Hello everyone. I am really excited as I write this. In August, we completed the switch of our underlying payments system to GoCardless, allowing a big reduction in the costs. We have passed these savings on to you.
From Soniq Studio’s humble beginnings, I wanted to provide a “no-brainer” decision for joining the platform. The more of us here, there better it is for us all. With this transition we are able to reduce the monthly subscription to £9 as well as remove additional online payment costs so that Professional Subscribers only pay GoCardless fees.
GoCardless Fees
It gets better, GoCardless fees are also lower than Stripe, they can be as little as 1% + 20p. GoCardless have a fees calculator on their pricing page so you can check what it might cost you.
We no longer add any additional charges on transactions for those who are subscribed to the Professional plan and we have reduced our charges for those on the free plan.
Here’s a simple calculation for a teacher with 30 students charging £20 per lesson, working during school terms in the UK.
| Soniq Professional | £9pm (over three months that would be £27) |
| Invoices for 6 lessons | £120 * 30 = £3,600 |
| GoCardless fee | £1.40 * 30 = £42 |
| Total cost | £69 |
Ways to Pay
This change means that you have the following options for getting paid.
Manual Bank Transfers
If you just want to process payments yourself, we don’t want to get in your way. You can add your bank details to your account options and these will show on the payment screen as a payment option. We do not charge you for this.
Pay by Bank (Open Banking)
Your students can now pay directly from their bank account with Pay by Bank, no card details, no manual transfers. Payments are immediate and we will automatically mark your invoices as paid when we get confirmation.
Direct Debit
Your students also have the option to pay by one-off Direct Debit. After a one-off Direct Debit setup, future payments are a 1 click action on the pay screen. Payments take up to three days to process, you can keep up to date on any progress from the invoice screen and we will automatically mark your invoices as paid when we get confirmation.
Feedback
We want to hear your feedback. We would like to give your customers the option to collect payments automatically via Direct Debit, on the due date. Is this something you and your students would value? Get in contact and let us know.