The cost benefits of using GOV.UK Pay

GOV.UK Pay is designed, built and tested by government to meet the needs of the public sector and its users.

To help explain the costs of using Pay, we’ve set out what you do and do not pay for.

What you pay for

The Pay platform is free to use. You only pay transaction fees to your Payment Service Provider (PSP). These vary depending on the card type used and whether you choose:

  • GOV.UK Pay’s contract with our PSP Stripe
  • Government Banking’s contract with Worldpay

To learn about Stripe’s fees, create a Pay account or sign in. (It’s free to do this and there is no contractual commitment.) In the footer, choose either:

  • GOV.UK Pay memorandum of understanding for Crown bodies
  • Contract for non-crown bodies

For Government Banking’s Worldpay fees, email serviceteam.gbs@hmrc.gov.uk.

What you do not pay for

There are financial advantages to using Pay that might not be obvious. They’re important to consider if you’re comparing Pay with other ways to take payments.

  • Licencing: No licence fee or minimum transaction volumes.
  • Training: Pay is so easy to use, there’s no need for costly training.
  • Upgrades: No fees for new releases or supporting technical documentation.
  • New features: There’s minimal or no technical work needed to use these.
  • 24/7 support: Our experts support Pay and its users Monday to Friday, 9.30am to 5.30pm, and out-of-hours in emergencies.
  • Branding: No fees to add or change the branding of your pages in Pay.
  • Regulatory compliance: Pay is compliant with PCI DSS and other industry regulations, and there are no fees for work to meet any changes.
  • Accessibility: Pay's payment pages are WCAG2.1 AA compliant and meet The Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No.2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.

Where GOV.UK Pay can save you time and money

It’s not just the immediate cost benefits that make Pay a great choice for taking payments.

User confidence

A poor or untrustworthy online user experience can affect how users feel about a service. It can make them switch to making payments using offline channels. These can:

  • be less convenient to use
  • take more time to manage
  • be costly to process

GOV.UK Pay is:

  • hosted on the well-known and trusted GOV.UK platform
  • fully responsive and accessible
  • quicker to use than offline payment methods
  • supported 24/7

Procurement

As Pay is free to use, central government teams should be able to avoid lengthy procurement processes using either:

  • Stripe, Pay's PSP
  • Worldpay, through Government Banking Service

Local authorities can save time and money by not having to regularly re-procure e-payment systems. That process can take over 8 months each time.

Speed of getting services live

Sign up with our PSP, Stripe, and you can immediately use your account.

With payment links, you can start taking payments in a day. You do not need to build a digital service to use them.

For API integrations, your teams or suppliers can use our technical documentation to quickly and confidently set up services.

Real-time data

Without real-time payment data, there are risks of extra work and increased costs. For example:

  • caseworkers sending costly follow-up letters to users who’ve already paid
  • operations teams not able to answer user questions about recent payments, resulting in callbacks

With Pay’s real-time data, your teams can always access the latest payment and refund information.

Manual and automated refunds

It’s quick and straightforward to make and process full and partial refunds.

You can find and refund payments in our Admin tool. You can automate refunds by integrating your service with our API.