How to accept direct debit payments on a WordPress site

Do not enable WooCommerce’s built-in Direct Bank Transfer method and call it direct debit. BACS is an offline bank-transfer option: the customer sends money to your account, while a direct debit gateway obtains authorisation to pull money from the customer’s bank account.

For a custom build, you would need to create a GoCardless billing request or hosted payment flow, store the customer and mandate references against the order, and process webhook events that change the order when the payment succeeds or fails. GoCardless recommends Billing Requests for bringing the customer, authorisation, bank details and payment together.

That route is possible, but it is not a small theme snippet. For most stores, use a WooCommerce-compatible gateway plugin instead.

Create or verify your GoCardless merchant account, confirm that your business can be onboarded, and make sure the store runs over https://. The official WooCommerce integration lists a GoCardless account, SSL, WooCommerce 8.4 or later, WordPress 6.1 or later and PHP 7.2 or later as requirements. Supported customer countries and merchant countries vary, so check both before building the checkout around direct debit.

Decide whether you need one-off direct debits, recurring subscriptions or both. Recurring WooCommerce payments normally require a subscriptions extension as well as a gateway that supports automatic renewals.

Install a WooCommerce gateway that specifically supports GoCardless or another direct debit provider. In WordPress, go to Plugins, choose Add New or Upload Plugin, install the gateway ZIP and activate it.

Then open WooCommerce > Settings > Payments. Enable the new bank-payment method and open its setup screen. A proper gateway should send the customer through a hosted or embedded authorisation flow rather than asking you to collect unencrypted bank details in a normal checkout field. WooCommerce distinguishes form-based, iframe-based and direct gateways, and direct payment fields carry extra security and compliance responsibilities.

Use the gateway’s Connect with GoCardless button, sign in and return to WordPress. Copy the webhook endpoint name, URL and secret shown in the gateway settings into the webhook endpoint configuration in your GoCardless dashboard, then save the settings in both places. The official WooCommerce setup requires the webhook secret and endpoint; without them, orders may stay on hold even after the bank changes the payment status.

If you use a security plugin, managed firewall or server firewall, allow the provider’s webhook requests. This is the Friday-afternoon failure worth preventing: checkout appears to work, but WooCommerce never receives the confirmation and the order is not marked paid.

Set the customer-facing title and description, select the direct debit scheme if the gateway offers that choice, and leave debug logging enabled while you troubleshoot. If the gateway also offers Instant Bank Pay, disable it when you want the checkout to use direct debit only; supported methods can depend on the customer’s country, currency and product type.

Explain the delay clearly on the checkout and order emails. A direct debit order is not the same as a card payment: WooCommerce may place a normal order On hold while the mandate and payment are confirmed, then move it to Processing or Completed. Do not ship or release a service merely because the customer reached the thank-you page unless your business accepts that risk.

Use the provider’s sandbox rather than a live bank account. Place a test order, confirm that the WooCommerce order is created, inspect the payment and mandate in the provider dashboard, and verify that webhook events appear in the order notes. The official GoCardless test flow uses a sandbox, test bank details and simulated mandate and payment status changes.

Test at least a successful payment, a rejected or failed payment, a webhook that arrives late, a customer returning from the authorisation page, and a subscription renewal if you sell recurring products. Check that stock, emails, fulfilment and subscription status change only at the point your payment policy allows.

If you do not want to maintain a custom GoCardless API integration, consider GetPaid GoCardless Payment Gateway as the faster route. It is intended to connect WordPress payment forms with GoCardless direct debits and is most relevant when recurring or account-based payments matter more than a card-focused checkout.

After installing it, connect your GoCardless account, configure the payment method, complete the webhook setup and run the same sandbox checks above. Confirm its current WooCommerce compatibility and subscription behaviour before using it on a live store.