Here’s why your mobile recharge will cost more on Paytm, PhonePe – Times of India

Paytm and PhonePe are among the popular online payment apps in India. They allow users to conveniently pay their utility bills and make other online transactions. Online payment services like Paytm and PhonePe once provided cashbacks on mobile phone recharges to entice users to use them more frequently. However, as a result of the platform fees these digital payment apps have begun to impose, users are now being charged more for services like bill payment, mobile number recharges and more.
On the PhonePe app, regardless of the payment method, there is a small platform fee for using PhonePe to pay bills and recharge, and this fee includes GST. However, if the mobile recharge is unsuccessful, the platform fee and the paid recharge amount (inclusive of GST) will be refunded to the user.
How much will it cost?
The two apps use different platform fees. A platform fee of Rs 1 will be applied when you recharge your mobile number using the Paytm app with an amount above Rs 100. A platform fee of Rs 1 is levied by the PhonePe app on recharges above Rs 50 and Rs 2 on recharges above Rs 100. No platform fee will be added to recharges that are less than the predetermined amount.
Customers who want to avoid the additional fees may transfer their mobile recharges to other payment platforms like Google Pay and Amazon Pay, which currently do not impose any convenience fees on users. In addition to having their own apps that are available for both Android and iOS, the major telecom providers (Airtel, Jio and Vodafone Idea) also support in-app recharging via UPI and other payment methods.