Used For

• +**Your Stripe failures hit 20% monthly and you're hemorrhaging revenue** → Direct bank pulls succeed 97% of the time, no more expired card nonsense
• +**You're spending 15 hours a week chasing failed subscription payments** → Automated retries handle it, drops to 2 hours of actual work
• +**Card fees are eating 3% of every transaction** → Bank transfers cost under 1%, keeps more money in your pocket
• +Connects directly to Xero and QuickBooks - payments sync automatically without manual data entry
• +Handles different countries' banking systems - SEPA in Europe, ACH in US, Bacs in UK all work the same way

Best For

• >Your card payment failures are killing cashflow and you're spending 10+ hours a week chasing people
• >You're a subscription business tired of losing customers to expired credit cards
• >UK or EU company that needs reliable recurring payments without Stripe's card drama

Not For

• -Solo freelancers or tiny businesses under 500 payments per year — the £20/month minimum makes no sense for your volume
• -US-only businesses doing mostly one-off payments — setup costs per customer add up fast without recurring revenue
• -Anyone needing instant payments — bank transfers take 3-7 days and there's no way around it

Pairs With

• *Xero (where your accounting lives and payments sync automatically so you stop doing manual reconciliation)
• *Stripe (for one-off payments and international cards while GoCardless handles your recurring UK/EU customers)
• *Shopify (to offer bank payment options at checkout alongside the usual card processing)
• *QuickBooks (syncs payment data so your bookkeeper stops asking where money came from)
• *Salesforce (triggers payment collection when deals close instead of manual invoice chasing)
• *Slack (gets notifications when payments fail so you can actually do something about it)

The Catch

• !Bank account verification takes 3-5 days per customer, which kills onboarding momentum compared to instant card signups
• !US support is slower than UK - expect 24-48 hour response times and weekend radio silence
• !The £20/month starter fee plus transaction costs mean you need decent volume or you're better off with Stripe's free tier

Bottom Line

Turns subscription billing from a weekly nightmare of failed payments into something that actually works.