Payment
GoCardless
UK / wider Europe Report an errorPanel rating · 6 judges · How to read the stars
Category median
Sovereignty: 1 of 4 dimensions proven
0–5 in half steps. 5 means the rubric's top anchor is met on the evidence.
by GoCardless Ltd · gocardless.com
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Read this page as one judge. Each weighs the same scores by what they care about.
The panel's verdict
GoCardless is a bank-debit specialist — GoCardless Ltd of London, with EU merchants served by GoCardless SAS in Paris under ACPR authorisation — and the judges scored it along those lines. Strongest is recurring billing, a flat 7: subscriptions with pause, resume and cancel in the API, instalments, SEPA pre-notification of 14 calendar days reducible to an agreed 3, and Success+ retries recovering a published average of 70% of failed payments. Settlement and reconciliation follows at 6-7 on daily per-currency payouts, a Payout Items API itemising ten credit and debit types, and Xero, Sage and QuickBooks integrations. Weakest are sovereignty at 1-2 — the legal notice registers a UK company while the footer names the Paris entity as the ACPR-licensed provider, and ownership, data residency and subprocessor exposure are all unknown — and pricing transparency at 2-3, where the captured pricing pages show no per-transaction rate, only add-ons at 200 €/Monat and 50 €/Monat. Payment methods at 3-4 reflect bank rails only; checkout and SCA spans 5-6; licence and account terms is a uniform 4. The flagged split list came back empty.
Speaks for it
- Recurring billing scored a flat 7, covering subscriptions, instalments and variable recurring payments across all schemes.
- Success+ retries recover an average of 70% of failed payments, a published figure.
- Payouts run daily per currency, and the Payout Items API itemises each payout into ten credit and debit types.
- The SCA position is written down — paperless Direct Debit mandates out of scope, with an EBA confirmation quoted.
- Regulated identities are published with register numbers: FCA 597190, Companies House 07495895 and the Paris entity's RCS 834 422 180.
Held against it
- Sovereignty scores range from 1 to 2, with ownership, data residency and subprocessor exposure unknown on the captured pages.
- The captured pricing pages show no per-transaction rate, and failed-payment and chargeback fees apply without published amounts.
- We found no public information on card, wallet or named local method acceptance such as iDEAL, Bancontact, BLIK or TWINT.
- Export files are downloadable for only 3 days, and download links expire within 1 hour.
- Variable subscription amounts require cancelling and recreating the subscription rather than changing the amount.
Best for
- You collect recurring payments — SaaS subscriptions, memberships or instalment plans — by euro-denominated SEPA Direct Debit across the 36-country SEPA zone.
- Your finance team wants itemised daily payout reporting that feeds Xero, Sage or QuickBooks.
- You want smart retries on failed payments, with a published 70% average recovery to hold the vendor to.
Avoid if
- Your conversion depends on cards, wallets or local instant methods such as iDEAL, Bancontact or BLIK; payment method scores of 3 to 4 reflect a bank-rails-only evidence base.
- You must model your per-collection cost before committing; pricing transparency scores of 2 to 3 follow from captured pages showing no per-transaction rate.
- You must evidence data residency or a subprocessor list internally; sovereignty scores of 1 to 2 follow from ownership, data residency and subprocessor exposure being unknown.
- You need a documented process and timeline for exporting mandates to another provider; the pages offer migration help on request and we found no public information on an export process.
The scores
Payment methods & local coverage
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How this is scored
Which methods a European customer can actually pay with — cards and wallets, SEPA Direct Debit, and the local methods that decide conversion per country — judged on the named list per market rather than on a method count.
0 — Cards only, or a method list with no statement of which countries and currencies each one covers.
3 — Major cards and wallets plus one or two European methods, with local coverage stated vaguely ("many local methods") and no SEPA Direct Debit.
5 — Cards, Apple Pay and Google Pay, SEPA Direct Debit, and the main local methods for DACH and Benelux (iDEAL or Wero, Bancontact, Klarna or invoice) listed by name with the countries they serve.
8 — Broad EU coverage named per country — including methods such as BLIK, TWINT, Przelewy24, EPS and Wero — multi-currency acceptance with settlement currencies stated, and which methods support refunds and recurring charges documented per method.
10 — Coverage is documented as a matrix a merchant can plan against: every method with its countries, currencies, refund, partial-capture and recurring support, and the provider's own acquiring versus third-party routing stated per method.
The Finance Lead
This is a bank-debit house: SEPA Direct Debit is documented across the whole SEPA zone country by country, euro-denominated only with national schemes needed for local currency in non-eurozone markets, plus Instant Bank Pay, Pay By Bank and Commercial VRP compared scheme by scheme for confirmation speed and chargeback risk. What I cannot plan against is cards — the homepage positions direct bank collection as the way to avoid card fees — and I found no public information on card or wallet acceptance or on named local methods such as iDEAL, Bancontact or BLIK. 5 9 10 1 2
The E-Commerce Lead
SEPA Direct Debit is documented country by country across the 36-country SEPA zone — euro-denominated only, with the guidance that national schemes continue to be used for local-currency payments outside the euro — plus Instant Bank Pay for GBP and EUR and Pay By Bank. But I found no public information on cards, Apple Pay or Google Pay, and none on the per-market local methods like iDEAL, Bancontact or BLIK that decide conversion in my eight countries, so the evidenced option set is bank debit and instant bank payments. 5 10 2 1
The SaaS Founder
SEPA Direct Debit is named across the full 36-country SEPA zone with the euro-only limit and the national-scheme requirement for local currencies stated, and Instant Bank Pay covers GBP and EUR with Commercial VRP in GBP only — strong for bank-debit-first Europe. But we found no public information on card or wallet acceptance (the homepage instead states bank collection means no card fees), nor on per-country local methods such as iDEAL, Bancontact, BLIK or TWINT. 5 10 1
The Payments Engineer
SEPA Direct Debit is documented country by country across the 36-country zone with the euro-only constraint stated plainly, and instant bank pay covers GBP and EUR one-offs — but the captured pages name no cards, no wallets and no country-specific local methods, so a customer can only ever pay from a bank account. 1 2 5 10
The Compliance Officer
Bank debit is documented country by country: SEPA Direct Debit across the 36-country SEPA zone with the euro-only limitation stated plainly and national schemes flagged for local-currency payments in non-eurozone markets, plus instant bank pay for GBP and EUR and variable recurring payments for GBP. We found no public information on card or wallet acceptance or on named local methods such as iDEAL, Bancontact, BLIK or TWINT, so the method list a European merchant can plan against is bank rails only. 5 10 2 1
The Skeptic
SEPA Direct Debit coverage is documented country by country across the 36-country zone with the euro-only limitation stated plainly, and Instant Bank Pay availability is given by currency — but the product is bank debit only, with the vendor itself stating there are no card fees because it pulls from the bank. We found no public information on card or wallet acceptance, and no named local instant methods such as iDEAL or Bancontact; the captured guidance even says local currency in non-eurozone countries needs national schemes, and we found nothing showing those are offered. 5 8 10 1 2
Checkout, SCA & fraud
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How this is scored
The path from basket to authorised payment under PSD2: hosted and embedded checkout options, 3-D Secure and SCA exemption handling, fraud screening, and what the provider documents about keeping legitimate payments from failing.
0 — A single redirect page with no statement on 3-D Secure, SCA or fraud screening.
3 — Hosted checkout with 3-D Secure 2 mentioned, fraud screening as an unexplained add-on, and no word on exemptions or declined-payment handling.
5 — Hosted and embedded checkout options, 3-D Secure 2 with SCA handled by the provider, configurable fraud rules, and the resulting PCI DSS scope for each integration type stated.
8 — SCA exemptions (low value, transaction risk analysis, merchant-initiated) applied and documented, fraud tooling with rules and risk scores exposed to the merchant, network tokens or account updater, and liability shift explained per flow.
10 — Authorisation is engineered and shown: exemption strategy documented, soft-decline retry handled, authorisation-rate reporting by method and issuer country, and a checkout the merchant can run in their own domain while staying at the lowest PCI scope.
The Finance Lead
Hosted pages, drop-in pages and a custom API path are all documented, with prefill, lockable fields and webhook confirmation of outcomes, and the SCA position is written down properly — paperless Direct Debit mandates are stated as out of SCA scope with an EBA confirmation quoted, and Protect+ offers configurable risk levels plus bank verification at checkout. I found no public information on PCI DSS scope per integration type, exemption handling for card-type flows, or authorisation-rate reporting, which keeps this at the mid bar. 8 7 2 9
The E-Commerce Lead
Hosted pages, drop-in flows and a custom API give me three integration depths, though the hosted route redirects customers to a GoCardless page rather than my domain. The SCA story is genuinely clear — paperless Direct Debit mandates are out of SCA scope, backed by a quoted EBA position — and Protect+ exposes configurable risk levels to balance fraud protection against conversion. We found no public information on 3-D Secure handling, PCI DSS scope per integration type, or authorisation-rate reporting by method and issuer country. 8 7 2
The SaaS Founder
Hosted pages, a drop-in flow and a custom API are documented with prefill, webhooks and scheme-appropriate authorisation per country, and SCA is genuinely handled — paperless mandates are documented as out of scope with the EBA position quoted, so subscribers see no extra authentication step. Protect+ offers configurable risk levels and chargeback risk is stated per flow; we found no public information on PCI scope, exposed risk scores or authorisation-rate reporting, which weighs less only because card acceptance is itself unevidenced. 7 8 2 10
The Payments Engineer
Hosted pages, drop-in flows and a custom API are documented, and the SCA position is written down rather than hand-waved — paperless Direct Debit mandates declared out of scope with the EBA wording quoted — alongside configurable risk levels under Protect+ and bank verification at checkout. I found no public information on PCI scope per integration type, merchant-exposed risk scores, or authorisation-rate reporting, which keeps it off the higher rung. 2 7 8 9
The Compliance Officer
Hosted pages, drop-in pages and a custom API integration are documented with webhook-confirmed outcomes, and the authentication position is written down properly: paperless Direct Debit mandates are stated to be out of scope of strong customer authentication per the quoted EBA position, with PSD2 compliance claimed and no customer action required. Fraud tooling is named and configurable — Protect+ with risk levels and Verified Mandates checking bank details at checkout. We found no public information on exemption strategy, liability shift, authorisation-rate reporting or PCI scope per integration type. 8 7 2 9
The Skeptic
Hosted pages, drop-in flows and a custom API path are all documented with webhook confirmation, and the SCA position is written down rather than hand-waved — paperless Direct Debit mandates out of scope, with an EBA confirmation quoted. Fraud rules are configurable via Protect+ and bank details are verified at checkout, but we found no public information on liability shift, declined-payment retry logic at authorisation, or authorisation-rate reporting, and the standalone fraud detection product is stated to still be in development. 7 8 2 9
Subscriptions & recurring payments
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How this is scored
Charging the same customer again: card-on-file and merchant-initiated transactions, SEPA mandates, subscription logic and dunning — and whether the stored payment credentials can leave with the merchant.
0 — No stored payment methods; every charge needs the customer to pay again.
3 — Card-on-file tokens for repeat charges, but no SEPA mandate handling, no subscription logic, and failed-payment handling left entirely to the merchant.
5 — Stored cards and SEPA Direct Debit mandates, merchant-initiated transactions documented, and basic subscription plans with scheduled charges and failed-payment notifications.
8 — Subscription billing with trials, proration and plan changes, smart retries and dunning, card account updater, mandate management with pre-notification, and a documented process for exporting payment tokens to another provider.
10 — Recurring revenue is a first-class product: usage-based and invoice-based billing, dunning with measurable recovery, token migration in and out documented with a stated timeline and format, and recurring support stated for every local method that allows it.
The Finance Lead
Recurring is the core product and it shows: subscriptions with create, pause, resume and cancel in the API, instalment plans, mandate pre-notification rules spelled out including the standard 14 calendar days and an agreed reduction to 3, and Success+ smart retries with a published average 70% of failed payments recovered — dunning with a number I can hold them to. Against the higher bar, variable amounts require cancel-and-recreate rather than plan changes, and I found no public information on trials, proration, an account updater, or a documented token export process with timeline and format — migration of existing customers is a contact-us conversation. 9 6 1 2 10
The E-Commerce Lead
Recurring is the heart of the product: subscriptions, instalments and variable recurring payments against SEPA mandates, with pause, resume and cancel in the API, pre-notification rules spelled out down to a 14-day default and 3-day reduced notice, and Success+ retries with a published 70% average recovery of failed payments. We found no public information on trials, proration, or a documented process for exporting mandates or tokens to another provider; bringing existing customers in is offered only on request. 9 6 1 2
The SaaS Founder
This is their home ground: SEPA mandates with pre-notification content and timing (14 days, reducible to 3), Success+ smart retries with a stated average 70% of failed payments recovered, subscriptions, instalments, pause, resume, and a combined instant-first-payment-plus-mandate flow. But variable subscription amounts require cancelling and recreating, and we found no public information on proration, trials, or any documented process and format for exporting mandates or payment credentials to another provider — the portability question that decides whether my customer base is hostage. 9 10 6 1
The Payments Engineer
This is the vendor's home turf: subscriptions, instalments and variable recurring products across all schemes, pause, cancel and resume on the API, SEPA pre-notification spelled out to the field with an agreed 3-day reduced notice option, and Success+ retries with a published 70% average recovery. I found no public information on trials or proration, and taking mandates out is only 'contact us' migration help rather than a documented export process. 1 2 6 9 10
The Compliance Officer
This is the core product: subscriptions with pause, resume and cancel, instalment plans, variable recurring payments and a combined instant-payment-plus-mandate flow, each with scheme-level availability tables, SEPA pre-notification rules (14 calendar days default, a 3-day agreed reduction) and Success+ retries with a published 70% average recovery of failed payments. Mandate setup via paper, online or phone is stated. Migration of existing customers in is offered on request, but we found no public information on exporting stored mandates to another provider, and trials and proration are not documented. 9 10 6 1
The Skeptic
This is the core of the product: subscriptions, instalments, variable recurring payments and a single flow that takes an instant first payment while setting up the mandate, with pause, resume and cancel exposed in the API, SEPA pre-notification rules documented, and Success+ retries claiming a 70 per cent average recovery of failed payments. But a subscription whose amount varies must be cancelled and recreated, and we found no public information on trials, proration, or a documented process and timeline for exporting mandates to another provider — migration is answered with 'take contact to learn more'. 9 10 6 1 2
Settlement, reconciliation & API
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How this is scored
Getting the money and knowing what it was: payout cadence and currencies, fee itemisation per transaction, reports that match a bank statement, and an API and webhooks a team can build finance processes on.
0 — Payouts on an unstated schedule, one net amount per payout, and no API or report beyond an on-screen list.
3 — A stated payout schedule and CSV exports, but fees netted invisibly into payouts and an API with thin documentation.
5 — Payout frequency and delay stated, per-transaction fee breakdown in reports, a documented REST API with webhooks and a test mode, and exports that link each payout to its transactions.
8 — Configurable payout schedules and settlement currencies, reconciliation reports that match bank lines, accounting integrations or exports named, a versioned API with idempotency and published rate limits, and a public status page with incident history.
10 — Finance can close the month from the provider's data: interchange and scheme fees itemised per transaction, automated reconciliation to the ledger, a deprecation policy for the API, and full historical data exportable after the contract ends.
The Finance Lead
Payouts are stated as generally one per day per currency, gated on a verified account and a positive balance, with collection taking typically 2-5 business days — a cadence I can forecast. The reconciliation story is genuinely itemised: the Payout Items API breaks each payout into ten item types including GoCardless fees, app fees, surcharge fees, refunds, chargebacks and late failures, and automated daily CSV payout reports per currency cover the previous business day in UTC, with Xero, Sage and QuickBooks named for the ledger side. I found no public information on configurable payout schedules, API versioning with idempotency and rate limits, or a public status page, and export links expire after an hour with only 3 days of availability, so the month-end picture stops short of closing itself. 12 11 9 2
The E-Commerce Lead
Payouts are daily per collected currency and the payout items interface itemises ten item types including the GoCardless fee, refunds and surcharges per payout, backed by webhooks, a sandbox, eight SDK languages and named Xero, Sage and QuickBooks integrations. On the other side, payouts only ship on a positive balance, export links expire after 1 hour and the files after 3 days, and we found no public information on API versioning, idempotency, rate limits or a public status page. 12 11 2 9
The SaaS Founder
Payouts run daily per currency, a Payout Items API exposes ten item types including the fee line per transaction, automated daily CSV payout reports come per currency, and accounting integrations (Xero, Sage, QuickBooks) reconcile automatically. We found no public information on idempotency, rate limits, API versioning or a status page, and generated exports are downloadable for only 3 days — a month-end close that slips a week loses the file. 12 11 9 2
The Payments Engineer
Daily payouts per currency with a payout items API itemising ten credit and debit types including provider fees, payout and paid-out webhooks, a sandbox, and named accounting integrations with automatic reconciliation give a finance team real material to build on. But I found no public information on API versioning, idempotency keys, rate limits or a status page with incident history, and exports are downloadable for only 3 days with links that expire in an hour — painful at month-end. 1 2 9 11 12
The Compliance Officer
Daily payouts per currency (gated on a positive balance and a verified account), a payout items interface exposing ten item types including the GoCardless fee, app fee and surcharge per transaction, automated daily CSV payout reports per currency covering refunds, chargebacks and late failures, and named accounting integrations (Xero, Sage, QuickBooks) with automatic matching give finance teams real material. Webhooks and a sandbox are documented. We found no public information on configurable payout schedules, API versioning, idempotency, rate limits or a public status page, and exports are only downloadable for 3 days with a 1-hour link expiry. 12 11 2 1
The Skeptic
Payouts run daily per currency and the Payout Items API itemises each payout into ten credit and debit types including the GoCardless fee and app fee, with CSV payout reports covering refunds, chargebacks and late failures, plus named accounting integrations with Xero, Sage and QuickBooks. But the payout cadence is not shown as configurable, exports vanish after 3 days with download links that expire in an hour, and we found no public information on API versioning, idempotency, published rate limits or a status page with incident history. 12 11 2 9
Licence, risk & account terms
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How this is scored
Who holds the merchant's money under which licence, and what the contract lets the provider do on a bad day: freezes, reserves, termination, chargebacks. Scored on what the terms and the imprint state, not on reputation.
0 — No regulated entity named; terms allow freezing funds and terminating the account at any time with no notice, reason or timeline.
3 — A licence mentioned without the entity, supervisor or register number, and terms that permit reserves and holds with no stated limits.
5 — The regulated entity named with its supervisor and licence type, safeguarding of merchant funds stated, chargeback fees and dispute process published, and a notice period for ordinary termination.
8 — Entity, supervisor, register number and passporting stated per country; reserve and rolling-hold conditions defined with limits and release timelines; freeze and termination terms with reasons and a route to appeal; PCI DSS level and attestation published.
10 — The bad day is written down: every regulated entity in the chain named with register links, reserve calculation disclosed, funds release timelines after termination committed, a documented complaint route to the supervisor, and exit terms that include handing back payment tokens and transaction history.
The Finance Lead
The regulated entities and register numbers are published plainly — Companies House 07495895, FCA register number 597190, HMRC 12642480, and the footer names GoCardless SAS in Paris under RCS 834 422 180 as the ACPR-licensed provider — with a full document list including regulated terms, merchant agreement, country-specific terms and prohibited activities. The bad day is not written down: failed-payment and chargeback fees are only said to apply with no amounts or published dispute process, and I found no public information on safeguarding of merchant funds, reserve or rolling-hold limits with release timelines, termination notice periods, or an appeal route. 4 13 2
The E-Commerce Lead
The legal notice names the regulated chain precisely — the UK company under the FCA with register number 597190 and Companies House number 07495895, while the site footer identifies GoCardless SAS in Paris as the ACPR-licensed entity providing the payment services — and lists a full shelf of merchant, regulated and country-specific terms. We found no public information on safeguarding of merchant funds, reserve or rolling-hold limits, or termination notice periods and appeal routes; failed-payment and chargeback fees are confirmed to apply, but no amount is published. 4 13 2
The SaaS Founder
Regulated entities and register numbers are published — the FCA authorisation numbered 597190, Companies House 07495895, an HMRC registration, and the Paris commercial register number for the ACPR-authorised SAS — more licence transparency than most providers show. But we found no public information on safeguarding of merchant funds, reserve or rolling-hold conditions, termination notice or a dispute route, and the failed-payment and chargeback fees are only flagged as applying, without amounts. 4 13 2
The Payments Engineer
The regulated entities and register numbers are published — the UK company under the FCA with register number 597190, and the Paris entity in the page footers as the ACPR-licensed provider — plus a regulated terms PDF and country-specific terms. I found no public information on safeguarding of merchant funds, published chargeback fee amounts, reserve or freeze conditions, termination notice periods, or a route to appeal. 2 4 13
The Compliance Officer
The captured pages name two regulated entities with registers — GoCardless Ltd with FCA authorisation and register number 597190 plus Companies House number 07495895 in the legal notice, and GoCardless SAS, Paris (R.C.S. PARIS 834 422 180) identified in the footer as the ACPR-licensed provider — but which one contracts with the EU merchant is left to be inferred. Regulated Terms, country-specific terms and a sanctions agreement exist as documents. We found no public information on safeguarding of merchant funds, reserve or rolling-hold limits, freeze and termination notice periods, or a complaint route to the supervisor, and failed-payment and chargeback fees are confirmed to apply but are unpriced. 4 13 2
The Skeptic
The regulated identities are genuinely published — FCA authorisation under register number 597190, Companies House number 07495895, and a Paris entity in the footer under ACPR — alongside a structured set of merchant and regulated terms. But we found no public information on safeguarding of merchant funds, reserve or rolling-hold conditions, freeze and termination notice, or a route to appeal, and the vendor confirms failed-payment and chargeback fees apply without publishing an amount anywhere we saw. 4 13 2 14
European sovereignty
panel opinion
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How this is scored
Who the contracting and regulated entity is, and where transaction and cardholder data are processed and stored. Independently sourced by the sovereignty pipeline. The card schemes are US-based for every provider, so the scheme layer is not held against any one vendor; the part the vendor controls is.
0 — Non-EU contracting entity, no statement on where payment data is processed, and subprocessors unnamed.
3 — An EU licensed entity contracts, but payment and customer data is processed outside the EU by default without an explained safeguard, or the subprocessor list is absent.
5 — EU contracting and regulated entity, EU processing stated for core payment data, but the group parent or significant parts of the chain (fraud scoring, support, analytics) are non-EU without a stated safeguard.
8 — EU entity and EU licence, payment and cardholder data processed and stored in the EU on named infrastructure, subprocessor list published with locations, and a DPA covering the processing the provider does as processor versus as controller.
10 — Sovereign end to end and evidenced: European ownership, EU entity and licence, every processing location and subprocessor European, European rails (SEPA, Wero or national schemes) offered alongside cards, and certifications published.
The Finance Lead
The captured pages give two different contracting pictures — an imprint naming a UK company with an FCA registration, and a footer identifying the Paris entity under ACPR as the provider of payment services on the site — so the contracting position is not clean from public pages. Beyond the SEPA rails themselves, I found no public information on where payment and cardholder data is processed, on subprocessors and their locations, or on ownership of the group. 4
The E-Commerce Lead
The contracting picture splits between a UK-registered company named in the legal notice and a Paris subsidiary identified as providing the EU payment services, and beyond that we found no public information on where payment and customer data is processed, on ownership, or on any subprocessor list with locations. With data residency and subprocessor exposure both unknown, the part of the chain the vendor controls is unevidenced on the captured pages. 4
The SaaS Founder
The captured legal pages point in two directions: the imprint registers a United Kingdom company, while the footer on every page names a Paris-registered SAS as the ACPR-authorised entity providing the payment services on the site. Beyond that, we found no public information on ownership, on where payment and customer data are processed and stored, or on any subprocessor list. 4 3
The Payments Engineer
The German site's imprint names the UK company authorised by the UK FCA, while every page footer identifies the Paris entity as the ACPR-licensed provider of the payment services — so which entity a European merchant actually contracts with is left to inference. I found no public information on where payment data is processed or stored, on ownership, or on subprocessors beyond Wise appearing as the FX provider. 2 4
The Compliance Officer
The legal notice names a United Kingdom company while the site footer places the ACPR-licensed provider in Paris, so an EU entity exists — but ownership is unknown and we found no public information on where transaction and payment data are processed or stored, on subprocessors and their locations, or on a data processing agreement separating the provider's processor from controller roles. Without any of that on public pages, the data chain cannot be verified and this scores near the bottom. 4
The Skeptic
The captured legal page gives the UK company and its FCA authorisation while the site footer names the Paris company as the ACPR-licensed entity providing the payment services, so the contracting picture is not clean from the public pages. We found no public information on where payment data is processed or stored, on ownership, on subprocessors or their locations, or on a data processing agreement splitting processor and controller roles — the privacy page was captured and yielded none of it. 4 3
Pricing transparency
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How this is scored
Whether a merchant can compute the effective fee for their own mix of cards, countries and methods — including cross-border and currency conversion markups, chargebacks, refunds, payouts and monthly fees — from public pages alone.
0 — No public prices at all; every rate is a sales conversation.
3 — A headline percentage exists, but it is unclear which cards and countries it covers, and cross-border, currency conversion or chargeback fees are unstated — the effective fee is unknowable.
5 — Rates published per main method with domestic and international cards distinguished, but at least one commonly incurred cost (currency conversion markup, chargeback fee, payout or monthly fee) is missing or "on request".
8 — Every method priced publicly, cross-border and currency conversion markups stated, chargeback, refund and payout fees listed, minimum monthly fees and contract term given, and whether the model is blended or interchange++ said plainly.
10 — Complete fee computability: the effective rate derivable for a given volume, card mix and country mix — interchange++ with the markup published or a blended rate with every exception listed — plus volume tiers, reserves and every ancillary fee on a public page.
The Finance Lead
A pricing page is public and some figures are exact — 200 €/Monat for branded payment pages, 50 €/Monat for a custom statement name, prices stated excluding VAT with reverse charge possible, and VAT on fees per authority instruction — but I found no public per-transaction rate for the debit schemes anywhere in the captured pages. Failed-payment and chargeback fees are flagged as applying without amounts, and the international story is a Wise-provided real exchange rate for 30+ countries with no stated markup, so the effective fee for my own mix is not computable. 2 12
The E-Commerce Lead
The pricing page publishes exact add-on prices — 200 €/Monat for branded payment pages, 50 €/Monat for a custom statement name — with no setup costs, VAT treatment spelled out and a real Wise exchange rate for payments from over 30 countries. But we found no public information on the per-transaction rate itself or on the amounts of the failed-payment and chargeback fees, so I cannot compute an effective fee for my country mix from these pages. 2 12
The SaaS Founder
The pricing page publishes add-ons exactly — 200 €/Monat for branding, 50 €/Monat for a custom statement name — states prices exclude VAT with reverse charge possible, and promises no setup or hidden costs. But we found no public information on the per-transaction rate for any scheme, and the failed-payment, chargeback and email-notification fees are only said to exist, so I cannot compute my effective cost per SEPA collection from these pages. 2 1 12
The Payments Engineer
The public pricing pages state no setup costs, VAT treatment with reverse charge possible, and named monthly add-ons quoted as 200 €/Monat for branding and 50 €/Monat for a custom statement name, with FX at the real rate via a named provider. I found no public information on a per-transaction rate, and failed-payment, chargeback and email-notification fees are named without amounts — so the effective fee is not computable from public pages. 1 2 12
The Compliance Officer
The captured pricing pages show no per-transaction rate for any method — only that failed-payment and chargeback fees apply without amounts, that prices exclude VAT with reverse charge possible, that FX for 30+ countries comes from Wise at the "real exchange rate", and two monthly add-ons quoted as 200 €/Monat and 50 €/Monat alongside a free account and no setup costs. With no published rate for the bank debit collection itself, a merchant cannot compute an effective fee from public pages. 2 1
The Skeptic
A pricing page exists in the navigation promising no setup costs and no hidden costs, and two add-ons are priced exactly — 200 €/Monat for branding, 50 €/Monat for a custom statement name — with VAT treatment and reverse charge stated. But the captures contain no per-transaction rate at all, the vendor confirms failed-payment and chargeback fees apply without amounts, customer email notifications are 'gegen Gebühr', and apart from a 'real exchange rate via Wise' claim we found no public information on conversion markups, payout fees, minimum monthly fees or contract term — the effective fee is not computable from these pages. 2 1
European sovereignty — proven facts
1 of 4 dimensions provenBuilt only from facts shown on the vendor's own pages. A dimension we could not prove is left open, not scored as zero.
| Legal entity | Incorporated in GB ⚠ unverified | 1/3 pts | 4 Report an error |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ownership | Not determined | — | uncited Report an error |
| Data residency | Not determined | — | uncited Report an error |
| Subprocessors | Not determined | — | uncited Report an error |
Where this could be wrong
- Evidence ages. The oldest capture behind this page is from 22 Sep 2026. Vendors change pricing and policies without notice; every fact reflects its source as of the capture date shown in the registry.
- Weak sourcing — Legal entity. The footer on every page identifies GoCardless SAS, Paris (R.C.S. PARIS, Unternehmensregisternummer 834 422 180), as the ACPR-licensed entity providing the payment services on this site, so EU customers likely contract with the French subsidiary rather than the UK website operator named in the imprint.
- AI can misread a source. Extraction and judgement are automated; a citation guarantees traceability, not infallibility. If something here is wrong, say so — no account needed, every report is decided within 5 business days, and accepted corrections are published.
What we left out
A claim that does not survive our checks costs us the claim, not the page. This is what was taken off this one.
- 17 legal facts could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and were left out of this page and of the panel’s material. Know more? Tell us
- 4 pricing facts could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and were left out of this page and of the panel’s material. Know more? Tell us
- 4 support facts could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and were left out of this page and of the panel’s material. Know more? Tell us
- 3 compliance facts could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and were left out of this page and of the panel’s material. Know more? Tell us
- 3 integrations facts could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and were left out of this page and of the panel’s material. Know more? Tell us
- 2 product facts could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and were left out of this page and of the panel’s material. Know more? Tell us
Sources (14)
The pages every claim on this page was read from — each one checked, dated, and kept verifiable.
- 1 Vendor homepage gocardless.com Checked 22 Sep 2026 Details →
- 2 Pricing page gocardless.com Checked 22 Sep 2026 Details →
- 3 Privacy policy gocardless.com Checked 22 Sep 2026 Details →
- 4 Legal notice gocardless.com Checked 22 Sep 2026 Details →
- 5 Payment methods & local coverage — found from sitemap gocardless.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
- 6 Payment methods & local coverage — found from sitemap gocardless.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
- 7 Checkout, SCA & fraud — found from sitemap gocardless.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
- 8 Checkout, SCA & fraud — found from sitemap docs.gocardless.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
- 9 Subscriptions & recurring payments — found from sitemap docs.gocardless.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
- 10 Subscriptions & recurring payments — found from sitemap docs.gocardless.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
- 11 Settlement, reconciliation & API — found from sitemap docs.gocardless.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
- 12 Settlement, reconciliation & API — found from sitemap docs.gocardless.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
- 13 Licence, risk & account terms — found from sitemap gocardless.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
- 14 Licence, risk & account terms — found from sitemap gocardless.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →