Replacing GoCardless, Stripe and a chasing tool: the all-in-one case

Three suppliers becoming one is a trade, and both halves of it are checkable before you sign. You gain one contract and one record of each customer. You give up Stripe's breadth, GoCardless's published exit terms, and whatever your chasing tool does beyond email. Whether consolidating gets you paid sooner has never been measured, so it forms no part of the case.

In this article

The short version

• No independent evidence shows that consolidating collection and chasing gets invoices paid faster or collects more, and we won't tell you it does.
• Stripe's payment methods page lists "125+ payment methods" and publishes "99.999% historical uptime for Stripe services", plus a product surface no UK collections platform matches: Connect, Issuing, Terminal, Tax.
• GoCardless publishes the best exit terms in this market: no minimum term, no notice period, no exit fee, and a contractual right to "a machine-readable list of each of your Customers and their Payment Scheme Mandate details".
• Chaser is the only product in this comparison set publishing automated phone calls, and it covers Sage 200, Sage 50 UK, Sage Business Cloud Accounting and Sage Intacct.
• On mandate migration Stripe documents a review of the import and shares a summary for your approval. Adfin's own answer asks you to compare the two lists yourself.
• Adfin collects in sterling only, so if you invoice in euros or dollars this page probably isn't for you.

What the three tools are each doing for you

This stack usually arrived in three purchases, years apart. A Bacs provider collects the recurring money, Stripe takes the cards and anything international, and a chasing tool reads your ledger and sends the reminders your ledger can't schedule properly on its own. Each purchase answered a real question at the time, and for most businesses the answer still holds. So the consolidation case is an offer to trade three specialists for one generalist, at a price that's specific.

Who passes which capability test belongs to best all-in-one payments and credit control platforms in 2026, and what two systems cost you belongs to running payments and chasing separately. This page covers the decision itself, whether to consolidate at all.

What you give up on the collection side

Start with Stripe, where the gap is widest and least arguable.

Stripe's payment methods page lists "125+ payment methods", while its homepage says "135+ currencies and payment methods supported". Two of its own pages give different counts on the same day, so quote whichever you're reading and don't merge them. The breadth is real either way: Bacs Direct Debit and SEPA Direct Debit; Klarna and Clearpay; Apple Pay and Google Pay; iDEAL, Bancontact, Przelewy24, and a long tail beyond Europe.

Stripe also publishes things nobody in the UK collections market publishes. Payment methods are "dynamically selected using AI that incorporates signals like your customer's device, location, and local currency", and you can A/B test that from the Dashboard. Uptime is published at "99.999% historical uptime for Stripe services". Connect for marketplace payouts, Issuing for cards, Terminal for in-person and Tax have no equivalent here, and its API documentation is the reference standard.

Adfin collects in sterling only, with no marketplace payout product, no card issuing and no card terminal. If you sell internationally, take cards at scale, run a marketplace, or have engineers building on an API, Stripe is the better product and it isn't close. One footnote you may find reassuring either way: Adfin's payment services are delivered by FCA-regulated partners including Stripe Payments Europe Ltd, so part of what you'd be moving away from you'd keep underneath.

GoCardless is a different kind of loss, and it's about the contract. Its self-serve general terms carry no fixed minimum term, you end the agreement through the Dashboard with no notice period, and no exit fee is published anywhere, in a document that carries no effective date. Its bank debit terms then commit it to help you leave, including "entering into a bulk change deed" and providing "a machine-readable list of each of your Customers and their Payment Scheme Mandate details via a secure transfer mechanism". They also say that "Any Transactions which have taken place prior to termination will be processed in full".

Those are the best published exit terms in this market, and any comparison implying otherwise is disprovable in two clicks. Read clause 11.2 as well, because it surprises people: if GoCardless holds sums for you, "you will not be automatically entitled to be paid those funds when the Agreement ends".

Good exit terms cut both ways, though, and that runs in our favour. A monthly rolling contract and a contractual right to your mandate list mean trying something else costs you very little, and going back costs you very little too. The provider with the easiest exit is the cheapest one to test an alternative against.

What you give up on the chasing side

Chaser does several things no payments platform in this market does, including ours.

It publishes automated phone calls and in-app calling, and it's the only product in this comparison set that does. It sells collection services and debt collection services, so escalation carries on past the software into a staffed team. Its integration list runs through Sage 200, Sage 50 UK, Sage Business Cloud Accounting and Sage Intacct, plus NetSuite, Dynamics 365 Business Central, AccountsIQ, Odoo, SAP, Epicor. Nobody else here publishes mid-market ERP coverage that deep, and Adfin has no Sage integration.

Chaser also publishes a caveat most vendors leave out. On its late payment predictor: "The accuracy of these predictions is contingent upon the quality of data, the sophistication of predictive models, and the specific variables considered." A competitor publishing the limits of its own prediction alongside the prediction has earned the credit for it.

So if your ledger lives in Sage 200 and nobody answers your emails, Chaser answers that better than a consolidated platform will. A payments platform brings a mandate instead, so a chase can end in money instead of a promise. Which of those matters more depends on whether your customers can go on direct debit at all.

What you gain, stated narrowly

Here is the whole gain, without adjectives.

1. One record per customer, holding the invoice, the mandate and the reminders together. A direct debit that fails can fall back to a card without you asking the customer again, retries are free, and unsigned mandates get chased by the platform.
2. One reconciliation. Two-way sync with Xero and QuickBooks, which matches underpayments and overpayments as well as payments with no reference. Adfin appears as a payment method inside Xero, the same slot Stripe and GoCardless occupy.
3. One price list: 1.0% + 20p per successful transaction, bank payments capped at £4, an additional 1% on premium and EEA cards and 2% on non-EEA, and 0.15% on the part of a direct debit above £2,000. No monthly fee and no minimum contract length, all of it on our pricing page.
4. One set of chasing rules across every method, on email, WhatsApp or SMS from your own domain, with late fees and instalment plans applied by the system that takes the money.

None of that is evidence you'll be paid sooner. It's a reduction in the number of joins you maintain and an increase in what one system can see about one customer. Whether fewer joins produce more cash has never been tested, so treat any vendor offering you a percentage on it, us included, as offering you a guess.

Where we're worse: the mandate migration

A bulk transfer of Bacs mandates usually leaves a few behind, and what matters is how you find out which ones. Stripe documents its answer: "Stripe reviews the data received from your current processor and identifies any problems with the import. We work with you and your current processor to correct any issues. We then share a summary of the import for your final review and approval." A Bacs export out of Stripe takes "approximately 6-8 weeks" on its own documentation.

Adfin's answer is that the business compares the two lists itself. That's a genuine gap against Stripe, and dressing it up would be pointless because you'd find it in the help centre anyway. GoCardless, London & Zurich and Access PaySuite publish nothing on this at all.

On the mandates themselves: above a provider's own operational minimum, mandates move through the Bacs Direct Debit Bulk Change Process and your customers sign nothing new; below it, they sign a fresh mandate. That minimum belongs to whichever provider quotes it and never to the scheme, because no Bacs document publishes a threshold. GoCardless says a bulk change away takes "between 3-5 weeks due to the response time of the involved sponsor banks" and asks you to stop collecting five to seven days beforehand, the clearest published timetable anyone gives you.

Reasons to stay on three tools

Any one of these is enough on its own.

• You invoice in euros or dollars. Adfin collects in sterling only, and both GoCardless and Stripe publish international collection.
• You need marketplace payouts, card issuing or in-person terminals. Stripe has products for all three and this market has none.
• Your ledger is Sage 200 or Sage Intacct, and Chaser publishes that integration where we don't.
• Your customers need a phone call. Chaser publishes automated calls and a staffed collections service.
• You need somebody to advance you the cash as well as collect it. Satago publishes "Up to 90% advance rates" on invoice finance, and a collections platform can't lend you money.
• You'd sooner ring a named account manager than use a dashboard. London & Zurich sells exactly that, with thirty years behind it and FCA authorisation 712747, though it publishes no customer terms at all, so you can't read the contract before you sign.
• Your engineers have built on Stripe's API, and rebuilding working integrations for a tidier supplier list is a poor use of their time.
• Nothing is actually going wrong. Where three tools all work and get used properly, a shorter supplier list is a modest prize.

Six questions to answer before you move

These are questions about your own book, not capability tests.

1. Of the three tools, which would you genuinely miss? Answer that first, because it usually decides the rest.
2. What's your exit position on each contract today: minimum term, notice period, exit fee, and any written right to your own data?
3. Does the combined product take every method your customers use, including the ones only two customers use?
4. What happens to your mandates, who checks which failed to transfer, and how long is the gap in collections?
5. Who sends the Bacs notification to your payers, you or the provider?
6. What does your ledger need to keep working, and does the new supplier publish that integration by name?

All six are answerable from published documents and one phone call. If they come out against consolidating, staying where you are is the sensible reading of them.

Common questions

Does consolidating payments and chasing get invoices paid faster? No study we can find answers that, and Adfin publishes no figure on it either. What consolidation changes is the number of contracts and reconciliations you maintain, and what one system can see about one customer. Any provider quoting you a collection uplift from it, ours included, is quoting a guess.

What does Stripe do that a UK all-in-one platform doesn't? Its payment methods page lists "125+ payment methods" and it publishes "99.999% historical uptime for Stripe services". It selects payment methods dynamically using AI, lets you A/B test that from the Dashboard, and sells Connect for marketplaces, Issuing for cards, Terminal for in-person payments and Tax. Nothing in the UK collections market covers that ground.

How much does it cost to leave GoCardless? Nothing that GoCardless publishes. Its self-serve terms set no minimum term, you close the account from the Dashboard, and no exit fee appears in the documents. Its bank debit terms give you a right to a bulk change deed and a machine-readable list of your customers and their mandate details. Check clause 11.2 though, because any balance it holds isn't automatically payable to you on exit.

Will my customers have to sign a new direct debit mandate? Above a provider's own operational minimum, no: mandates transfer through the Bacs Direct Debit Bulk Change Process and your payers sign nothing. Below it, they sign a fresh mandate. The minimum is the provider's own, because no Bacs scheme document publishes a threshold.

What does a dedicated chasing tool do that a payments platform doesn't? Chaser publishes automated phone calls and in-app calling, collection and debt collection services with a staffed team behind them, and integrations across Sage 200, Sage 50 UK, Sage Business Cloud Accounting and Sage Intacct. If your ledger or your escalation route needs any of that, a payments platform won't replace it.

Who is better off staying on three separate tools? Anyone collecting in euros or dollars, anyone needing marketplace payouts or card issuing, anyone whose ledger is Sage, anyone wanting a funder rather than a collector, and anyone whose three tools already reconcile cleanly and get used properly. A shorter supplier list is worth something, and it isn't worth losing a capability you rely on.

Sources

• Stripe — payment methods (accurate as of August 2026)
• GoCardless — self-serve general terms (accurate as of August 2026)

This article is information, not advice. Stripe's payment method count, uptime figure, dynamic payment method selection and mandate import review process are quoted from Stripe's own pages, with the note that two of those pages give 125+ and 135+ on the same day. GoCardless exit terms are quoted from its self-serve general terms and bank debit terms, neither of which carries an effective date, and the bulk change timings from its support documentation. Chaser's capabilities, its integrations and its prediction caveat, Satago's advance rate and London & Zurich's FCA authorisation number are quoted from their own websites. Adfin publishes this article and sells a consolidated product; Adfin's own mandate migration process is weaker than Stripe's and the article says so. Last updated August 2026.