GoCardless vs Airwallex: compare on fees, features and benefits

If you're a business which is constantly chasing payments and struggling to track them, you need a platform that facilitates easy customer collections. Both GoCardless and Airwallex offer this service, but which solution is right for your business? Read on to find out how Airwallex compares against GoCardless on price, features and benefits. 

What is GoCardless? 

GoCardless is a UK-based fintech that enables businesses to collect recurring payments via Direct Debit. Founded in 2011, it has expanded across Europe, US and ANZ.¹ 

More recently, GoCardless’ feature called ‘Verified Mandates’ enables merchants to combine account verification with payment consent for reduced fraud and failure rates.² The company aims to become a comprehensive network powering account-to-account payments worldwide.

What is Airwallex? 

Established in 2015, Airwallex streamlines complex international treasury management for global growth-stage businesses. It offers end-to-end financial products and payment services to help businesses of all sizes manage their finances across borders.

Some key features include multi-currency accounts (known as global accounts) in 23 currencies and no transaction fees for payments to 180+ countries with integrations for online stores.

Compare GoCardless with Airwallex

GoCardless fees explained

While GoCardless markets simple and transparent pricing, costs can quickly add up for businesses processing high payment volumes.

Key features of GoCardless include:

• Subscription payments: Automate recurring invoice collections for subscriptions or instalment plans.⁶

• Instant Bank Pay: Accept one-off account-to-account payments as an alternative to cards⁵.

• Global coverage: Collect payments from over 30 countries using mandates and local bank schemes⁶ (powered by Wise). Transaction fees start at 1% and 1.25% for Standard and Advanced accounts respectively³. 

• Success+: Retry failed payments at optimised times to reduce churn.

• Protect+: Access real-time fraud signals to detect suspicious payers.⁴

• Bank account verification: Validate payer details before setting up mandates.

• Payouts: Settled funds are transferred to businesses via a single nominated account per merchant.

Airwallex fees explained

• Global accounts: Seamlessly hold and transact balances in 23 major currencies. 

• Online payments: Accept payments from 180+ countries in 180+ currencies. Easily link Airwallex with your online store or marketplace and use no-code payment links, eCommerce integrations or customisable checkouts via API. Payments will be launching for our New Zealand customers in early 2025. 

• International transfers: Make fast international money transfer services with no-fee cross-border payments over 110+ local payment methods and bypass SWIFT. Send 11 major currencies at the interbank rate + 0.5%-1%. Customers can send money to 150+ countries with same-day or instant payouts. 

• Borderless cards: Issue physical and virtual Visa cards to employees and set customisable parameter-based controls.

• Expenses: Teams can capture receipts, submit expenses, and put through multi-layer approval flows. All data is seamlessly synced with accounting platforms like Xero, Quickbooks and NetSuite.

• Bills and accounts payable: Airwallex centralises accounts payable workflows so finance teams can consolidate domestic and global supplier payments. You can also batch up to 1000 payments.

Compare additional features between GoCardless and Airwallex

• Payment methods: GoCardless doesn’t support accepting card payments and has limited popular payment methods outside of the UK. Airwallex enables businesses to accept 160+ locally-relevant payment methods beyond cards, including Direct Debit.

• Global coverage: GoCardless' network spans 30+ countries primarily for payment collection. Multi-currency settlements into a single account are possible but for a fee. With Airwallex, businesses can collect, hold, and payout in 23 currencies across 130+ countries at low FX rates and zero fees via local payment rails.

• Multi-currency wallets: Airwallex offers multi-currency accounts, which allow businesses to hold and transact in 23 currencies using virtual account numbers, thereby avoiding unnecessary FX conversions. GoCardless does not offer digital wallets.

• Spend management: GoCardless doesn’t offer expense management tools like corporate cards, category controls, approvals, or receipt capture. Airwallex provides virtual and physical multi-currency Visa cards with adjustable spending limits, automated reconciliation, and real-time transaction monitoring. Spend management will be launching to our New Zealand customers in early 2025.

• Payouts: Airwallex allows businesses to payout partners, suppliers, and staff globally in 130+ countries at the real FX rate whereas it’s generally more expensive using GoCardless as funds are converted before reaching a merchant’s bank.

Choose Airwallex for your business' end-to-end financial operations

GoCardless delivers a compelling recurring payment solution for businesses serving primarily domestic markets and whose customers prefer paying directly from bank accounts. 

The lack of broader spending and cash management features means finance teams may still need to overcome immense operational challenges and costs when managing payments globally. That’s where Airwallex shines.

By bundling local payment acceptance worldwide with FX, multi-currency business accounts, cards, expense management, and payouts into a unified platform, Airwallex empowers businesses to scale globally without complexity.

Customers can collect payments in 160 countries and hold 23 currencies in digital wallets while benefiting from low FX fees, competitive transaction pricing, and powerful workflow automation.

So, while Airwallex continues partnering with GoCardless to offer Direct Debit as a payment method, its end-to-end global financial suite ultimately delivers superior value for companies pursuing aggressive international expansion. 

Sources: 

1. https://sifted.eu/articles/gocardless-the-inside-story

2. https://gocardless.com/blog/open-banking-payments-release/

3.  https://gocardless.com/en-nz/pricing/(products)

4. https://gocardless.com/blog/gocardless-launches-open-banking-powered-fraud-prevention-tool

5.  https://gocardless.com/en-nz/international-payments/

6.  https://gocardless.com/en-nz/pricing/

Disclaimer: We wrote this article in Q4 2024. The information was based on our own online research and we were not able to manually test each tool or provider. The information is provided for educational purposes only and a reader should consider the specific requirements of their business when evaluating providers. This research is reviewed every six months. If you would like to request an update, feel free to contact us at [email protected]. Airwallex (New Zealand) Limited is registered on the NZ Financial Services Provider Register (FSPR) with number FSP1001602. All product timelines are provisional only and subject to change.