Conekta

Conekta: Payment Acceptance Overview For Merchants

Conekta is a Mexico-focused payment acceptance platform built to help merchants collect online payments through a single integration while offering multiple local methods at checkout. Its product set spans card payments, cash payments through Conekta Efectivo, bank transfer flows, pay-by-bank options, and installment-style financing. Conekta also provides a merchant portal (Panel Conekta), developer APIs, and integration options ranging from fully customized implementations to plugins and payment links.

What Conekta Is And Who It Fits

Conekta positions itself as a payments infrastructure provider for merchants operating in Mexico, with more than 12 years of experience in the market. It reports over 300 million processed transactions, more than 8,000 companies using the platform, and more than 180 collaborators, as well as Series A and B funding totaling $24M USD.

From a merchant-fit standpoint, Conekta supports:

• SMBs and new businesses via a published “PyMEs y Nuevos Negocios” plan with starting rates.
• Large merchants via an Enterprise plan designed for high transaction volumes, including preferential volume-based rates and dedicated support roles.

Payment Methods And Acceptance Channels

Conekta’s core offering is online payment acceptance (web and checkout experiences). The platform highlights the following methods:

Card Payments

Conekta supports online card payments, including credit, debit, and international cards, and explicitly references major schemes such as Visa, Mastercard, Carnet, and American Express. It also supports flows commonly needed by ecommerce merchants, including:

• Installments (Meses Sin Intereses, MSI) with configurable terms
• On-demand charges (saved-card style flows)
• Subscriptions
• Pre-authorizations

Conekta also references a “Smart Retry” capability intended to improve authorization outcomes through payment retries.

Cash Payments With Conekta Efectivo

Conekta Efectivo is positioned as a nationwide cash network enabling customers to pay at more than 19,000 payment points across Mexico. Conekta highlights:

• Payment references (including references sent by email)
• Real-time payment notifications reflected in the merchant’s Panel Conekta

Conekta also notes that, in many participating retail chains, the payer may be charged an additional cashier commission (with a separate handling for BBVA practicajas).

Bank Transfers And Pay-By-Bank

Conekta supports bank transfer experiences, including interbank transfers tied to SPEI and notifications when the payment is processed. It also offers Pago Directo BBVA, described as a pay-by-bank method that authenticates in the BBVA app and is positioned as reducing chargeback risk due to that authentication flow.

BNPL And Pay-In-Installments Options

Conekta promotes “Pago a Plazos” and frames it as enabling pay-in-installments without requiring a credit card. The platform also describes offering multiple BNPL options through a unified integration, with approvals and operational notifications handled through the merchant panel.

Apple Pay

Conekta offers Apple Pay as a checkout payment option and states that Apple Pay costs the same as processing a regular card payment, with no extra fees. It also describes Apple Pay’s use of tokenization and biometric authorization (Face ID/Touch ID) as part of the customer payment flow.

Checkout And Integration Options

Conekta provides multiple integration paths so merchants can match implementation effort to their team’s capabilities:

• Custom integration (“Pagos a la medida”) for merchants who want to embed and control the payment experience.
• Checkout for configuring multiple payment methods in a checkout experience that can be embedded or used via redirection.
• Payment Links (Link de pago) that can be created in the Panel Conekta and via API, including configuration controls such as allowed payment methods and expiration windows.
• Plugins for common ecommerce platforms, including Shopify, VTEX, Magento, WooCommerce, Prestashop, and Tiendanube.
• Payment Button (Botón de pago) as a simpler integration pattern for taking payments online.

For developers, Conekta provides:

• API key-based authentication with separate sandbox and production modes, including public keys for frontend card tokenization and private keys for secure backend operations.
• Webhooks for real-time event notifications to merchant endpoints.
• An API surface that includes objects and operations for orders, subscriptions, events, webhooks, refunds, and related payment lifecycle workflows.

Merchant Operations And Reporting

Conekta emphasizes management through Panel Conekta, including:

• Viewing payment status for orders
• Reviewing chargebacks and acceptance levels
• Managing enabled payment methods
• Using test mode
• Downloading invoices and account statements
• Creating payment links

In addition, Conekta’s API reference includes endpoints relevant to operational reporting patterns, such as event retrieval and log access, and the platform supports webhook-driven reconciliation flows.

Pricing And Commercial Model

Conekta describes a pay-per-success model (paying fees on successful charges) and states that plans can include integration without cost while managing the business via Panel Conekta.

Key published starting rates for the “PyMEs y Nuevos Negocios” plan include (all noted as + IVA):

• Card payments: starting at 3.4% + $3.00 MXN
• Conekta Efectivo: starting at 2.6% + $3.00 MXN (with a stated minimum commission of $5.4 MXN + IVA)
• Transfers: starting at $12.50 MXN
• Vales de despensa (for non-financial industries): 4.4% + $3.00 MXN
• Installment (MSI) fees: vary by issuer and term (examples are listed by bank and month-count within the pricing materials)

For larger merchants, Conekta offers an Enterprise plan described as including preferential rates based on volume, dedicated support, and a dedicated Customer Success Manager role.

Settlement And Payout Timing

Conekta publishes payout timing by payment method, including:

• Credit and debit cards: 2 business days
• American Express cards: 4 business days
• Interbank transfer: 2 business days
• BNPL: 2 business days
• Pay-by-bank (Pago Directo): 1 business day
• Conekta Efectivo: settlement on a scheduled day (Wednesday of the following week), with additional schedule rules based on when payments are received

Conekta also notes that the first deposit can take 2 additional business days beyond the standard timelines.

Security, Fraud, And Compliance Posture

Conekta states it holds PCI DSS certification and also describes PCI DSS as the required security standard for organizations handling card data.

Security and risk-related features described by Conekta include:

• Tokenization for protecting sensitive card data
• 3D Secure 2 (3DS2) enablement, with options described as “Smart/Intelligent” (risk-based routing to 3DS2) and “Strict/Total” (all transactions routed to 3DS2), noting that 3DS2 carries associated costs and can be managed through the merchant panel
• An antifraud engine branded “Fortress”, described as having three layers of protection and informed by more than 10 years of prevention-rule improvement
• A KYC process intended to verify merchant identity and business legitimacy

Conekta also references chargeback management concepts in its merchant experiences (including the ability to review chargebacks in the Panel Conekta).

Conclusion

Conekta is a Mexico-centric PSP for merchants that want a single integration to offer multiple local payment methods online, including cards, cash payments via a nationwide network, bank transfer flows, pay-by-bank options, BNPL, and Apple Pay. Its tooling combines a merchant portal with developer APIs, webhooks, and a range of integration patterns from custom checkouts to plugins and payment links. For pricing-sensitive merchants, Conekta publishes starting rates for SMBs while also offering enterprise pricing structures tied to volume and dedicated support coverage.