compliance
Licensing, fraud prevention, and regulatory compliance
Compliance Context
PCI DSS Level 1 certified — Conekta's vault stores tokenized card data and merchants never touch raw PANs. Fortress is the in-house fraud detection engine built on 10+ years of Mexican-market transaction data. Architecture combines rule-based filters with neural-network-based machine learning (LSTM models analyzing temporal patterns to catch sudden behavior shifts). The Fortress system kept the network-wide chargeback rate at 0.39% in March 2024, below the 0.49% Mexican national average per Conekta's own published metrics. Enterprise merchants get an additional layer through the Kount (now Equifax) integration, which Conekta says cut chargebacks by over 50% on key accounts. 3DS2 supported for cardholder step-up authentication where the issuer requires it. KYC/KYB on the merchant side runs auto on Mexican identifiers (RFC for businesses, CURP for natural persons) — internal stack, no public vendor named (no Sumsub, no Onfido, no Jumio disclosed). Chargeback liability is standard merchant on cards; SPEI and Conekta Efectivo cash have no chargeback mechanism by design.
About Conekta: Company Background
Company and product information
Company History
Founded in 2012 in Mexico City by three University of Waterloo engineering grads: Cristina Randall (now Chief Growth Officer), Hector Cardenas (CEO, based in Waterloo, Ontario) and Leo Fischer (now Principal Engineer, previously CTO). Initial purpose was solving the same problem Stripe was solving in the US but for Mexico — let Mexican developers accept online card payments without bank-side friction. First funding round in May 2013, then a $6.6M Series A in October 2016 led by Conconi Growth Partners.
Through 2018-2019 the company plugged into Mexico's OXXO retail network through the OXXO PAY product, which let merchants generate cash voucher numbers payable at any of OXXO's 15,500+ convenience stores. This became the breakthrough — for an unbanked population, OXXO PAY was the closest thing to a universal online payment method. The $13M Series B in March 2019, led by Propel Ventures with FEMSA, VARIV Capital and Endeavor participating, capitalized that growth. Same year Mexico's Fintech Law landed and Conekta made a deliberate choice to scrap its planned e-wallet feature and stay a payment aggregator under CNBV oversight rather than seek a full ITF license.
April 2024 brought the structural change: Conekta announced the sale of OXXO PAY assets to Digital@FEMSA (the digital arm of FEMSA, which owns the OXXO convenience-store chain — and which was already a Conekta investor through the 2019 Series B). The deal closed through the second half of 2024. Co-founders publicly framed it as a refocus on the online card-payments core. Conekta retained card processing, SPEI, the Conekta Efectivo cash product (using non-OXXO retail networks like 7-Eleven, Circle K, Farmacias Benavides), the Fortress fraud engine and Smart Retry. As of 2026 they serve roughly 6,000 merchants processing 3M+ transactions monthly with ~190 employees. Chargeback rate sat at 0.39% in early 2024. Legal Business Profiles page lists casinos, betting, crypto and forex as prohibited verticals — that policy is explicit and current.
What Users Say: Trustpilot & Review Analysis
Our analysis of 0 reviews from Trustpilot and industry sources
Trustpilot Presence
Conekta does not have an active Trustpilot profile for conekta.com — confirmed via direct search. As a B2B-only Mexican payment aggregator marketing in Spanish, they do not participate in the English-language consumer review channels where Trustpilot dominates. This is consistent with how other LATAM-focused B2B PSPs like dLocal and EBANX are also under-represented on Trustpilot relative to their actual scale.
Notable Clients
Uber, Rappi, Cabify, Netflix Mexico, GAIA, Google, Facebook
Marquee names include Uber Mexico, Rappi, Cabify, Netflix Mexico, GAIA, Google and Facebook (mostly for Mexico-specific billing flows on those last two). Total merchant base is around 6,000 Mexican businesses across e-commerce, retail, subscription, mobility, food delivery and SaaS. There is no public iGaming client list — and there cannot be one — because Conekta's Business Profiles legal page explicitly excludes casinos and betting as merchant categories. The same applies to crypto exchanges and forex platforms, which are also categorical exclusions.
Operational Details
Business terms, contracts, and support
Sold OXXO PAY product to Digital@FEMSA in 2024 — Conekta retained card processing, SPEI and Conekta Efectivo (cash through 7-Eleven, Circle K, Extra and other non-OXXO chains). Restructuring announced by co-founders as a pivot to focus on the online card-payments core. Casinos, betting, crypto and forex are explicitly prohibited business profiles in Conekta's current legal terms — operators in those verticals cannot use Conekta at all.
Frequently Asked Questions
10 questions about Conekta
No. Conekta's Business Profiles legal page explicitly lists 'Casinos y Apuestas' (casinos and betting) as a prohibited merchant category. This is a categorical exclusion, not a 'subject to compliance review' qualifier. There are no SoftSwiss, EveryMatrix, Slotegrator or BetConstruct connectors because the vertical is banned outright. Mexican-licensed land-based casinos with online extensions would need to look at Mercado Pago, AstroPay, PayRetailers, or route through an orchestrator with Mexican acquiring relationships that aren't Conekta's.
Published rates: 3.4% + $3.00 MXN per domestic card transaction, 3.7% on Conekta Efectivo cash payments, $12.50 MXN flat per SPEI bank transfer regardless of amount. American Express runs higher (4-4.5%), international cards add ~1% to the domestic rate. No setup fee, no monthly minimum on self-serve, no contract. Enterprise pricing is custom but Conekta does not aggressively underbid Stripe or Nuvei at scale. For high-ticket transactions, SPEI's flat fee structure beats card rates above roughly $400 MXN per transaction. Rates current as of May 2026.
Not anymore. Conekta sold its OXXO PAY assets to Digital@FEMSA in 2024 — that business is now operated by Digital@FEMSA directly, not by Conekta. Conekta retained a cash voucher product branded Conekta Efectivo that covers 19,000+ non-OXXO retail points (7-Eleven, Circle K, Farmacias Benavides, Farmacia del Ahorro, Extra and others) but it does not include the OXXO chain itself. For OXXO PAY specifically, merchants now integrate directly with Digital@FEMSA's API.
Mexico only for merchant onboarding. Earlier press from 2017-2019 mentioned expansion plans into Colombia, Peru and Brazil but no active operations materialized in any of those markets. Merchants must be Mexican-incorporated with a Mexican bank account. The 'Conekta Brazil' entity that appears on PitchBook is a separate company acquired by Celistics in 2018, unrelated to the Mexican payments business. Cards from cardholders anywhere in the world can be charged, but the merchant of record has to be in Mexico.
3-7 days for the developer side using Conekta Checkout (hosted redirect — the fastest deploy path), 1-2 weeks for the full Direct API integration with custom UI. Sandbox is full-featured with test cards covering approved, declined and risk-blocked scenarios. Official SDKs cover PHP, Node.js, Ruby, Python, .NET, Java, Go, Dart, iOS, Android and React Native. WooCommerce, Magento, PrestaShop and Odoo plugins are available but mostly community-maintained. Self-serve merchant onboarding takes 1-5 business days for Mexican-incorporated entities; enterprise contracts add 2-3 weeks of compliance review.
No. Conekta is collection-only. There is no payouts product comparable to AstroPay's mass-payout flows or what Inpay specializes in (0% operator liability batch payouts). Even for non-gambling merchants, Conekta doesn't have a payroll-style batch disbursement API. If you need to pay players, contractors, gig workers or any large list of recipients on a recurring schedule, pair Conekta for collection with a separate payouts provider.
Stripe Mexico runs ~3.6% + $3 MXN per card transaction (slightly higher than Conekta's 3.4% + $3) but offers far better global infrastructure, multi-currency settlement (if you have a foreign entity), Stripe's broader API ecosystem (Connect, Issuing, Radar) and a global brand. Conekta wins on the deeply local stack: Conekta Efectivo cash at 19,000+ retail points, SPEI integration with a flat $12.50 MXN fee, BBVA app direct debit, BNPL through Aplazo and Creditea Pay. For a Mexican-only e-commerce business, Conekta's local methods can lift conversion on the unbanked share of the market. For a Mexican operation that's part of a global business, Stripe is usually the better default and Conekta gets added as a secondary rail for local methods.
Different shapes entirely. Mercado Pago is a consumer wallet plus SMB payment platform owned by Mercado Libre (NASDAQ: MELI) — 78M LATAM fintech users, $277.8B annual payment volume in 2025, seven LATAM countries, native Pix in Brazil. Conekta is a Mexico-only B2B payment aggregator with no consumer wallet and ~6,000 merchants. Mercado Pago licenses Mexican gambling operators where appropriate; Conekta categorically prohibits gambling. For a Mexico-focused merchant who needs the consumer brand recognition on the deposit page, Mercado Pago is the answer. For a Mexico-only B2B merchant in approved verticals who wants a developer-friendly local stack, Conekta is the alternative.
No. Cryptocurrencies are explicitly listed as a prohibited merchant category in Conekta's Business Profiles legal page. No on-ramp, no off-ramp, no stablecoin settlement, no merchant-side crypto product. Crypto-native operators should look at NOWPayments (350+ coins, 0.5-1% fee), BitPay, CoinsPaid (regulated EU operators), CoinGate or Triple-A depending on the use case.
Conekta does not have an active Trustpilot profile for conekta.com — verified via direct search. As a B2B-only Mexican payment aggregator marketing primarily in Spanish, they do not participate in the English-language consumer review channels Trustpilot dominates. The only meaningful third-party signal is Glassdoor at 3.0/5 from 17 employee reviews with senior management rated 2.4/5, reflecting the post-2024-restructuring period after the OXXO PAY divestiture.
Our Verdict: Should You Use Conekta?
Final assessment for iGaming operators
Overall iGaming Score
Summary
Conekta is the leading homegrown Mexican payment aggregator with a real product moat (Conekta Efectivo cash at 19,000+ non-OXXO retail points, SPEI rails, Fortress fraud engine, Smart Retry recovery) and a marquee client list (Uber, Rappi, Cabify, Netflix Mexico). For Mexican-incorporated SMB and enterprise merchants in approved verticals, Conekta is a defensible choice. For iGaming operators, the answer is categorical: Conekta's current legal Business Profiles page explicitly prohibits casinos and betting as merchant categories. There is no negotiation path, no compliance carve-out, no hidden gambling product line. The same exclusion covers crypto and forex. Skip Conekta entirely if you operate in any of those verticals.
Strongest Point
The Mexican local-method stack is genuinely strong for approved verticals. Conekta Efectivo at 19,000+ non-OXXO retail points (7-Eleven, Circle K, Farmacias Benavides, Extra) reaches the 60% of Mexican adults without traditional banking. SPEI at a $12.50 MXN flat fee beats every card rate above ~$400 MXN per transaction. Fortress is a real ML fraud engine built on 10+ years of Mexican-market data that kept their network chargeback rate at 0.39% in March 2024, below the 0.49% national average. Smart Retry recovers ~5% of failed-card sales by retrying across acquirers. None of this is window-dressing — it's an actual product moat versus Stripe or PayPal in the Mexican market.
Key Limitation
The categorical prohibition of iGaming, crypto and forex is the dominant limitation for anyone reading this catalog. There is no path to onboarding as a gambling operator. Beyond that, Mexico-only coverage means Conekta cannot serve any operator with regional LATAM ambitions — Mercado Pago, AstroPay, PayRetailers, dLocal and EBANX all cover more ground. No mass payouts product means you need a separate payouts provider for any player-disbursement flow. The post-2024 restructuring (OXXO PAY sale, ~190 employee headcount, Glassdoor leadership scores at 2.4/5) suggests internal turbulence that may affect responsiveness and roadmap velocity over the next 12-24 months.
Recommendation
For iGaming operators: skip entirely. The vertical is explicitly prohibited and no version of the Conekta product set fits a gambling use case. For Mexican-only non-gambling merchants, Conekta is a credible choice alongside Stripe Mexico and Mercado Pago — pick Conekta when you need Conekta Efectivo cash coverage and Mexican SPEI rails at the flat-fee structure, pick Stripe when you need global infrastructure and developer ecosystem breadth, pick Mercado Pago when you need consumer brand recognition on the deposit page. For LATAM-wide operations, look at Mercado Pago, dLocal, EBANX or AstroPay before Conekta. Updated May 2026.
Pros
- Real Mexican local-method stack: Conekta Efectivo cash vouchers at 19,000+ non-OXXO retail points (7-Eleven, Circle K, Farmacias Benavides, Extra), SPEI bank transfers at a $12.50 MXN flat fee, BBVA app direct debit for the 30M+ BBVA Mexico users, BNPL through Aplazo and Creditea Pay. For the 60% of Mexican adults without banking access this coverage is genuinely useful for non-gambling e-commerce merchants.
- Fortress in-house ML fraud engine built on 10+ years of Mexican-market transaction data. Kept their network chargeback rate at 0.39% in March 2024, below the 0.49% Mexican national average. LSTM-based neural networks detect temporal pattern shifts. Enterprise merchants get an additional Kount (Equifax) layer that reportedly cut chargebacks by 50%+ on key accounts.
- Smart Retry payment recovery automatically retries failed card attempts up to 5 times across different acquirers (the merchant's own affiliations or Conekta's pooled relationships). Recovers a meaningful share of sales that would otherwise abandon at checkout, especially on issuer-side soft declines.
- Self-serve merchant onboarding for Mexican-incorporated businesses takes 1-5 business days for basic verification. Sandbox is full-featured. Official SDKs cover PHP (90 stars on GitHub), Node.js, Ruby, Python, .NET, Java, Go, Dart, iOS, Android and React Native. WooCommerce, Magento, PrestaShop and Odoo plugins available.
- PCI DSS Level 1 certified. CNBV supervision as a payment aggregator (the deliberate choice to stay an aggregator rather than seek full ITF status under Mexican Fintech Law avoided the heavier licensing overhead). Marquee client list (Uber, Rappi, Cabify, Netflix Mexico) validates that the stack scales operationally for enterprise Mexican merchants.
- T+2 settlement to the merchant's Mexican bank account is fast for the Mexican market. SPEI lands in seconds. No setup fees, no monthly minimums on self-serve, no contract required on the standard plan. Documentation is solid and available in both English and Spanish.
Cons
- Categorical prohibition of iGaming, casinos, betting, crypto and forex in the legal Business Profiles page. There is no compliance path, no carve-out, no negotiation. For operators in any of those verticals, Conekta is structurally unavailable. Mercado Pago handles licensed Mexican gambling cases; Conekta does not.
- Mexico-only merchant onboarding. Earlier expansion talk for Colombia, Peru and Brazil never produced active operations. Merchants must be Mexican-incorporated with a Mexican bank account. Foreign operators cannot directly contract with Conekta without setting up a Mexican subsidiary or routing through an orchestrator like Corefy or IXOPAY that handles the entity layer.
- OXXO PAY was sold to Digital@FEMSA in 2024 — Conekta's biggest historical product distinction is now operated by FEMSA, not Conekta. The Conekta Efectivo cash product still works but it explicitly does NOT include OXXO stores anymore. Some merchants integrating Conekta for Mexican cash coverage discover this gap only after deployment.
- No mass payouts product. Conekta is collection-only. No payroll-style batch disbursement API, no player payouts, no gig-worker payout flows. Merchants needing to pay any large list of recipients on a schedule must pair Conekta with a separate payouts provider.
- Single-currency MXN settlement. No multi-currency option for merchants who need USD or EUR settlement. International cards can be charged but settlement always lands as Mexican pesos in a Mexican bank account.
- Thin and mixed reputation signal. No Trustpilot profile, no meaningful G2 or Capterra activity. Glassdoor 3.0/5 from 17 employee reviews with senior management at 2.4/5 reflects post-restructuring internal turbulence. The single SourceForge review (1.0/5) and scattered WordPress plugin complaints echo themes of customer support gaps and slow responsiveness. Pattern is worth knowing about even if the sample is too small for confident generalization.
Ready to evaluate Conekta for your business?
Conekta vs. Alternatives: How It Compares
Similar payment processing solutions
If you are an iGaming operator, the realistic question is which providers fill the role Conekta cannot play. Mercado Pago covers seven LATAM countries with a 78M consumer-wallet base and serves licensed Mexican operators where appropriate. AstroPay is iGaming-native across LATAM with mass payouts, a Slotegrator connector and 4.3/5 Trustpilot. PayRetailers gives direct LATAM acquiring with 100+ payment methods and a SoftSwiss connector. dLocal extends beyond LATAM into APAC and Africa with 40+ countries and is publicly traded on Nasdaq. EBANX similarly covers LATAM plus India and Africa with stronger enterprise card pricing. For global card processing with LATAM as part of a larger stack, Nuvei or Solidgate are usually the foundation, with Mercado Pago and AstroPay layered in as local methods. Conekta itself sits outside this stack entirely for iGaming use cases because it prohibits the vertical.
When to Choose an Alternative
Mercado PagoChoose Mercado Pago over Conekta for any LATAM consumer-recognition play. 78M LATAM fintech users, seven-country coverage, native Pix in Brazil, Apple Pay and Google Pay. Mercado Pago will serve licensed Mexican gambling operators where Conekta categorically refuses.
AstroPayChoose AstroPay for iGaming in LATAM. Iigaming-native with dedicated operator support, Slotegrator connector, mass payouts, 4.3/5 Trustpilot. Conekta prohibits gambling — AstroPay was built for it.
PayRetailersChoose PayRetailers for B2B LATAM direct acquiring with 100+ payment methods, a SoftSwiss connector and dedicated iGaming sales. Direct acquiring economics beat Conekta at $1M+/month volume and the gambling vertical is welcomed rather than banned.
EBANXChoose EBANX for LATAM coverage plus expansion into India and Africa, stronger enterprise card pricing and B2B-focused account management. Built for global merchants who need LATAM as one region in a multi-region stack.
dLocalChoose dLocal for emerging-markets coverage across 40+ countries including APAC and Africa, transparent enterprise pricing on cards and Nasdaq-listed public-company governance. Better fit than Conekta for any operator whose footprint extends beyond Mexico.
Mercado Pago
AstroPay
PayRetailers
EBANX
dLocal
Mercado Pago
Local/Regional PSP
EBANX
Local Methods PSP
dLocal
Local/Regional PSP
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Local LATAM PSPEnd of Report. Conekta Provider Assessment Report 2026
Prepared and reviewed by the iGaming Payment Solutions Editorial Team · May 13, 2026