Breadcrumb

Get more than you bargained for with Direct Debit

Written by

Sam has been with GoCardless since Jan 2020. Within the business Sam specialises in writing, curating and editing content for large and enterprise businesses. The UK-based marketer boasts over 5 years of content marketing experience in B2B SaaS start-ups working with global enterprise retailers and merchants. She is also a BSc psychology graduate bringing a fresh perspective to the GoCardless team. See full bio

Reviewed by

As Product Marketing Manager, Tamara focuses on the area of Accelerating Revenue, specifically increasing merchants’ share of wallet and increasing customer loyalty. Tamara studied in Germany achieving a Bachelor of Science degree at the University of Hohenheim in the field of Economics Arriving in England in 2017 for an internship with Rolls Royce Power Systems, Tamara moved on to hold multiple roles at location intelligence specialist HERE Technology and joined GoCardless in 2022.ConnectSee full bio

Last editedFeb 2024

When it comes to collecting payments, you want the process for both you and your customers to be as hassle-free and cost-effective as possible. Direct Debit is one of the most used and preferred types of payment for collecting recurring payments (like subscriptions, instalments or invoices) precisely for those reasons.

In recent research with YouGov, we found that the most popular reasons for customers to choose a payment method were the fact it's secure, fast and easy to use and 89% chose Direct Debit as their most trusted payment method. With over 53% of people choosing Direct Debit to pay for household bills and traditional and digital subscriptions, by using Direct Debit you’re already set up for success.

Are you benefitting by offering Direct Debit as a way to pay?

Other payment methods, like cards or bank transfers, have their drawbacks. From expensive fees and manual reconciliation to a higher likelihood of payments failing and customers churning as a result. These don’t only mean time wasted for you but poorer experiences for your customers.

By choosing and promoting Direct Debit as your main payment method and encouraging your customers to pay with Direct Debit, you stand to benefit from:

Getting paid on time and keeping cash flowing Automatically pull payments from your customer's bank accounts and get paid 47% faster and with fewer late or incorrect payments.
No more chasing your customers The average UK SME spends 30 hours a month chasing late payments according to Tide. Remove the need for awkward conversations about money with your customers and spend less time chasing payments.
Spending less time on payment admin Normally, as much as two-thirds of the cost of accepting recurring payments comes from admin time, not processing fees. But by using GoCardless Direct Debit, businesses spend 59% less time managing payments.
Reducing the cost of taking payments Some payment methods are costly, such as cards and digital wallets. GoCardless Direct Debit has reduced the cost of taking payments by up to 56% for customers.
Removing the stress out of payment collection Almost 8 out of 10* GoCardless customers agree that moving more payments to Direct Debit has reduced their stress levels significantly. That’s payment peace of mind.

How to collect Direct Debit payments with GoCardless

Easily set up & schedule Direct Debit payments via payment pages on your website checkout or secure payment links.
From now on you'll get paid on time, every time, as GoCardless automatically collects payment on the scheduled date. Simple.

Payments that hit the spot

Cash reconciliation is normally a big process, but GoCardless makes it a non-event. Reconciliation takes less than ten minutes instead of days. Because of this, if we scaled another 100 times we wouldn’t need to add another finance person – they wouldn't have anything to do!” Gerhard van der Westhuizen, Co-founder, Spot On