Mobile Money Payments for Events: M-Pesa, MTN MoMo, Airtel Money Guide

Across Africa, mobile money is how many people pay for everything—including event tickets.

If your ticketing platform doesn’t support it, you miss a large share of potential buyers. This guide covers the main options and how to choose a platform.

Why mobile money matters for events

In Kenya, a large majority of event-goers prefer M-Pesa. In Uganda, MTN MoMo and Airtel Money are common. In Nigeria and Ghana, mobile money and card both matter.

Platforms that support these methods natively see higher conversion and fewer drop-offs at checkout—attendees pay with a few taps and get instant confirmation.

M-Pesa (Kenya and beyond)

• Where: Kenya primarily; also in Tanzania, and expanding.
• How it works: Customer enters phone number; receives STK push; confirms payment. Funds settle to the merchant (or platform) according to the integration.
• For events: Use a ticketing platform that supports M-Pesa (e.g. SoldOutAfrica, Pesapal Events, Mtickets). You don’t need your own Till or Paybill—the platform handles the flow.

MTN MoMo and Airtel Money (Uganda, Ghana, etc.)

• Where: Uganda, Ghana, and other markets where MTN and Airtel operate mobile money.
• For events: Support varies by platform. SoldOutAfrica and other Africa-focused platforms are adding or already support multiple mobile money options; check each provider’s coverage for your country.

Card and international

Many platforms also accept card (and sometimes PayPal or other methods) for international attendees or those who prefer not to use mobile money. Having both mobile money and card on the same event page gives you the widest reach.

How to choose a platform

1. Check your market — Which payment methods do your attendees actually use? (e.g. Kenya → M-Pesa; Uganda → MoMo / Airtel.)
2. Native vs workaround — Prefer a platform where mobile money is built in, not a patch. That usually means faster checkout and fewer failures.
3. Fees and payouts — Understand per-transaction fees and how quickly you get paid in local currency.

Get started

Sell tickets with M-Pesa and more on SoldOutAfrica.

For Kenya-specific setup, read How to accept M-Pesa for events. For a full comparison of platforms, see our guide to event ticketing in Kenya.

One event, every African rail

Mobile money is not one system, it is a dozen national ones that do not talk to each other. An organizer in Nairobi selling to a Kampala audience, or a Lagos artist playing Accra, normally hits a wall: the buyer's wallet does not work on the platform's checkout, so they are pushed onto an international card payment that frequently declines.

Our payment infrastructure runs on Fincra and Maplerad, which means we collect and disburse right across Africa rather than in one market at a time. A single event can take M-Pesa and Airtel Money in Kenya, bank transfer and Verve in Nigeria, MTN MoMo, Telecel Cash and AirtelTigo Money in Ghana, and card or instant EFT in South Africa — each buyer paying on the rail they already use.

Payouts work the same way in reverse. You can be settled in the market where your costs actually sit, without an international wire step and without losing money to an FX spread on the way out and again on the way back. For a touring act or a diaspora promoter, that is the difference between running one campaign and running four.

Collection is solved. The rest is not.

Mobile money fixed the hardest part of selling tickets in Africa — getting paid by someone without a card. What it did not fix is everything on either side of the transaction.

Before the sale: the deposit and advance are still due weeks early, and M-Pesa does not help you find that money. Event prefinancing does — capital from a dedicated pool, repaid from ticket revenue as it sells.

After the sale: money collected instantly by M-Pesa can still sit with the platform for weeks. Instant collection paired with post-event settlement gives you the worst of both. Realtime settlement closes that gap.

Across parties: when co-promoters and a venue on a percentage all need paying, one person collecting everything and distributing later is where partnerships break. Split payments pay each party automatically from the same event.

Comparing all-in cost

Mobile money processing is cheaper per transaction than card, but platforms do not always pass that on, and a low headline rate with a per-withdrawal fee can cost more than a higher one without. Ours is 5% per ticket sold with no monthly subscription, no listing fee and no per-payout charge — see what ticketing actually costs in Africa.

Go to the organizer portal → — 5% per ticket sold, no monthly fee, no listing fee. Tell us what you are planning in the next six months and we will tell you what we can front.