INTEGRATION · GOCARDLESS DIRECT DEBIT

Direct Debit saves the typical UK nursery £3,000–£12,000 / year over cards. Here’s the maths.

ParentLink ships first-class GoCardless integration — magic-link mandate setup, webhook-driven failure handling, bulk-import for families moving from another system. Use the calculator below on your own numbers; we’ve set it to the standard GoCardless 1% + 20p (capped at £4) against Stripe’s 1.5% + 20p, both with no platform mark-up from us.

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No platform mark-up — fees go to GoCardless Per-nursery credentials — your bank account, not ours On the Pro plan, with your own GoCardless account
THE CALCULATOR

Type your numbers in. Get a specific £-saving.

Built on the published GoCardless UK Standard rates (1% + 20p, capped £4) and Stripe’s standard 1.5% + 20p for UK cards. No mark-up assumed. Numbers are conservative: a real nursery whose parents pay with non-EU cards or Amex sees a worse Stripe split than this and a bigger saving. Rates can change: check GoCardless’s pricing and Stripe’s pricing for today’s figures.

How many parents you bill each month.
£
A typical UK full-time nursery invoice runs £700–£1,400.
Per-invoice fee on a £750 invoice
GoCardless DD
£4.00
Stripe card
£11.45
GoCardless = min(1% × invoice + 20p, £4 cap), plus 0.3% over £2,000. Stripe = 1.5% × invoice + 20p (no cap).
You save with GoCardless
£298.00 / month
≈ £3,576 / yearat 40 families × £7.45 saved per invoice
Total monthly fees across 40 families
GoCardless DD
£160.00
Stripe card
£458.00
Calculator assumes standard UK rates for both providers; no platform fees from ParentLink either way (our subscription is the only revenue we take). Parents paying with premium UK cards (2.8% + 20p) or international cards (3.15% + 20p) cost more on Stripe than quoted above, making the GoCardless saving bigger. GoCardless caps its fee at £4 a payment up to £2,000; Stripe doesn’t cap. Published rates, 29 October 2026; GoCardless’s exclude VAT. Numbers are illustrative — actual savings depend on your parent mix, currency, and any promotional rates either provider extends to your nursery.
01
WHY DIRECT DEBIT

The £4 cap is the structural advantage cards can’t match.

A £900/month parent invoice costs you £4.00 on GoCardless (the cap) versus £13.70 on Stripe — that’s £9.70 saved per invoice per month. Across 30 children that’s £291/month or £3,492/year. The bigger the nursery, the bigger the saving, because the cap doesn’t scale with the invoice size.

A £4 cap
GoCardless UK Standard caps the fee at £4 a payment: a £400 invoice costs £4.00, and so does a £1,800 one. Over £2,000 they add 0.3%, so a £4,000 invoice costs about £16 — still far less than the £60 a card costs. Cards don’t cap: every extra £100 costs you another £1.50.
Pull, not push
Direct Debit pulls the invoice amount on the day you specify — no parent action needed once the mandate is signed. No "I forgot to pay this month", no chasing emails, no re-sending invoices. Failed pulls (rare) show on Needs you for follow-up.
Built-in guarantee
Every Direct Debit comes with the standard UK BACS Direct Debit Guarantee — if a parent claims the wrong amount was taken, their bank refunds them immediately and pulls it back from your account. That’s a trust signal cards can’t match, and it’s why parents prefer DD for recurring high-value payments.
Recurring is the point
Cards were designed for one-off transactions. Direct Debit was designed for recurring monthly payments at scale. Using a card processor for monthly nursery fees is using a hammer to drive screws — it works, but you’re paying for the wrong tool.
02
WHEN TO STILL USE STRIPE

DD isn’t the answer to everything. ParentLink ships Stripe alongside it.

Direct Debit takes 3-5 working days to settle the first payment and isn’t designed for one-off ad-hoc transactions. For those cases — a holiday-club booking paid when it's made, an invoice a parent wants settled today — Stripe card is the right answer. ParentLink runs both providers side-by-side at the same nursery.

Pay an invoice today
A family wants this period's invoice settled now. Stripe Checkout in the parent app — pay, receipt, done. DD would take 5 days to clear.
Holiday-club add-ons
A parent books an extra holiday club day on Wednesday. Charge it on Stripe at the time of booking; the parent sees it on their card statement next week. Doesn’t go through the monthly DD cycle.
International parents
Direct Debit needs a UK bank account. Parents without one — military families, diplomats, families abroad — pay by card through Stripe instead.
Ad-hoc late-pickup
A late-pickup charge goes on the family’s next bill like any other extra, so there is nothing to chase separately.
03
SETUP — TWO STEPS

Connect GoCardless in 8 minutes. The first parent mandate takes 3.

GoCardless is free to set up — no monthly subscription, no platform fee from us. You paste your access token at Settings → Payments → GoCardless, then every parent gets a magic-link mandate setup button on the parent app. They click the link, fill in their bank details on GoCardless’s hosted form, and the mandate is active within 5 working days.

1.
Sign up at gocardless.com
Free, takes 5 minutes. You’ll need the nursery’s bank details for payouts. Sandbox keys for testing + live keys for production are issued separately; ParentLink supports both. No platform mark-up from us — fees go directly to GoCardless at their published rates.
2.
Paste the access token
Settings → Payments → GoCardless. Paste the token and the webhook secret (needed for failures and cancellations to show up automatically), and optionally the creditor ID. Test mode confirmed → flip to Live when ready. From no Direct Debit to collecting live: under 10 minutes.
Send mandate setup links
Every parent gets a magic link in their parent app — “Set up Direct Debit”. They sign with their bank details on GoCardless’s hosted form (not yours, not ours). Moving from another system? Upload a CSV of parent emails and we mint all the magic links in one batch.
Failures handled automatically
GoCardless webhooks ParentLink the moment a mandate is cancelled or a payment fails. The failure shows on Needs you within seconds, with GoCardless’s reason, and you collect it again from Finance. No silent failures, no ”why hasn’t this paid” surprises.
FAQ

Common questions about GoCardless on ParentLink

Where do the fees go?
Directly to GoCardless at their published rates. ParentLink doesn’t take a cut — our subscription is the only revenue we take. That’s why we’re happy to show you the maths.
Whose bank account is this in?
Yours. The nursery’s GoCardless account holds your money and pays out to your bank. We never touch the money — we just trigger the pull. Per-nursery credentials means there’s no shared platform sweep.
What happens when a payment fails?
GoCardless tells ParentLink straight away. The failed payment shows on Needs you within seconds, and you collect it again from Finance. Failure reasons (Insufficient funds / Bank account closed / Customer cancelled) are surfaced verbatim from GoCardless so you know whether to chase the parent or move on.
Can a parent still pay by card if they want?
Yes. Stripe and GoCardless run side-by-side. The parent picker in the parent app shows whichever provider(s) the nursery has configured; the parent picks which to set up. Most go DD; a minority insist on cards and pay the higher fee through Stripe.
Does the parent need anything?
A UK bank account they can sign a Direct Debit mandate on. That’s it. They don’t need a GoCardless account; the magic-link flow opens on GoCardless’s hosted page where they fill in their bank details and sign once.
What about Tax-Free Childcare and HMRC payments?
HMRC’s Tax-Free Childcare pays you by BACS with a 13-digit reference. Different rail, different scheme. ParentLink’s TFC reconciliation tool matches incoming BACS to children by reference — see /integrations for the full picture. GoCardless handles the parent-contribution side; TFC handles the HMRC-contribution side.

Stop paying card fees on recurring nursery fees.

ParentLink + GoCardless = the standard UK childcare billing rail. Try the full integration free for 14 days; bring your own GoCardless account or spin up a sandbox during the trial.

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