GoCardless vs. PayPal Payments Pro

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
GoCardless
Score 8.5 out of 10
N/A
GoCardless, from the company of the same name in San Francisco, is a recurring payments platform that integrates with the applications businesses use every day, to give businesses more visibility over payments and saving the time on tasks like payment reconciliation. The vendor states they partner with more than 150 billing and subscription software partners globally, including Xero, Sage, QuickBooks, Zuora and Salesforce.N/A
PayPal Payments Pro
Score 7.8 out of 10
N/A
PayPal Payments Pro is an enterprise-class ecommerce payment solution, that provides payment processing security to build a professional-grade ecommerce site. It can be configured to meet business needs and works across devices. Users can tap into over 390 million active customer accounts around the globe.
$0.02
per transaction
Pricing
GoCardlessPayPal Payments Pro
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
QR code Transactions
1.90% + fixed fee
per transaction
Charity Transactions
2.20% + fixed fee
per transaction
Commercial Transactions - In-Store
2.70% + fixed fee
per transaction
Commercial Transactions - Online
2.90% + fixed fee
per transaction
PayPal's pay later offers
2.90% + fixed fee
per transaction
Venmo
2.90% + fixed fee
per transaction
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
GoCardlessPayPal Payments Pro
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
GoCardlessPayPal Payments Pro
Considered Both Products
GoCardless
Chose GoCardless
GoCardless sends an email when a customer signs up in the portal which is crucial. We have many issues with not knowing when a customer has signed up to make a payment. GoCardless is seamless with a checkbox that makes this function possible. Our other software does not do …
Chose GoCardless
GoCardless better fit Kanopy's needs for the following reasons: (1) desire to decrease credit card payments which carry higher costs, (2) single payment solution for 12+ countries via direct debit at no fees for customers, and (3) better customer integration potential for …
Chose GoCardless
We didn't research a lot of platforms as GoCardless offered pretty much everything we were looking for, i.e low cost, easy to use & implement.
Chose GoCardless
It stacks up well against Stripe but I think they serve different purposes. Stripe is better when it comes to integrations, GoCardless is great for recurring payments, particularly for service-based businesses.
Chose GoCardless
GoCardless provides a simple way to take one-off card payments or set up direct debits for customers. Payment links can be included on electronic invoices, and certainly, from a UK perspective, it provides a more professional appearance than using, say, PayPal for …
Chose GoCardless
For direct debit it is superb. Integration is much easier, and it supports the different strands of our company's UK and European payments landscape.
Chose GoCardless
Gocardless had no integration or monthly fees. You only pay for what you use. Windcave has monthly fees (and a setup fee).
Chose GoCardless
[GoCardless has] lower fees and is easier to use.
PayPal Payments Pro
Chose PayPal Payments Pro
They are both great but the reputation of Paypal Payments Pro which has been around a lot longer is a significate difference when dealing with vendors. Paypal Payments Pro is a well respected name and known for making monetary transaction safe and secure . This gives us …
Chose PayPal Payments Pro
It is an excellent alternative, with a great interface, however, we become much more familiar with PayPal Payments because most of our clients and business partners use it, it makes our work environment more pleasant, and we have no problems processing payments.
Chose PayPal Payments Pro
Stipe is a little more complex to use but has better rates. In this particular instance, the client was more familiar with PayPal and wished to go with something they had heard of. They had already used PayPal (and had an account) and said that they felt more comfortable using …
Chose PayPal Payments Pro
We use PayFast to accept local online payments in South Africa. PayFast works well to receive Rands although PayFast does not support invoicing. PayFast does however support recurring payments in the form of a "payment subscription". Payfast has fewer overall features however, …
Chose PayPal Payments Pro
I believe Cash App and Venmo are better ways to transfer money with better customer service and support and so many less restrictions.
Chose PayPal Payments Pro
From my personal experience, PayPal Payments is by far the easiest to implement and better supported and documented. Other options are either over complicated or too expensive.
Chose PayPal Payments Pro
PayPal is much easier to use and it gave me options to pay through PayPal directly when doing online purchases. Costs were also more advantageous as I wouldn't have large amounts of money to transfer.
Chose PayPal Payments Pro
Stripe is not as robust as PayPal. PayPal offers way more services and features compared to Stripe. Stripe is a good platform that integrates well with other software. But Stripe doesn't have all the benefits that a giant like PayPal has. Stripe is a bit more difficult to set …
Chose PayPal Payments Pro
For us, TransferWise was a very good option to be able to send and receive payments, it is a very reliable system and allowed our employees to receive payroll money safely, however, the reason we prefer PayPal Payments is because offers us a more instantaneous receipt of money, …
Chose PayPal Payments Pro
Stripe has lower fees which I like better, but money takes longer to reach my bank.

I haven't heard of Stripe freezing people's funds either, which is a major concern of mine in continuing to use PayPal.
Chose PayPal Payments Pro
PayPal Payments, at the end of the day, was an easy sell to management and an auto integration with our eCommerce software. We already informally accepted PayPal for international customers to reduce risk, and taking it a step further was an easy next step. It was a one or …
Chose PayPal Payments Pro
We use authorize.net on one of our other websites as the payment processor. It is good too but definitely took a while to integrate because of some issues. PayPal Payments was much easier.
Chose PayPal Payments Pro
I don't think there's really any competition here. There's Venmo (also owned by PayPal) who is now offering business accounts, but it still isn't quite the same.

The closest thing in terms of ease of use would be Apple Pay or Google Pay (and there are a handful of others out …
Chose PayPal Payments Pro
PayPal Payments is probably the lowest-grade product compared to Wave Accounting and HoneyBook. It is very basic where Wave gives you more detailed reports about your income/expenses, the ability to track your expenses, personalize your account more, and other features. The …
Chose PayPal Payments Pro
  • On the micropayments side, PayPal Payments was the clear victor, charging significantly less as compare to other payment gateways in past.
  • PayPal Payments used to return our original processing fee in the past.
  • PayPal Payments is currently available in over 200 countries/regions …
Chose PayPal Payments Pro
We chose PayPal Payments about 10 years ago because it was easy to get up and running. We had not considered using another provider until recently when we had a less-than-positive experience with PayPal customer service. Stripe is an up-and-coming competitor with PayPal …
Chose PayPal Payments Pro
  • Paytm is an Indian competitor of PayPal Payments. Which supports UPI transactions, but not easy to make international payments like PayPal.
  • RazorPay is another product. I have tried to use it in one of my project, but later changed my mind to PayPal Payments because of some …
Chose PayPal Payments Pro
We didn't go for any other alternatives to PayPal Payments, as it's considered the gold standard for accepting quick payments.
Chose PayPal Payments Pro
PayPal Payments is simple to implement and use. Most of the clients prefer to use PayPal Payments instead of other similar services, sustaining the choice of implementing the tool as a digital service for online payments. I would suggest adopting it as an additional service to …
Chose PayPal Payments Pro
We use PayPal Payments largely because it's easy and all of our partners, on the supply side and the client side, can use it, too. It makes the payment process simple and fast, and many partners already use PayPal Payments, so it saves them time, too. We trust the name PayPal …
Chose PayPal Payments Pro
We use other products for other situations, but as far as sending money PayPal is hard to beat. We've used Square POS at live events to collect donations and payments for tickets, simply because the swipe accessory for iPhone was convenient and easy to use. We haven't had live …
Chose PayPal Payments Pro
I have used Zelle, Venmo, Cash App, Amazon Pay, and others only because they are popular with other people who wished to be paid that way. I got PayPal first, years ago, have used it on our website for our customers, and still like it the best. I have another friend who runs …
Chose PayPal Payments Pro
PayPal was one of the first companies to offer the swipe via phone equipment and feature for sales and easily integrated products from the e-commerce site. Although other companies began and do offer the same features, PayPal was/is the most well-known and established payment …
Chose PayPal Payments Pro
PayPal Payments is probably my favorite payment app because it is the most intuitive, it is easy to use, and it is also one of the longest standing apps which has given ample time to become familiar with it and ensure that it works well. It allows employees to designate one …
Chose PayPal Payments Pro
I have not used any other payment apps other than PayPal.
Features
GoCardlessPayPal Payments Pro
Payment Gateways
Comparison of Payment Gateways features of Product A and Product B
GoCardless
9.2
Ratings
24% above category average
PayPal Payments Pro
-
Ratings
Fraud Detection10.00 Ratings00 Ratings
API or SDK5.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Recurring Payment Support10.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Billing and Invoicing Support10.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Global Support10.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Payment Form Acceptance10.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
GoCardlessPayPal Payments Pro
Small Businesses
Apple Pay
Apple Pay
Score 9.3 out of 10
Apple Pay
Apple Pay
Score 9.3 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Apple Pay
Apple Pay
Score 9.3 out of 10
Apple Pay
Apple Pay
Score 9.3 out of 10
Enterprises
Checkout.com
Checkout.com
Score 8.5 out of 10
Checkout.com
Checkout.com
Score 8.5 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
GoCardlessPayPal Payments Pro
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(0 ratings)
8.2
(0 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
2.0
(0 ratings)
2.3
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
GoCardlessPayPal Payments Pro
Likelihood to Recommend
I think it's a great payment gateway for small businesses which are new to the business and looking for something low budget & an easy-to-use platform to begin accepting the payments. It does streamline the cash flow & gives good visibility to payment status but sometimes it takes 3-4 days in the reconciliation of balances which might not be suitable for businesses looking to have a quick turn-around-time of balances.
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Paypal is great for personal payments as well as business payments for ecommerce of for paying monthly memberships. It is a user friendly software that needs little expertise to get used to. For larger payments, the fees become high therefore it is more suitable for payments of upto few hundred dollars.
Read full review
Pros
  • Reliably takes recurring payments
  • Makes it easy and secure for customers to set up their direct debits with us
  • Informs us when payments have failed at the customer's end
  • Makes it easy to see upcoming payments that will be collected
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  • You can Keep track of transactions and conform accounts daily
  • Require users set strong passwords
  • PayPal Payments also comes with an encryption feature that protects our customer’s and our data to the highest possible standard of security.
  • Like its desktop version, PayPal Payments has a mobile application that is super easy to operate.
  • PayPal Payments is extremely user-friendly and easy to use and comes up with a Great user interface.
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Cons
  • Reduction in fees for customers who use it for large volumes of clients
  • Easier for clients to review their payment plans
  • Payment sooner to our bank account
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  • Sometimes the UX flow would not deliver the customer back to our site, leaving orders in limbo "Pre-approved" status. The customer would call days later asking why we hadn't shipped it.
  • The PayPal logo on the checkout page can be kind of large and obtrusive.
  • They mention new features and programs on their login page, but it's hard to find any details on them deeper in the software.
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Usability
It has a good web dashboard, you can see who has paid, who hasn’t, when payments will be taken from client and when they will arrive in the bank account
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No answers on this topic
Support Rating
There is no phone support, email only, and the support is slow coming. The support staff often don't read your support query properly, so you waste time having to re-explain yourself. That is the only downside of this product.
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Customer service representatives were unable to explain why customer in Australia were unable to make payments using our link. It turned out that customers in Australia must create an account. PayPal's user interface did not reveal this to our customers in Australia. There was plenty about this issue appearing in online forums and PayPal customer service couldn't explain this. This change in PayPal's usability happened between April and May of 2021 and was done without notice to vendors (like us).
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Alternatives Considered
GoCardless better fit Kanopy's needs for the following reasons: (1) desire to decrease credit card payments which carry higher costs, (2) single payment solution for 12+ countries via direct debit at no fees for customers, and (3) better customer integration potential for company website portal and A/R 3rd party tool.
Read full review
For us, TransferWise was a very good option to be able to send and receive payments, it is a very reliable system and allowed our employees to receive payroll money safely, however, the reason we prefer PayPal Payments is because offers us a more instantaneous receipt of money, TransferWise made us wait several days for payments to be completed, we had to wait a long time for our employees to receive the money we sent them. PayPal Payments is very different, payments are completed instantly, the only delay is the one that is placed with the freezing of funds when sending money to a new employee.
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Return on Investment
  • Customers appreciate using a bank account for payments to eliminate any credit card fees that may be implemented in the future.
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  • In the past year we've lost a couple hundred dollars due to cancelled payment agreements
  • Due to the large percentage who choose PayPal Payments, it's brought in thousands in sales that may have been abandoned otherwise
  • Customers trust PayPal Payments and some feel more comfortable with it rather than putting in their credit card info. It's allowed purchasers who otherwise wouldn't have bought to purchase with the security of not having to enter sensitive payment info.
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