Your package includes the facility to take online payments and/or subscriptions by credit/debit card or direct debit. There is no extra cost for this feature. Perfect for online shops or coaches wanting to automatically take payments each month.
You can easily add coupon codes, free trials and special offers to your site.
There are 3 payment merchants for you to choose from to accept payments through your website.
Stripe
We suggest using Stripe as your payment merchant. We have been using stripe for years now and is the most reliable and professional looking out of anything we have come across.
An SSL certificate is required in order for Stripe to work.
Payment Method: Accepts credit or debit cards.
Transaction Charges: 1.4% + 20p per transaction
Monthly Cost: Free
Setup Costs: None
Money In Your Account: Under 7 working days.
PROs: Most reliable company we have come across to process your online payments. We have used Stripe for a long time now and always recommend them to our clients.
The checkout page is easy to use for clients to enter their card details securely and quickly.
Free mobile app to monitor your transactions and notifications to let you know you have received a payment. Detailed reports to see stats about your income each month.
Your business name appears on clients statements.
Clients are unable to cancel their subscription through Stripe.
CONs: Takes 7 working days to reach your account. Stripe are working on reducing this to 2 working days.
Setup: Create a free account, verify your account, add your bank details. Send us your login details to connect your Stripe account to your website.
SETUP STRIPE ACCOUNT
GoCardless
GoCardless offers clients to setup a direct debit through your website. We used to use GoCardless but we found their support team to be difficult to work with. Also payments can take a month or longer to reach your account due to their billing cycle.
An SSL certificate is required in order for GoCardless to work.
Payment Method: Direct Debit only.
Transaction Charges: 1% per transaction (max £2, min 20p)
Monthly Cost: Free
Setup Costs: None
Money In Your Account: Depending on your billing cycle. 2-4 weeks.
PROs: Cheaper per transaction cost.
CONs: Your billing cycle and when your clients signup can dramatically alter when you receive your money. We have waiting over 4 weeks for payment to reach us.
Its a long process for your clients to setup their direct debit.
Customer support staff are not very helpful at all if you come across a problem.
Clients can easily cancel their direct debit through GoCardless. They send multiple emails out to the client before their payment is due to be collected and gives them an option every time to cancel their payment. Also very easy to cancel a direct debit through their bank without you knowing its been cancelled.
Setup: Create a free account, verify your account, add your bank details. Send us your login details to connect your GoCardless account to your website.
SETUP GOCARDLESS ACCOUNT
PayPal
PayPal is by far the worst payment merchant out there but as many people use it we thought we would add it on our list, just so we can talk you out of using it!
No SSL cert required as clients are taken away from your site to PayPal.
Payment Method: Accepts credit or debit cards.
Transaction Charges: 3.4% per transaction + 20p.
Monthly Cost: £20
Setup Costs: None
Money In Your Account: Within 2 hours.
PROs: Money in your account within hours. People widely use PayPal.
CONs: People are taken away from your website in order to setup their payment on PayPal. This leads to a huge amount of cart abandonment issues when clients leave your site.
Clients can easily cancel their subscription without reason in their PayPal account.
Clients can easily open a dispute about payments. They state they always protect the seller (you), but this is never true. Clients can get their money back from you very easily through PayPal.
Random verification processes. These are not random. Once you start earning a good volume of money each month, PayPal suspend your account and any subscription payments due. You then have to send a load of paper work again to them to verify you are who you say you are. Takes weeks to sort out before you can start accepting payments again.
Extremely poor customer service support.
Setup: Don’t bother!
