GoCardless

GoCardless is a UK-based payment platform founded in 2011 in London, specializing in direct debit and bank-to-bank payment collection. The company was born out of the founders' frustration with the complexity of collecting recurring payments, and has since grown into a leading provider of direct debit solutions serving over 85,000 businesses worldwide. GoCardless connects to major direct debit schemes including SEPA (Europe), Bacs (UK), ACH (US), BECS (Australia), and others, enabling businesses to collect payments from customers across 30+ countries.

The platform excels at recurring payment collection with features like automated retry intelligence that recovers failed payments, open banking-powered instant payments, and customizable payment pages that customers can use to set up mandates without needing to share card details. GoCardless provides a robust API with comprehensive webhooks, a management dashboard for tracking payments and payouts, and multi-currency support. Its focus on bank-to-bank payments typically results in lower transaction fees and significantly lower failure rates compared to card-based recurring billing.

Headquartered in London with data centers in the UK and EU, GoCardless is regulated by the UK's Financial Conduct Authority and holds an EU payment institution license. The company fully complies with GDPR and provides data processing agreements to all customers. For European businesses that rely on subscription billing, membership fees, or regular invoice collection, GoCardless offers a reliable, cost-effective alternative to card-based recurring payment solutions from US providers like PayPal or Stripe, with the added benefit of native support for European direct debit schemes.