Sound familiar?
Getting paid takes four emails.
Here is how a booking works on a lot of the small business websites we're shown. The customer pays through a PayPal link and the money arrives in seconds. The booking doesn't: the place isn't theirs until somebody on your side has read an email, found the payment and typed them into a spreadsheet. Click through the steps to see who does what.
Pays through the PayPal link on your site.
Emails you to say they have paid.
Find the payment, match it to the email and record the booking by hand.
Email the customer to confirm they are booked.
Four steps, two people, and a wait in the middle where nothing happens. The payment cleared in seconds. The booking took until someone got to their inbox.
If that's your site, those manual steps are costing you more than the fees.
What it costs
Every manual step charges you three times.
In fees. A payment link runs on whatever the link provider charges. When we moved one client from PayPal to Stripe, their payment fees roughly (Payment processing fees fell by 50% after the move. The rates behind that, as of May 2026: PayPal 2.9% + 30p per transaction, Stripe 1.5% + 20p.).
In hours. Somebody reconciles. Every payment is found, matched against an email, typed into a spreadsheet and confirmed by hand. It's an hour here and there that never appears on an invoice, and it lands on whoever is nearest the inbox.
In customers. The customer who has to email you to say they've paid isn't booked yet. Every hour of silence after paying is an hour they spend wondering whether the money went through, and the confirmation, when it comes, is the first thing they learn about how you run things.
The real problem
A payment link knows nothing about your business.
That's the whole cause. A payment link does one thing: it moves money from their card to your account. It has no idea what they bought, whether there's a place left or where the booking should be recorded. So a person does all of that afterwards, by hand. The wait isn't a staffing problem or a discipline problem. It's built into the tool.
Taking it out means the payment and the booking have to be the same event: the moment the card clears, the place is taken, the register is updated and the confirmation goes out, with nobody in the loop. That isn't a better payment link. It's a checkout that belongs to your site.
Case study: Phonosurgery Courses
How one training programme got booking down to one step.
Phonosurgery Courses runs training for laryngologists (ear, nose and throat surgeons), with delegates flying in from around the world. When we met them, booking was the four-step dance exactly: a PayPal link, an email to say you'd paid, a secretary reconciling sign-ups against payments by hand each week, and a confirmation when they got to it. On top of that, PayPal was taking roughly (At the time, May 2026: PayPal 2.9% + 30p per transaction, Stripe 1.5% + 20p. Current rates are on Stripe's pricing page.) the commission Stripe would.
These courses are an investment in a surgeon's development, and the booking is the delegate's first impression of the programme. We designed, built and now run a course platform for them on their own domain:
- Every course has its own page with dates, programme, faculty and published pricing.
- Delegates pay through Stripe Elements, so the payment form sits inside the site and is styled to match it.
- Each course has a register in the (A content management system: the part of the site where the team edits pages, courses and prices themselves, without a developer.), and Stripe updates it the moment a payment completes. The confirmation goes out at the same moment.
- Packages per course, with the places left shown on the page.
- New cohorts go live through the site's editor, without a developer in the loop.
The results: a 50% decrease in payment fees and a 60% decrease in the time spent reconciling. The delegate is booked before they've closed the tab, and nobody on the team types a booking in.
What to look for
What a checkout has to do.
Whoever builds it and whatever it runs on, ask for these four things:
- Payment on your own page. The customer never leaves your site, and the payment page carries your name rather than a payment provider's.
- Booking and payment as one event. When the card clears, the place is recorded, the availability updates and the confirmation is sent. Nobody reconciles anything.
- Nothing to pay in a quiet month. Per-transaction fees only. A monthly platform fee on top of card fees is a charge for having a slow month.
- Your money on your terms. Payouts to your own bank account on a schedule you choose, and a dashboard you can read without asking a developer.
Our choice
This is why we build with Stripe.
Stripe is the provider we reach for because it does all four without a fight. Stripe Elements puts the payment form inside your page. It tells your site the moment a payment completes, which is what makes the booking automatic. There is no monthly fee: a standard UK card costs 1.5% + 20p per transaction, as of May 2026. Payouts go to your bank on your schedule. And because so many businesses run on it, the things you'll want later (deposits, refunds, invoices, subscriptions) are already built, and any developer you hire after us will know their way around it.
It isn't the only provider we can build with, and it isn't right for everyone. Stripe restricts some regulated and high-risk sectors, and a shop that already runs on a platform with its own payments is usually better left there. But when a client shows us a payment link and a spreadsheet, Stripe is where we start.
Common questions
The things people ask us about Stripe.
Most of them. In the UK, Stripe accepts sole traders, partnerships, limited companies and charities, with the account in your business's name.
We have built with it for course bookings, deposits for consultations and treatments, and orders from an online shop.
A small number of business types are restricted, mainly regulated or high-risk sectors. Stripe publishes the list at stripe.com. If you're unsure, ask us and we'll check before the project starts.
This depends on the type of payment you are taking, but for a standard UK card Stripe takes 1.5% + 20p per transaction, as of May 2026.
Up to date pricing, including other payment types, is at stripe.com.
No. Stripe takes its fee out of each payment before the money reaches your balance, so what lands in your bank is already net of it. There is no bill from Stripe to pay and nothing to reconcile at the end of the month; the dashboard shows the fee on every payment if you want to see it.
No. Stripe has no monthly fee, so you are only charged on the volume you do. A quiet month costs nothing, and a busy one costs in proportion to what came in.
In the Stripe dashboard you pay out funds to your bank account, choosing how much and how often. More information is at docs.stripe.com.
No. We can build with other providers where they fit, and a shop on a platform with its own payments is often better left there. Tell us how you take money now through the enquiry form and we'll say honestly whether moving is worth it.
Where to start
Tell us how you take payments today.
If any of these sound like you, this is the work we do:
- You're taking payments through a link and confirming bookings by email.
- You're moving off a ticketing platform that takes a cut of every sale.
- You want bookings, invoicing and reconciliation to happen without anyone typing them in.
Tell us about your business through the enquiry form: what you sell, how people pay you now and what eats your time. We'll reply within one working day with honest first thoughts, and a clear next step if we're a good fit.