Direct debit is usually cheaper, and the gap grows with the size of the invoice. Direct debit fees are normally capped at about £4, while card fees are a percentage with no ceiling, so a £1,000 invoice might cost £4.20 by direct debit and £10 to £30 by card depending on the card. On invoices under a few hundred pounds the difference is small enough that convenience matters more.
In this article
The short version
- Direct debit fees are usually capped; card fees rise with every pound.
- On Adfin a direct debit costs at most £4.20 below £2,000.
- A £1,000 invoice costs £4.20 by direct debit, £10.20 on a standard card and £20.20 on a business card.
- Below about £400 the difference is small, so convenience matters more.
- Business card fees can be passed on to business customers; personal card surcharges are banned.
Why the two are priced differently
The card fee you pay is shared between several parties: the bank that issued your customer's card, the card scheme and the provider that processes the payment. Most of those charges are a percentage of the amount, so the fee rises with every pound you invoice. Business and corporate cards cost more again, because they sit outside the UK's legal caps on interchange, the part of the fee that goes to the card issuer.
When you collect by direct debit, the payment runs through Bacs, the UK's bank-to-bank collection scheme, and there's no card network in the middle. Providers usually price it as a percentage plus a fixed fee, with a cap on the percentage. Once an invoice is big enough to hit the cap, the fee stops rising.
So on a £50 invoice the two methods can cost almost the same, and on a £5,000 invoice they're a long way apart.
What each costs at different invoice sizes
Here's how it looks on Adfin's published pricing, where the standard fee is 1% + 20p per successful payment for both methods. On direct debit the 1% is capped at £4, so the most you pay is £4.20, plus 0.3% on amounts above £2,000. Cards are uncapped, and business cards, Amex and EEA-issued cards cost 2% + 20p.
| Invoice | Direct debit | Standard UK card | Business card |
|---|---|---|---|
| £100 | £1.20 | £1.20 | £2.20 |
| £400 | £4.20 | £4.20 | £8.20 |
| £1,000 | £4.20 | £10.20 | £20.20 |
| £2,500 | £4.20 plus 0.3% high-value charge | £25.20 | £50.20 |
| £5,000 | £4.20 plus 0.3% high-value charge | £50.20 | £100.20 |
Up to £400, a direct debit and a standard card cost the same. From there the card fee keeps climbing while the direct debit stays at £4.20 until £2,000. Many card providers charge more than 1% for standard cards (Stripe, for example, publishes 1.5% + 20p), so on other pricing the card column starts higher.
Multiply it by your own volume before deciding whether it matters. Say you bill 50 clients £1,200 a quarter. That's 200 payments a year. By direct debit you'd pay £840 in fees. If every client paid on a business card instead, at 2% + 20p, you'd pay £4,840, and on standard cards at 1% + 20p it would be £2,440.
The costs beyond the fee
The per-payment fee isn't the whole bill, and a few other lines can widen or narrow the gap.
A direct debit can fail if the money isn't there or the mandate has been cancelled, and some providers charge for every submission, including the failed ones. Adfin charges nothing for a failed direct debit and retries it for free, then asks the customer to pay another way.
Cards carry chargebacks. A customer can dispute a card payment through the card scheme and have it reversed, which usually carries a fee per case on top of losing the money while it's resolved. Direct debit has its own refund route, the Direct Debit Guarantee, under which a payer can get money back from their bank if a collection was made in error.
If your customers are other businesses paying on company cards, you can pass the card fee on to them, as long as the charge doesn't exceed what the card costs you to accept. Surcharging personal cards is banned. Adfin can add the card fee to business card payments for the customers you choose.
Timing differs a little too. Card payments usually reach you within a couple of working days, while a direct debit lands a few working days after the collection date, so a card can get you paid slightly sooner on a one-off invoice.
Some providers also charge a monthly fee to show your own business name on customers' direct debit statements. On a small book of collections that can outweigh the saving, so add it in.
When a card is still worth paying for
Cost matters, but so does getting paid, and the cheaper method isn't always the right one for a given invoice.
A card works well for a first sale, a one-off job or a customer who wants to pay today. A direct debit needs a mandate and advance notice before you can collect, so it's a poor fit for someone you've never billed. It's at its best on contracted, recurring fees, where you set the date and the payment arrives without your customer having to act.
Many businesses end up with both: direct debit for anything regular and a payment link for everything else. On Adfin they sit on the same invoice, and its Customer Agents can chase whatever's still unpaid by email, SMS or WhatsApp on a schedule you set, so following up a payment that hasn't arrived doesn't have to be done by hand.
Common questions
Is direct debit cheaper than card payments in the UK? Usually, yes. Direct debit fees are normally capped at about £4, while card fees are an uncapped percentage, so the gap grows with every pound you invoice.
At what invoice size does the difference start to matter? Around £400 on capped direct debit pricing. Below that, the difference per invoice is pennies to a pound or two, so your customer's convenience tends to matter more.
How much does a direct debit cost on a £5,000 invoice? On Adfin's pricing it's the capped £4.20 plus the extra 0.3% that applies above £2,000, so under £20. A business card would cost £100.20.
Why do business cards cost more to accept? They're outside the UK's legal caps on interchange, so the issuing bank can charge more and providers pass that on.
Can I pass card fees on to customers? Only on business and commercial cards, and only up to what the card costs you to accept. Surcharges on personal cards are banned.
Does a failed direct debit cost anything? It depends on the provider. Some charge for every submission, successful or not. Adfin charges nothing for a failed direct debit and retries it for free.
Sources
- Adfin - Pricing (accurate as of October 2026) https://www.adfin.com/pricing
- Stripe - UK pricing (accurate as of October 2026) https://stripe.com/gb/pricing
- Bacs - Direct Debit (accurate as of October 2026) https://www.bacs.co.uk/bacs-schemes/direct-debit/
- Direct Debit - The Direct Debit Guarantee (accurate as of October 2026) https://www.directdebit.co.uk/direct-debit-guarantee/
- legislation.gov.uk - The Consumer Rights (Payment Surcharges) Regulations 2012 (accurate as of October 2026) https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2012/3110
