If you want to take money online, whatever you decide to do comes down to a couple of basic choices:  do I want to take money through an integrated payment provider – one who’s software can integrate with my website, and pass money directly to my bank account?, or do I want to use PayPal.

There are pros and cons to each, and I covered some of them in a Freelance Switch article a while back.  But there’s a new player in town (well, provided your town is in the UK) and it looks likely to become a popular option for many.

Go Cardless promises to be the ‘next generation of Direct Debits’ – offering low fees (1% per transaction – compared to 3.4% with PayPal) and easy set up.  Intriguingly, using direct debits means that customers can set up recurring payments without using a credit card.  This is great news for me – I charge my customers a recurring fee for web hosting and currently do this through PayPal.  If I can switch to Go Cardless then I can not only do it cheaper, but I can set people up if they don’t have a credit card or a PayPal account.

Brilliant.  I’ll be setting this up shortly for new clients (and any clients who wish to switch from PayPal) … and will keep you posted.