Aurelua

About Aurelua

Aurelua gives independent South African brands the infrastructure bigger companies take for granted: a real storefront, a checkout buyers trust, and money that arrives in your bank account. It is built in Cape Town and registered here as Aurelua (2026/344331/07).

Who's behind it

Wandile Khowa, founder of Aurelua

My name is Wandile Khowa, founder and CEO of Aurelua. I kept meeting people who were already running real businesses without any of the tools that are supposed to come with one: a florist taking orders through DMs at eleven at night, someone sending banking details to a stranger and hoping the proof of payment was real, brands with better products than most retail chains run entirely from a phone.

None of that was a small business waiting to become a real one. It already was one. What was missing was the boring infrastructure: a proper checkout, payments that don't require trusting a stranger, somewhere to send people that looks like you meant it.

I'm a software engineer. I hold a BSc in Computer Science and Mathematics from the University of Cape Town, and I've spent my career building systems where money moving correctly wasn't optional, most recently as a Principal Member of Technical Staff at Oracle. Aurelua is that experience pointed at a problem I kept watching people solve by hand.

Aurelua is early, and I'd rather say so than perform a size we aren't. I'm the person who answers when you email. If you want to ask me something before trusting us with your store, that is a completely reasonable thing to do. My details are at the bottom of this page.

How the money works

The clearest way to judge a platform is to follow the money, so here it is in full:

  • You pay nothing to sell. No monthly subscription, no commission, no listing fees. You keep 100% of the item price and delivery on every sale.
  • The buyer pays one Buyer Protection fee at checkout, shown to them before they pay. That fee is how Aurelua makes money, not your sales.
  • R10 when you cash out, which covers the interbank transfer. That is the only charge you will ever see from us.
  • Every order is covered by Buyer Protection. A buyer pays, and if the order never arrives we refund them. That guarantee is exactly why buyers who have never heard of you are willing to pay, and it is carried by us rather than taken out of your earnings.

Card and instant EFT are processed by Paystack and Ozow. Card details never touch Aurelua's systems.

Where things stand

Aurelua is a young company and some things are still done by hand. Before an order ships, a buyer can cancel and be refunded automatically. After it ships, you raise it with us and a person works through it. There is a formal dispute process, but it runs on our side rather than being something you trigger yourself from your account. Aurelua is also not a registered VAT vendor, so invoices do not carry VAT.

We would rather you knew that up front than discovered it later. Being early is also the reason you can reach the founder directly, which is worth something while it lasts.

Company details

  • Registered name: Aurelua
  • Registration number: 2026/344331/07
  • Registered address: 282 Tryall Road, Milnerton Rural, Cape Town 7441, South Africa
  • Phone / WhatsApp: +27 21 879 6453
  • Email: info@aurelua.com

Personal information is handled under POPIA. See our Privacy Policy for the Information Officer's details.

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