A bank-payments specialist built for recurring billing. GoCardless collects by ACH and other direct debit schemes rather than by card, with published, capped per-transaction pricing — but it processes no card payments at all, and merchant complaints about account freezes and slow support are persistent.
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Subscription, membership and instalment businesses billing established customers on a schedule, especially where individual invoices are large enough for the per-transaction cap to bite.
GoCardless is the strongest published option in the US for collecting recurring payments straight from a bank account, and its capped pricing makes it dramatically cheaper than card rails on large invoices. It is not a merchant account and cannot take a card, so for most businesses it sits alongside a card processor rather than replacing one. Two things temper the recommendation: a poor public review record driven by account restrictions, and an agreed acquisition by Mollie that had not been publicly confirmed as closed when we checked.
Need to accept cards, sell to walk-up or one-time customers who will not sign a mandate, need instant settlement, or operate in a vertical likely to draw compliance scrutiny.
The headline take, the audiences it's right (and wrong) for, and the genuine differentiators behind the verdict.
A bank-payments specialist built for recurring billing. GoCardless collects by ACH and other direct debit schemes rather than by card, with published, capped per-transaction pricing — but it processes no card payments at all, and merchant complaints about account freezes and slow support are persistent.
The fee is capped. On a $5,000 invoice, 0.5% + $0.05 stops at $5 on the Standard plan, where a 2.9% card rate would take about $145.
Real-world cost at three volumes, plus the rates, fees, payouts, and contract terms that drive them.
Estimated annual cost at three realistic processing volumes, using GoCardless’s published online rate plus monthly fees. Real costs vary with average transaction size, chargeback rate, and any negotiated terms.
GoCardless is a bank-payments company, not a merchant account provider. Instead of charging a card, it takes an authorisation — a mandate — from your customer once, then pulls money directly from their bank account on a schedule. In the United States that means ACH debit. Elsewhere it means Bacs, SEPA and the local equivalents, all reachable through one integration.
The company was founded in 2011 in London by Hiroki Takeuchi, Tom Blomfield and Matt Robinson, and is headquartered at Sutton Yard, 65 Goswell Road. Takeuchi is the only founder still with the business; Blomfield went on to found Monzo. GoCardless says it is used by more than 100,000 businesses.
GoCardless publishes its US rates in full, which is unusual enough in this industry to be worth saying plainly. The Standard plan is 0.5% + $0.05 per domestic transaction, capped at $5. Advanced is 0.75% + $0.05 capped at $6.25, and Pro is 0.9% + $0.05 capped at $7. International transactions run 1.5%, 1.75% and 1.9% plus $0.05 on the same three plans.
Note the direction of travel: the more featured plans cost more per transaction, not less. The higher tiers buy capabilities such as branded payment pages and enhanced retry handling; they do not buy a discount. Volume discounts exist but only on a negotiated Custom plan.
The cap is the whole argument. On a $5,000 invoice, the Standard plan charges $5. A card processor at 2.9% + $0.30 would charge about $145 for the same collection. For any business invoicing in the thousands on a repeating schedule, that gap compounds quickly. On a $40 subscription the maths is far less dramatic — 0.5% + $0.05 is $0.25 against roughly $1.46 on card — still cheaper, but not transformative.
GoCardless holds 2.3 out of 5 on Trustpilot across 2,475 reviews as of 23 August 2026 — a genuinely poor score for a company of its size. The profile is claimed and GoCardless replies to about 90% of negative reviews, so it is not being ignored.
Read the substance rather than the number. The complaints concentrate on accounts being restricted or frozen during compliance review, and on support that is email-only and slow when something time-sensitive breaks. That pattern is common across payments companies that onboard at scale and check risk afterwards. It is also worth noting that a payments company's Trustpilot page attracts consumers who were debited and did not recognise the name, not only merchants. What the score should tell you is what to expect on a bad day, not whether the collection itself works — on that, reviewers are broadly positive.
On 11 December 2025 Mollie, the Dutch payments company, announced an agreement to acquire GoCardless. Reported deal value was around €1.05 billion, and completion was expected around the middle of 2026 subject to regulatory approvals. Both companies said integration would be phased and that service and localised support would continue.
When we checked on 23 August 2026, neither company had published confirmation that the transaction had completed. Treat the deal as agreed but unconfirmed, and if the identity of your provider two years from now matters to your planning, ask GoCardless directly where it stands. It is also worth knowing that Mollie itself does not open merchant accounts for US-based businesses, which makes the long-term shape of the combined company's US offering a fair question to put to a salesperson.
You will see two very different volume numbers quoted for GoCardless. Its own FY25 results, covering the twelve months to 30 June 2025, report £79.2 billion of payments processed and revenue of £160.9 million, up 22% year on year. The December 2025 Mollie announcement describes GoCardless as processing 'US$130bn+ of payments annually, across 30+ countries'. These are not reconcilable as stated — different periods, different currencies, and possibly different bases. We have not found a disclosure that squares them, so treat both as approximate indicators of scale rather than precise figures.
GoCardless earns its place where three things are true at once: the customer relationship is ongoing, the invoices are large, and the customer will sign a mandate. Professional services firms, membership organisations, wholesalers on terms, and subscription software billing annually all fit. For those businesses the cap is real money and the published pricing removes the usual guessing.
It is the wrong tool for anything transactional. Retail, restaurants, one-time e-commerce sales, and any business selling to strangers should not be here — bank debit is slow to clear, awkward to set up for a first-time buyer, and offers nothing like a card's immediacy. Most businesses that use GoCardless well run it alongside a card processor rather than instead of one.
Card-not-present, e-commerce, and online payments
Cross-border and foreign currency transactions
Recurring monthly account fee
Per-incident chargeback dispute fee
Fee for canceling before contract end
Regular deposit schedule to your bank account
Estimate your monthly costs
Pick a published plan, enter your volume and transaction profile, and we’ll compute the math the same way an underwriter would. Real costs vary with card mix, chargeback rate, and any negotiated terms.
Flat all-in rate (interchange built in)
Products, integrations, payment-type coverage, security posture, and how their support holds up in practice.
Collects one-off and recurring payments directly from a customer's bank account across ACH in the US and the equivalent schemes in other markets, from a single integration.
Handles mandate setup, retries and payment schedules for subscription and instalment billing, with integrations into common accounting and subscription tools.
Synthesis of third-party platform reviews and industry ratings — agreements, disagreements, and which signals to weight.
Based on 2,475 reviews across 1 rating platform
Checked 23 August 2026. The profile is claimed and GoCardless replies to roughly 90% of negative reviews. Complaints cluster on account restrictions during compliance review and on slow, email-only support; positive reviews cite reliable recurring collection and accounting integrations.
GoCardless publishes three plans. Standard is 0.5% + $0.05 per domestic transaction capped at $5; Advanced is 0.75% + $0.05 capped at $6.25; Pro is 0.9% + $0.05 capped at $7. International transactions are 1.5%, 1.75% and 1.9% plus $0.05 respectively. Refunds cost $0.50 and failed payments cost $5. There are no set-up fees. Note that the higher plans cost more per transaction because they include more features — two-day payouts, for instance, are marketed as an Advanced-tier benefit. Prices exclude sales tax.
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