Workers’ Day gets framed around employed labour. The history of that framing is important and the rights it represents matter.
But in South Africa, a very significant portion of the working population doesn’t have an employer. They are the employer. The shop owner who opens at 6am. The barber that runs on walk-ins and word of mouth. The market trader who sets up and packs down six days a week. The flower seller who starts before sunrise.
These are workers. They just don’t have a payslip, an HR department, or anyone absorbing the cost of doing business on their behalf.
Here’s a number that makes the problem a bit easier to understand: a merchant doing R40,000 a month on card payments is paying somewhere between R800 and R1,200 in processing fees every month. That’s before rent, before stock, before any operational cost. It goes to a payment processor. Not to the business. Not to the family it supports.
Over a year, that’s R9,600–R14,400. For most traders, that’s meaningful capital.
TappiPay charges between 0.3- 0.6% on QR transactions. On the same R40,000, that’s roughly R160. The R640–R1,040 difference stays in the business.
We’re launching middle of 2026. Pre-sign up takes two minutes and is open on the website. Sign up to be a TappiPay merchant.
On Workers’ Day this Friday, TappiPay celebrates every South African who works for themselves.
