"Just send it to my M-Pesa" is still how a large share of Kenyan business gets paid. It works, right up until it does not — when you cannot tell a customer payment from your cousin's, when KRA asks questions, or when you need to know which order a payment belongs to.
Safaricom offers three distinct business payment products, and they solve different problems. Choosing wrong is not catastrophic, but it costs you time every single day. Here is how to choose properly.
The three options at a glance
| Pochi la Biashara | Buy Goods (Till) | Paybill | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who it's for | Sole traders, mama mboga, boda, hawkers | Physical shops, restaurants, salons | Online stores, utilities, schools, subscriptions |
| Customer enters | Your phone number | Till number | Paybill number + account number |
| Funds land in | Separate business wallet on your line | M-Pesa business wallet | Your bank account |
| Account/reference field | No | No | Yes |
| Registration | Self-service, minutes | Business documents, days | Business documents, days |
| Best for automated reconciliation | No | Good | Best |
The single most important row is the account/reference field. It is the difference between knowing that you were paid and knowing what you were paid for.
Pochi la Biashara: separating business from personal
Pochi is Safaricom's product for micro-businesses that were previously taking payments on a personal number. It gives you a separate business wallet on the same SIM, so customer payments stop mixing with your personal M-Pesa balance.
What it does well. Registration is self-service and takes minutes with no business documents. Customers pay to your phone number, which they already know how to do — no new behaviour to teach. Your business and personal money are finally separate.
Where it stops. There is no account or reference field, so payments arrive identified only by the sender's number. There is no meaningful integration path for a POS system, which means confirmation is manual: you check your phone, read the SMS, and tell the customer it arrived. That is fine at ten transactions a day and untenable at a hundred.
Choose Pochi if: you are a sole trader, market seller, boda operator or hawker doing modest volume, and your immediate problem is that business and personal money are tangled together.
Buy Goods (Till Number): the default for physical retail
A Buy Goods till gives you a 6–7 digit number. Customers select Lipa na M-Pesa → Buy Goods and Services, enter your till and the amount, and pay. Funds arrive in your M-Pesa business wallet.
What it does well. It is the lowest-friction option for a customer standing at your counter — fewer steps than Paybill, and no account number to mistype. Most Kenyan customers have done it hundreds of times. Crucially, a till number can be connected to a POS system through Safaricom's Daraja API, which unlocks STK Push: the till sends the payment prompt to the customer's phone, and the confirmation comes back to the POS automatically.
That last point is worth being precise about, because it is what actually changes your day. Without integration, your cashier checks their phone and types the amount in — which is where mistyped amounts, fake confirmation SMS and payments credited to the wrong sale all come from. With integration, the sale closes itself.
Where it stops. No account number field, so a till number on its own cannot tell you which order a payment belongs to. That is fine at a counter, where the sale and the payment happen in the same moment, but it makes tills a poor fit for online orders.
Choose a till if: you have a physical shop, restaurant, salon, pharmacy or kiosk where customers pay at the point of sale. This is the right default for most Kenyan retail. Our step-by-step till setup guide covers the application.
Paybill: when you need to know what the payment is for
Paybill gives you a business number plus an account number field the customer fills in. Funds settle to your bank account rather than an M-Pesa wallet.
What it does well. The account field is the whole point. Populate it with an order number, an invoice number, a student admission number or a meter number, and reconciliation becomes automatic — every payment identifies itself. For an online store, this is the difference between matching payments to orders by hand and not thinking about it at all. Settlement to a bank account also suits businesses with larger volumes or existing banking relationships.
Where it stops. More steps for the customer, and the account number is a field they can get wrong — a mistyped order number creates an unmatched payment you have to chase. Registration takes a little longer than a till.
Choose Paybill if: you sell online, invoice customers, collect recurring fees, or run a school, SACCO or utility. If a payment can arrive hours after the order was placed, you need the account field.
What most Kenyan businesses should actually do
A single physical shop: get a till number and connect it to your POS. Nothing else needed.
A shop that also sells online: you want both. A till for the counter and a Paybill for online orders, both feeding the same system so your sales and stock stay in one place. This is the most common setup for a growing Kenyan retailer, and it is worth setting up early rather than retrofitting.
Online only: Paybill, with your order number in the account field.
Sole trader, low volume: Pochi, and revisit it when transaction volume starts costing you time.
Restaurant: a till, integrated with the POS so waiters can send an STK Push to the table from a tablet. It removes the walk to the counter and the "have you received it?" exchange entirely.
Costs and what to check
Safaricom's transaction charges for Buy Goods and Paybill vary by tariff band and by the agreement you sign, and Safaricom revises them periodically. Rather than quoting a figure that may be stale by the time you read this, get your current rate card from Safaricom directly or through your account manager, and check three things:
- Who bears the transaction cost — you or the customer. This varies by product and tariff.
- The settlement timeline — how quickly Paybill funds reach your bank account.
- Whether your tariff band changes with volume, and at what threshold.
Also note that transaction charges are paid to Safaricom, not to your POS provider. A POS system that adds its own percentage on top of M-Pesa payments is charging you for something that should be included.
Connecting any of these to your POS
Having the right M-Pesa product is half the job. The other half is whether your POS actually processes payments or just records them.
With sell.ke, you connect your till number or Paybill in Settings → Payments, along with your Daraja credentials. From that point:
- The POS sends the STK Push itself — the customer gets the prompt without opening the M-Pesa app
- Confirmation comes back from Safaricom and closes the sale automatically
- Stock deducts and the KRA eTIMS receipt generates at the same moment
- For Paybill, the order number goes into the account field so online payments reconcile themselves
- Daily, weekly and monthly M-Pesa reports are produced without anyone exporting a statement
If you sell both in-shop and online, both a till and a Paybill can be connected to the same account, and payments from either land in one dashboard against one set of stock.
The setup, including the Daraja production switch that catches most people out, is walked through by the sell.ke team over WhatsApp at no extra cost on paid plans. There is more detail on the M-Pesa POS integration page.
Frequently asked questions
Can I use my personal M-Pesa number for business? You can, and many businesses start there, but it makes your records unusable — business and personal payments mix, there is no reference on incoming money, and you cannot automate confirmation. Pochi la Biashara solves the separation problem in minutes at no cost, so there is little reason to stay on a personal number.
Can I have both a till number and a Paybill? Yes, and many businesses selling in-shop and online do exactly that. Both can be connected to sell.ke so payments from either channel arrive in the same dashboard.
Which is better for an online store, Paybill or till? Paybill, because of the account number field. It lets each payment carry its order number, so payments match to orders automatically instead of by hand.
How long does it take to get a till number or Paybill in Kenya? Typically 2–5 business days for a Buy Goods till and 3–7 for a Paybill, from application at a Safaricom shop or online. You will need a business registration certificate or a KRA PIN for a sole trader, plus the owner's national ID.
Do I need the Daraja API? Only if you want your POS to send STK Push prompts and confirm payments automatically — which is the point of integrating at all. Without it your cashier confirms by phone. Daraja access is free from Safaricom's developer portal; the step people miss is switching the app from sandbox to production.
Does sell.ke charge extra on M-Pesa payments? No. Safaricom's transaction charge applies as normal, and sell.ke does not add a percentage on top.