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Buy now, pay later stopped being an experiment in Saudi retail some time ago. It is now a checkout line item that merchants budget for in the same breath as card acquiring — and the two names that matter are Tabby and Tamara.
The scale is not marginal. Tabby reports more than 25 million registered users and over 65,000 businesses across Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Kuwait. Tamara states it has over 14 million users. Those are regional figures rather than Saudi-only counts, and both are self-reported, but the direction is unambiguous: a Saudi store that does not offer instalments at checkout is now the outlier, not the innovator.
What changed most in the last eighteen months is the regulatory picture. Both companies are now licensed finance companies supervised by the Saudi Central Bank (SAMA), not payment apps operating in a grey zone. Tamara Finance received a SAMA licence to provide consumer finance and BNPL services in March 2025. Tabby Finance was licensed for BNPL activity in November 2025, and on 29 June 2026 SAMA granted it consumer finance and SME finance licences — a meaningful expansion that lets Tabby write longer, larger credit than a four-way split.
For a merchant, that regulatory status matters in two practical ways. First, it means your BNPL partner is subject to SAMA conduct rules, which reduces the reputational risk of a provider chasing your customers badly. Second, it means the product roadmap is expanding: what used to be a 'split this SAR 600 basket into four' tool is becoming a consumer lending stack that can finance a SAR 20,000 sofa. If you sell big-ticket items, that shift changes the maths for you.
Here is the honest state of the comparison. Note how many cells read 'not published' — that is not us cutting corners, it is the actual disclosure level in this market. BNPL pricing in Saudi Arabia is quoted, not listed.
| Criterion | Tabby | Tamara |
|---|---|---|
| SAMA status | Tabby Finance licensed for BNPL (Nov 2025); consumer finance + SME finance licences granted 29 June 2026 | Tamara Finance licensed for consumer finance and BNPL (March 2025) |
| Stated reach | 25M+ registered users, 65,000+ businesses across KSA, UAE and Kuwait | 14M+ users across the GCC |
| Instalment plans | Split in 3 or 4 interest-free instalments; up to 12 monthly payments on purchases above SAR 2,000 | 2, 3, 4, 6, 9, 12 or 24 payments depending on basket and eligibility |
| Merchant fee | Not published. Documented as a percentage plus SAR 1 per successful transaction, set by industry and annual volume; gateway charges included | Not published. Rate set in the individual merchant agreement |
| Settlement | Follows the cycle agreed in your contract; merchant is paid in full whether or not the customer repays | Weekly — the Tuesday after the base settlement amount is exceeded; holdbacks apply (see below) |
| Platform plugins | Available on the major Saudi platforms and through aggregators such as Tap Payments; confirm current listings per platform | Publishes free official plugins for Salla, Zid, Shopify, WooCommerce and Magento |
| Consumer late fees | None — Tabby removed late fees from its BNPL product | None advertised on its Saudi instalment plans |
| Best suited to | Fashion, beauty, electronics and any category built on repeat purchase | Furniture, appliances, jewellery and other high-ticket, low-frequency baskets |
Tabby is the larger of the two by every public measure, and the June 2026 licence expansion is the most consequential development in Saudi BNPL this year.
The core Tabby product is a straightforward interest-free split into three or four payments, with no late fees for the customer — Tabby removed those deliberately, and it is a genuine differentiator in a category that has been criticised globally for penalty revenue. For the merchant, the mechanics are the ones that matter: Tabby pays you the full order value and carries the collection risk itself. If the customer stops paying, that is Tabby's problem, not yours.
The June 2026 consumer finance licence is what changes Tabby's addressable basket. It covers purchases above SAR 2,000 up to a SAR 50,000 ceiling, spread across up to 12 monthly payments using a Murabaha structure with no interest, no compounding and no late fees. Combined with the SME finance licence, Tabby is repositioning from a checkout widget into a full-stack lender in its largest market. If you sell electronics or furniture, that ceiling is the number to watch — it moves Tabby into territory that previously belonged to Tamara by default.
Tamara is smaller by user count but more transparent about its merchant mechanics — and considerably more flexible on how long a customer can take to pay.
Tamara's plan range is its clearest structural advantage: customers can split a basket into 2, 3, 4, 6, 9, 12 or 24 payments, subject to eligibility. Nothing in Tabby's public product line reaches 24 months. If you sell furniture, appliances, jewellery or anything else where the basket is large and the purchase is infrequent, that tenor flexibility is not a marketing detail — it is the difference between a completed order and an abandoned cart.
Tamara also markets hard on merchant outcomes, claiming up to a 40% rise in average order value, 15% higher conversion and a 50% increase in purchase frequency. Treat those as vendor figures, not independent findings — they are not attributed to a published methodology, and uplift claims in this category are notoriously sensitive to which merchants are included. Ask Tamara for a cohort in your own vertical before you build a business case on them.
This is the section most merchants skip to, and it is the section where we have to be blunt: neither Tabby nor Tamara publishes a merchant discount rate for Saudi Arabia. Anyone quoting you a precise headline percentage for either provider is guessing.
We do not publish invented numbers. Tabby documents the shape of its pricing but not the rate; Tamara publishes neither. Industry commentary on BNPL in the region describes merchant commissions broadly in the 2–9% range depending on sector, margin and risk profile, but that is a general market observation, not a Tabby or Tamara rate. Get both quotes in writing and compare them against your card acquiring cost before you decide.
The largest component, and the one that varies most. Tabby states it is set by your industry and annual sales volume and is specified in your contract. Tamara sets it in the individual merchant agreement. Expect the rate to be materially higher than your card rate — BNPL providers are underwriting credit risk, not just moving money, and the commission is how that risk is priced.
Tabby documents a fixed SAR 1 charge on each successful order on top of the percentage. On a SAR 1,200 basket that is negligible; on a SAR 40 basket it is 2.5% before the commission is even applied. If your average order value is low, model this explicitly rather than treating it as rounding.
Tabby states its pricing includes all payment gateway charges with no hidden fees. That is a real point of comparison — if a competing quote looks cheaper on the headline percentage but you still pay gateway fees separately, the cheaper quote may not be cheaper. Ask this question explicitly of both providers.
Tamara's merchant terms state that where an approved transaction is refunded, Tamara is entitled to charge or retain its fees on that transaction. In plain terms: you may not get your commission back when a customer returns an item. For a fashion retailer with a 30% return rate, that provision changes your effective cost of BNPL substantially. Confirm the refund fee treatment with both providers in writing.
Our practical advice: request quotes from both, and ask each for the same three numbers — the commission percentage, the fixed per-order fee, and the refund fee treatment. Then rebuild your effective rate on your own real order distribution rather than on an average basket. Merchants with a low average order value and a high return rate are routinely surprised by how far their effective BNPL cost sits above the headline number.
Fees get the attention, but settlement timing is what actually determines whether BNPL helps or hurts your working capital — and here the two providers disclose very differently.
Tamara publishes its mechanics in its merchant terms, and they deserve a careful read. Tamara settles net amounts on the Tuesday following the point at which a base settlement amount has been exceeded — so a weekly cycle, gated by a threshold. It can withhold payment of the net amount for the first three transactions for a period of one month, which is a new-merchant risk control. And it reserves the right to hold back a portion of the net amount during the weekly settlement cycle. None of that is unusual for a credit provider, but all of it needs to be in your cash flow model before you launch, particularly if BNPL is going to carry a large share of your revenue.
Tabby publishes less. What is documented is the principle that matters most: the merchant is paid the full order value regardless of whether the customer subsequently pays Tabby, with the collection risk sitting entirely with Tabby. The cadence itself follows the settlement cycle agreed in your contract. Where Tabby is delivered through an aggregator such as Tap Payments, settlement runs on that aggregator's regular cycle, and the payout report breaks the settlement down order by order with the fees charged on each. That order-level breakdown is genuinely useful for reconciliation — ask for a sample report during evaluation.
The asymmetry here is worth naming plainly. Tamara tells you more but the published terms are stricter; Tabby tells you less but you will negotiate the cadence contractually. Neither is straightforwardly better. What you should not do is assume either provider settles like a card acquirer — weekly cycles and holdbacks are normal in this category, and a merchant running on thin working capital needs to plan for that gap.
Integration effort is largely a non-issue for both providers if you are on a mainstream platform, which most Saudi merchants are. Tamara documents its plugin coverage most clearly; for Tabby, confirm the current listing in your platform's app marketplace or route it through an aggregator. In all cases the plugin itself is free — you pay through the commission, not an installation fee.
The default choice for Saudi SMEs, and the platform where BNPL adoption is most mature. Tamara publishes an official Salla integration that merchants activate from the store dashboard without touching code.
If you are on Salla, integration is not a decision factor — both providers are well established here. Choose on fees, settlement and customer fit instead.
Zid's merchant base skews toward established retailers with existing operations. Tamara states its Zid integration requires no technical skills and activates directly from the Zid dashboard in minutes.
Straightforward on both sides. The bigger Zid-specific question is whether your average order value justifies Tamara's longer tenors.
Common among Saudi brands that sell cross-border as well as domestically. Tamara publishes a Shopify payment gateway app; Tabby is also reachable through Tap Payments if you want a single gateway relationship.
Workable either way. If you already process cards through Tap, adding Tabby through the same gateway keeps reconciliation in one place.
Still widely used by Saudi merchants who want full control of their stack. Tamara publishes a WooCommerce payment gateway plugin covering both card and split payments.
Self-hosted stores carry the ongoing plugin maintenance burden — factor in the update and testing overhead that managed platforms absorb for you.
Strip away the marketing and the decision comes down to six questions about your own business. Answer these honestly and the right provider — or the decision to run both — becomes obvious.
Under roughly SAR 500, a 3- or 4-way split is all your customers need and Tabby's reach advantage dominates. Above SAR 2,000, tenor becomes the deciding factor and Tamara's 24-month option — or Tabby's new 12-month consumer finance product — starts to matter more than anything else.
High-frequency categories like fashion and beauty benefit disproportionately from the provider whose app the customer already has open. On stated user numbers that favours Tabby. Low-frequency, high-ticket categories care far less about installed base and far more about approval size.
If you run fashion-level returns, the refund fee treatment is arguably more important than the headline commission. Tamara's terms allow it to retain fees on refunded transactions. Get both providers' refund policies in writing and model your effective rate on net revenue, not gross.
Weekly settlement, threshold gating and holdbacks are all standard in this category but they are not free — they are a financing cost you absorb. If your cash conversion cycle is already tight, treat settlement cadence as a hard requirement in negotiation, not a nice-to-have.
On Salla or Zid, integration is a dashboard toggle and should not influence the decision. On WooCommerce, someone on your side owns plugin updates and checkout regression testing indefinitely. Price that time in.
Most established Saudi retailers do, and it is usually the correct answer. Two BNPL buttons at checkout costs you two integrations and two reconciliations, but it maximises the share of shoppers who find a provider that already knows them and has approved a sufficient limit. Start with one, add the second once you have real conversion data.
Approval mechanics are the least transparent part of this entire category. Both providers make an instant automated decision at checkout, and neither publishes an approval rate — so any figure you see quoted for either is unsourced. What follows is only what is actually disclosed.
| Item | Tabby | Tamara |
|---|---|---|
| Short-term split | 3 or 4 interest-free instalments | 2, 3, 4 or 6 payments |
| Longer plans | Up to 12 monthly payments on purchases above SAR 2,000, under the consumer finance licence (Murabaha structure, no interest or compounding) | 9, 12 or up to 24 payments on eligible baskets |
| Minimum basket | Not published — configured per merchant | Commonly cited from around SAR 200; varies by store |
| Maximum basket | SAR 50,000 ceiling on the consumer finance product; BNPL limits set per customer | Customer limits commonly around SAR 2,000, rising to roughly SAR 4,000 with repayment history; store-level limits vary widely |
| Approval rate | Not published. Instant automated decision at checkout | Not published. Instant automated decision at checkout |
| Cost to the customer | No interest and no late fees on the BNPL product; no interest or compounding on the Murabaha consumer finance product | No late fees advertised on Saudi plans; confirm current fee terms on the longest tenors |
Two cautions on this table. First, customer limits are dynamic — they are assigned per shopper based on repayment history and adjusted continuously, so the figures above are typical ranges rather than guarantees. Second, store-level limits are negotiated separately from customer limits, which means the maximum basket your checkout will approve is partly a commercial variable you can raise with your account manager once you have a track record.
Our VerdictThere is no universal winner here, and any article that declares one is not looking closely enough. The split falls cleanly along basket size and purchase frequency — and for a large share of Saudi merchants, the genuinely correct answer is to offer both.
For fashion, beauty, electronics and anything bought repeatedly, Tabby's larger installed base means more shoppers arrive already approved. Combined with no late fees, it is the lower-friction default for high-frequency retail.
Furniture, appliances and jewellery need tenor more than they need reach. Tamara's 24-payment option stretches further than anything Tabby currently offers and turns an unaffordable basket into a monthly figure the customer will accept.
25M+ registered users and 65,000+ merchants across KSA, UAE and Kuwait is the strongest distribution position in the region, and the June 2026 consumer and SME finance licences extend it further into large-basket and working-capital territory.
Seven plan lengths, published merchant terms and free official plugins across Salla, Zid, Shopify, WooCommerce and Magento. You can model your economics before signing, which you cannot fully do with Tabby.
Both scores are held back by the same thing: neither company publishes merchant pricing. Until that changes, no reviewer can tell you which is cheaper for your business, and you should treat any source that claims to as unreliable. Get both quotes, compare the commission, the fixed fee, the refund treatment and the settlement cadence side by side, and make the call on your own numbers.
Neither publishes a merchant discount rate. Tabby documents the structure — a percentage plus SAR 1 per successful transaction, set according to your industry and annual sales volume, with payment gateway charges included — but not the percentage itself. Tamara sets its rate in the individual merchant agreement and publishes nothing. Both require a direct quote. Industry commentary describes BNPL merchant commissions in the region broadly in the 2–9% range depending on sector and risk, but that is a general market observation and not a rate quoted by either company.
Tamara publishes a weekly cycle: it settles net amounts on the Tuesday following the point at which a base settlement amount is exceeded, may withhold the first three transactions for one month, and may hold back a portion of the net amount during the settlement cycle. Tabby publishes less detail — the cadence follows the cycle agreed in your contract, and where Tabby is delivered through an aggregator such as Tap Payments it runs on that aggregator's regular cycle. In both cases the merchant is paid regardless of whether the customer ultimately repays.
Yes. Both are licensed finance companies supervised by the Saudi Central Bank. Tamara Finance received a SAMA licence to provide consumer finance and BNPL services in March 2025. Tabby Finance was licensed for BNPL activity in November 2025 and was granted consumer finance and SME finance licences on 29 June 2026, which allow it to offer longer plans on larger purchases and to lend to small businesses.
Tamara publishes free official plugins for Salla, Zid, Shopify, WooCommerce and Magento, most of which activate from the store dashboard without code. Tabby is available across the major Saudi platforms and can also be added through aggregators such as Tap Payments; confirm the current listing in your specific platform's app marketplace before you plan the rollout. The plugins themselves are free in both cases — the cost is in the commission.
Most established Saudi retailers offer both, and for good reason: customer limits and approvals are assigned per shopper, so a customer declined or under-limited by one provider may be approved by the other. Running both maximises checkout conversion at the cost of a second integration and a second reconciliation. If you are small or launching, start with the provider that matches your basket profile — Tabby for frequent, lower-value purchases, Tamara for high-ticket items needing longer tenors — then add the second once you have real conversion data to judge it against.
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