Tabby vs Tamara vs other BNPL options for UAE online stores

Buy now pay later has stopped being optional for UAE online stores. If your checkout does not offer it and your competitor's does, you are not competing on product any more, you are competing on whether the customer can pay this month. The question for a merchant is no longer whether to add BNPL but which provider, on what terms, and how much work the integration actually involves.

This comparison is written for the merchant rather than the shopper. It covers what Tabby and Tamara publish, the other providers operating in the UAE, the Central Bank rules that constrain all of them equally, the integration effort by platform, and what to put in writing before you sign.

Three things will be useful to know up front, because they change how you should read every other comparison of these two.

Neither Tabby nor Tamara publishes its merchant rate. We read Tabby's own business page and Tamara's own partners page in full. Neither states a commission rate, a per-transaction fee, a setup fee or a settlement period in days. So any article quoting you "Tabby charges X per cent" is passing on hearsay. This page gives you no percentages either, and instead sets out exactly what to ask for in the quote.

Both providers' uplift statistics should be discounted, and one provider's contradict each other. Tamara's own partners page carries two separate blocks of performance figures that do not agree, and Tabby's figures are internally consistent but carry no methodology. Detail below, because it matters for how you evaluate a pilot.

The Central Bank caps every provider equally. The headline product terms you are being sold as differentiators are mostly regulatory ceilings that apply to all of them. That has sharp consequences if your average order value is high, and it is the section most worth your time.

How big is BNPL in the UAE, and is it still growing

Worth establishing the scale before the detail, with the usual caution about where the numbers come from.

Research and Markets published a UAE buy now pay later databook in a release dated 3 February 2026, which puts the UAE BNPL market at USD 1.17 billion in 2025, expects it to grow 25.4 per cent to USD 1.47 billion in 2026, and forecasts USD 3.92 billion by 2031. It gives a historical compound annual growth rate of 29.3 per cent for 2022 to 2025 and a forecast rate of 21.6 per cent for 2026 to 2031. These are the publisher's own estimates and forecasts in a release promoting a paid report, not measured transaction data, so treat them as an indication of direction rather than fact.

The same release names five providers operating in the UAE: Tabby, Tamara, Spotii, Cashew and Postpay. It also notes bank-linked instalment offerings from Emirates NBD, First Abu Dhabi Bank and RAKBANK, and payment gateways including Checkout.com, Adyen and Paymob embedding BNPL, which matters for the integration question later. For UAE ecommerce context more broadly, our own page on UAE ecommerce market size and growth covers the wider picture.

The direction is not really in dispute. What is in dispute is whether a given provider is right for your basket size, your margin and your customer base.

Tabby vs Tamara, what each one actually publishes

This table contains only what each company states on its own site. Where a cell says not published, that is because it is not published, not because we could not find it.

Two observations about that table rather than about the providers. The asymmetry in the plugin row is a difference in what each company chooses to publish on one page, not proof that Tabby has fewer integrations; its documentation is linked rather than listed. And the four consecutive "not published" rows in the commercial section are the most important part of the comparison, which is the next section.

Merchant fees, and why nobody will show you a rate card

Here is the honest position. Neither Tabby nor Tamara publishes merchant pricing. There is no rate card, no published commission band and no stated settlement period on either company's public merchant pages. Pricing is quoted per merchant, and it is quoted against your category, your average order value, your volume and your refund rate.

That is normal for this kind of product and it is not sinister. What it does mean is that any comparison article telling you one provider charges a specific percentage and the other charges a different one is giving you a number it cannot source. We are not going to do that.

What is more useful is knowing what to extract in writing before you commit. Ask for all of this, from every provider you approach, and compare the answers side by side:

One practical note on negotiation. These are rates, not prices, and rates move with volume. A merchant going into the conversation with its own numbers, meaning average order value, monthly volume, return rate and category, is in a different position from one asking what the fee is.

The Central Bank rules that cap every BNPL provider equally

This is the section that changes the decision, and it is missing from every merchant comparison of these providers that we have seen.

BNPL in mainland UAE sits inside the Finance Companies Regulation, updated by CBUAE Circular No. 3/2023, which took effect on 27 December 2023. The detail below comes from published analyses by Hadef and Partners, The National and AGBI rather than from the regulation text itself, so treat it as a reliable indication and confirm anything you intend to rely on.

Now the part that is genuinely actionable. If your average order value is above roughly AED 20,000, BNPL cannot cover a full basket at all. For high-end furniture, jewellery, premium electronics bundles, travel packages, cosmetic or dental treatment plans and B2B orders, that is a decisive constraint rather than a detail. The realistic options are a part-payment split where BNPL covers a portion and card or transfer covers the rest, a bank instalment plan rather than a BNPL provider, or a different financing structure altogether. Choosing a provider on the strength of its marketing and then discovering the ceiling in production is an expensive way to learn it.

The approval point follows from the same place. Because providers must run affordability checks and must consult the credit information agency above AED 5,000, approval rates are not a dial a provider can simply turn up for you. A provider quoting you a flattering approval rate is quoting an average across its whole book, and your category and basket size decide where you sit in that average. Ask for the expectation for your category specifically, and then measure it yourself.

One honest gap. None of the analyses we read states any obligation on merchants under this framework; the requirements fall on the finance companies, agents, banks and borrowers. So we are not going to tell you that offering an unlicensed provider exposes you to a penalty, because we have not seen that stated. What we would say is that contracting with a provider whose licensing position you have not checked is a commercial risk regardless of whether a regulator is interested in you.

Licensing, and the due-diligence question worth asking

Both providers address licensing on their own sites, and the wording repays reading carefully.

Tamara's footer states that Tamara FZE is licensed and regulated by the Central Bank of the UAE, giving an address at One Central, Dubai World Trade Centre. That is a single clear statement about a single entity.

Tabby's wording is more layered. Its pages state that Pay Later and Tabby Card, described as short-term credit, are provided by Tabby LLC, and that Tabby Cash Services are provided by Tabby Payments LLC, which is licensed by the Central Bank of the UAE. The consumer homepage separately states that it is regulated by the UAE Central Bank. We are reporting that precisely rather than drawing a conclusion from it: a group can hold permissions across entities, and a sentence on a marketing page is not the licensing register. What it does mean is that a merchant should establish which legal entity it is actually contracting with and under which permission, which is a sensible question to ask any financial counterparty and not an accusation about either company.

So the practical due diligence, for any BNPL provider you are considering:

• Ask for the legal entity name on the merchant agreement, not the brand name.
• Ask which Central Bank permission that entity holds, or which licensed bank or finance company it operates as agent for.
• Confirm it with the Central Bank of the UAE directly rather than taking a website footer as evidence. We looked for a public register page we could point you at and could not locate one, so this is a question to put to the regulator or to your own legal adviser.
• Check that the entity named in the contract is the one whose licensing you verified.

This takes an afternoon and it is the least costly risk management available to you. A provider that cannot answer those four questions quickly has told you something useful.

What the uplift statistics are worth

Both providers publish performance figures, and both sets should be treated as marketing rather than evidence. One set does not even agree with itself.

Tabby's business page states a 33 per cent increase in basket size, an 18 per cent increase in conversion and a 31 per cent increase in spend per customer. The figures are internally consistent. None of them carries a source, a methodology, a sample, a time period or a category breakdown, and the same page claims the highest converting checkout in the GCC without substantiating it.

Tamara's partners page is a clearer illustration of the problem. It carries two separate blocks of performance statistics whose numbers contradict each other. One block states a 50 per cent decrease in customer acquisition cost; the other states 25 per cent. One block states a 50-fold reduction in cash on delivery; the other states 50 per cent. One block manages to claim both a 50 per cent increase and a 50 per cent decrease in customer acquisition cost within the same list. Neither block gives a source, methodology, sample or period. Anyone can check this on the page itself.

The point is not that BNPL fails to lift basket size, because in our experience it frequently does. The point is that you cannot plan against somebody else's unsourced average. What matters is the uplift on your products, with your prices, for your customers, which you can only establish by running it and measuring. Which leads to the only sound way to choose between these providers.

How to actually decide, and why two providers beats one

The honest answer to "Tabby or Tamara" is that you will not know until you have run both, and that running both is usually the right end state anyway.

The reason is approval. Each provider underwrites independently, so a customer declined by one may be approved by the other. For the merchant, every decline at the final step of checkout is a lost order that your marketing has already paid for. Offering two BNPL options gives a declined customer a second route rather than an exit, and that recovered-order effect is usually worth more than the difference in commission between the two providers. It is also why an exclusivity clause in a BNPL contract deserves a hard look before you sign it.

A sensible evaluation sequence, if you are starting from nothing:

The metric most merchants forget is net margin after commission. A 30 per cent uplift in average order value on a category with a 12 per cent net margin and a BNPL commission in the mid single digits is a very different proposition from the same uplift on a 60 per cent margin. BNPL can increase revenue and reduce profit at the same time, and the only way to know which is happening to you is to run the arithmetic on your own figures.

The other BNPL options for UAE stores

Tabby and Tamara dominate the conversation, and they are not the only options. The Research and Markets release names five providers operating in the UAE, and there are routes that are not BNPL providers at all.

That last row is worth a warning rather than a shrug. Merchants sometimes conclude that if BNPL commission is the problem, they will simply let customers pay in instalments themselves. Short-term credit in the UAE is a licensed activity, and informal instalment arrangements are not a loophole. Do not take that route on the strength of a web page, including this one.

The gateway route deserves more attention than it gets. If BNPL reaches you as one more payment method inside a gateway you already run, you avoid a separate merchant agreement, a separate settlement reconciliation and a separate plugin to maintain. That is usually a smaller integration and a smaller operational burden than a direct relationship, and it is worth asking your current gateway what it can already switch on before you start a new contract. Our payment gateway integration service covers exactly this kind of work.

Integration effort by platform

The effort depends far more on your platform and on how custom your checkout is than on which provider you choose. Here is the realistic picture.

What catches merchants out is not the plugin install. It is everything around it. A BNPL integration touches the product page, where instalment messaging has to appear and be accurate; the cart and checkout, where eligibility by basket value and the decline path have to be handled; the order management side, where a BNPL order behaves differently from a card order; refunds and partial refunds, which is where most of the operational pain sits; reconciliation, because settlement arrives on a different schedule and in different batches from card settlements; and your accounting system, which has to account for the commission correctly.

The decline path is the single most common thing done badly. A customer who is declined at the final step needs to land somewhere useful, with the other payment options still available and the cart intact. We have reviewed stores where a BNPL decline emptied the basket, which converts a lost order into a lost customer. If you are building or rebuilding the store around this, our pages on ecommerce website development and ecommerce web applications cover the wider build, and ERP integration and shipping API integration cover the systems a BNPL order has to flow through afterwards.

Platform-specific build work sits with the relevant page: Shopify development, WooCommerce development, Magento development and OpenCart development.

Which BNPL option suits which kind of UAE store

Generalisations, offered as a starting point rather than a verdict, since the fee quote you receive may override all of it.

Two of those rows carry a sector caution rather than a commercial one. For healthcare, how a payment plan is advertised is governed by advertising rules rather than by your commercial judgement. And for B2B, reaching for a consumer credit product to solve a trade-terms problem usually creates a worse problem; our B2B ecommerce portal work covers the alternative.

Mistakes UAE merchants make with BNPL

The last row is the one worth dwelling on. If your checkout has a slow third step, a form that fails on mobile, or shipping costs that appear late, BNPL will not rescue it. It will simply give you a new payment button on a checkout that was already the problem.

What we do, and what we will not tell you

Tomsher Technologies builds and maintains ecommerce stores and integrates payment and BNPL providers into them. We have been doing it in Dubai since 2011, with a fully in-house team of developers, designers and testers, and a rating of 4.9 out of 5 from 201 Google reviews. On a BNPL project the work is the integration, the checkout and decline logic, the product-page messaging, the refund and reconciliation handling, and the testing across devices and baskets.

What we are not is a reseller. We do not receive commission from Tabby, Tamara or any other provider for recommending them, which is the reason this page carries no fee figures and no verdict on which provider is better. If an article tells you confidently that one of these two is the right choice for all merchants, ask who pays the author.

We will not quote you a BNPL rate, because we do not set it and nobody publishes it. We will not tell you which provider will approve more of your customers, because that depends on your category and basket size and can only be measured. We will not advise you on licensing or on whether you can offer instalments directly, because that is a lawyer's work. And we will not promise an uplift figure, for the reasons set out above.

Frequently asked questions

What does Tabby charge merchants in the UAE?

Tabby does not publish a merchant rate. We read its own business page in full and it states no commission rate, no per-transaction fee, no setup fee and no settlement period in days. Pricing is quoted per merchant against category, average order value, volume and refund rate. Any article quoting you a specific Tabby percentage cannot source it. Request a written quote covering commission by plan length, fixed fees, setup and minimum monthly charges, settlement in business days, and whether commission is refunded on cancellations.

What does Tamara charge merchants?

Also not published. Tamara's partners page states no commission, per-transaction fee, setup fee or settlement period. Its dashboard is described as letting merchants monitor settlements, without stating the timing. Treat both providers the same way: get the twelve commercial points in writing and compare like with like rather than relying on a published rate that does not exist.

Is Tabby or Tamara better for a UAE online store?

You cannot know before you run them, and for most stores the right end state is both. Each provider underwrites independently, so a customer declined by one may be approved by the other, and every decline at the last step of checkout is an order your marketing already paid for. The recovered-order effect of offering two options is usually worth more than the commission difference between them, which is also why an exclusivity clause deserves close attention before you sign.

Is there a limit on how much a customer can put on BNPL in the UAE?

Yes, and it applies to every provider equally. Under the Finance Companies Regulation as updated by CBUAE Circular No. 3/2023, effective 27 December 2023, short-term credit to one borrower must not exceed AED 20,000 or three months' verified net income, whichever is lower, and the term is capped at 12 months. If your average order value is above roughly AED 20,000, BNPL cannot cover a full basket, and you should be looking at part-payment splits or bank instalment plans. This detail comes from published legal analyses rather than the regulation text, so confirm anything you rely on.

Why is BNPL always interest free in the UAE?

Because interest may not be charged on short-term credit under the framework above. It is a legal requirement rather than a competitive gesture, which is also why the merchant commission exists: the provider's revenue comes from you and from late fees, with total fees including late fees capped at 30 per cent of the original credit amount.

Are Tabby and Tamara licensed in the UAE?

Both address licensing on their own sites. Tamara's footer states that Tamara FZE is licensed and regulated by the Central Bank of the UAE. Tabby states that Pay Later and Tabby Card are provided by Tabby LLC and that Tabby Cash Services are provided by Tabby Payments LLC, which is licensed by the Central Bank of the UAE, with its consumer page also stating that it is regulated by the UAE Central Bank. We report that precisely rather than interpreting it. For your own protection, ask which legal entity is on your merchant agreement and which permission it holds, and confirm with the Central Bank rather than relying on a website footer.

Can I just offer instalments myself and skip the commission?

Take legal advice before going anywhere near this. Short-term credit in the UAE is a licensed activity requiring either a Restricted Licence or acting as agent of a licensed bank or finance company with Central Bank approval. An informal instalment arrangement is not a way around the commission, and nothing on this page should be read as saying it is.

How much work is it to add BNPL to a Shopify or WooCommerce store?

The plugin or app is the small part. The real work is product-page instalment messaging that is accurate for the basket value, eligibility and decline handling in the cart, order management for an order that behaves differently from a card order, refunds and partial refunds, settlement reconciliation on a different schedule from card payments, and correct accounting for the commission. Tamara names Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento and OpenCart among its plugins. Tabby refers to no-code and low-code plugins on leading platforms without naming them on its business page.

Should I go direct or through my payment gateway?

Check your gateway first. If BNPL arrives as one more payment method inside a gateway you already run, you avoid a separate merchant agreement, separate settlement reconciliation and another plugin to maintain. Tamara names Geidea, Paymob and Network International among its partners, and gateways including Checkout.com, Adyen and Paymob are reported as embedding BNPL. Going direct can give better commercial terms at volume, so the answer depends on your size.

Do Tabby's and Tamara's uplift statistics mean anything?

Treat both as marketing. Tabby states a 33 per cent increase in basket size, 18 per cent in conversion and 31 per cent in spend per customer, with no source or methodology. Tamara's partners page carries two blocks of figures that contradict each other: a 50 per cent decrease in customer acquisition cost in one and 25 per cent in the other, a 50-fold reduction in cash on delivery in one and 50 per cent in the other, and in one block both an increase and a decrease in the same metric. BNPL often does lift basket size; the figure that matters is the one measured on your own products.

Who carries the risk if the customer stops paying?

Both providers state that you are paid upfront with no risk to your business, and the commercial logic of the product supports that, since the commission is what you pay for it. What we would not do is rely on a marketing line for something this important. Ask for the clause in the merchant agreement that allocates non-payment risk, and read what it says about fraud and chargebacks specifically, which is often treated differently from simple non-payment.

Which other BNPL providers operate in the UAE?

A Research and Markets release dated 3 February 2026 names Tabby, Tamara, Spotii, Cashew and Postpay as UAE providers, alongside bank instalment offerings from Emirates NBD, First Abu Dhabi Bank and RAKBANK. We verified Tabby and Tamara from their own sites. Postpay's site refuses automated access and we did not independently verify Spotii or Cashew, so this page does not characterise their terms, plans or integrations. Get quotes from more than two in any case.

How big is BNPL in the UAE?

The same Research and Markets release puts the UAE market at USD 1.17 billion in 2025, expects 25.4 per cent growth to USD 1.47 billion in 2026 and forecasts USD 3.92 billion by 2031, with a historical compound annual growth rate of 29.3 per cent for 2022 to 2025. These are the publisher's own estimates in a release promoting a paid report rather than measured transaction data, so read them as direction rather than fact.

Will adding BNPL definitely increase my revenue?

It frequently increases revenue and it can reduce profit at the same time, which is why the metric to watch is net margin after commission rather than order value. A 30 per cent uplift on a category with a thin net margin can cost more than it earns once commission and returns are counted. Run the arithmetic on your own numbers before and after, and measure over a full cycle so refunds are captured rather than only orders.

Sources

• Tabby, business and UAE consumer pages, for its payment plans, Tabby Card terms, stated user and merchant numbers, licensing wording, uplift claims and settlement language. tabby.ai
• Tamara, partners page and site footer, for its payment plans, markets, named platform and gateway integrations, licensing wording, Sharia position and the two contradictory sets of uplift figures. tamara.co
• Hadef and Partners, analysis of the Central Bank of the UAE framework for short-term lending, 12 January 2024, for the Finance Companies Regulation as updated by CBUAE Circular No. 3/2023, its 27 December 2023 effective date, the Restricted Licence route, the 12-month term, the 30 per cent total fee cap and the 90-day transition under Article 35.2. Secondary analysis.
• The National, report on the Central Bank's short-term credit rules, 27 December 2023, for the AED 20,000 or three months' net income cap, the prohibition on charging interest, the affordability assessment requirement, the credit information agency check above AED 5,000 and the restriction on taking borrower assets as security. Secondary reporting quoting the regulator.
• AGBI, report on the enforcement of the rules, January 2024, for the licence term and the agency route. Secondary reporting.
• Research and Markets, "United Arab Emirates Buy Now Pay Later Business and Investment Opportunities Databook, Q1 2026 Update", via a release dated 3 February 2026, for the market size figures, growth rates and the list of UAE providers. These are the publisher's own estimates and forecasts in a release promoting a paid report.

Three things this page deliberately does not state. No merchant commission rate or settlement period for any provider, because none is published and we will not pass on an unsourced figure. No characterisation of Postpay, Spotii or Cashew beyond their inclusion in the Research and Markets provider list, because we could not verify their terms directly. And no public Central Bank register link, because we looked for one and could not locate it; ask the provider for its licence details and confirm them with the regulator. Regulatory detail here comes from secondary analyses rather than the regulation text, and nothing on this page is legal or financial advice.