A bank transfer is fine until it is Friday afternoon and the client's finance person has gone home. A card payment clears while you are both still on the call. That gap is why most freelancers eventually reach for a card link, and why the link they reach for is usually one that takes a percentage and puts somebody else's branding on the receipt.
North puts the card button on your own invoice and runs it on your own Stripe account.
How the money moves
You connect a Stripe account from Settings. It is Stripe's own onboarding, asking for the things Stripe needs to pay you: your details, your bank. If you already have a Stripe account you connect that one.
From then on, an invoice you send carries a button. The client presses it and lands on a checkout page, Stripe's, showing the invoice amount in its currency. They pay. The charge is made directly on your Stripe account, not on ours and not through ours, so the money is yours the moment it clears and it pays out to your bank on your Stripe schedule. North receives the fact of the payment and its amount, marks the invoice paid, and tells you.
North never sees or stores a card number. The card details go to Stripe and nowhere else.
What it costs, exactly
Stripe charges its ordinary processing fee for the card transaction, and that fee is charged to you by Stripe, on your account, as it would be if there were no North at all. We do not quote Stripe's rate on this page because it varies by country and card and Stripe publishes it; check your own account.
North adds nothing to that. Not a percentage, not a fixed amount, not a fee per invoice, at any volume, on any plan. The pricing page carries this as a written commitment because it is the thing that most distinguishes North from the tools that process the payment themselves and keep a slice of every one. On sixty thousand dollars of card volume a year, a 2.7% platform fee on top of card costs (HoneyBook's published rate, checked in August 2026) is about sixteen hundred dollars; the number is worth working out for your own mix before you pick a tool.
Why this is the paid plan
Everything up to the invoice is free: the proposal, the contract, the deal room, unlimited invoices sent and tracked, reminders drafted for you. Card payment is what Pro is for, at $39 a month, the launch price published in 2026 with its reasoning.
The reasoning is on the pricing page, weaknesses included. The short version, written in 2026 with the competitors' prices in front of us, is that the moment a client wants to hand you money by card is the moment $39 is the easiest money you will spend that month, and that connecting Stripe accounts, carrying webhooks and reconciling payouts is the part of the product with real running costs. Charging for the money rails and giving away the drafting is at least directionally honest about where the cost is.
If you use card payment during the beta, it is free now, and you will hear by email fourteen days before that changes. Invoices already sent stay payable by card whatever happens.
Where it stops
Card, and bank transfer. There is no PayPal button, no cheque handling, and no financing. The invoice always carries your bank details, so a client who does not want to pay by card can pay the old way. Refunds and disputes are handled in your Stripe dashboard, because it is your Stripe account and your money, and North's job ends when the invoice is marked paid.
Common questions
- What does North take from a card payment?
- Nothing. The charge is made on your own Stripe account, so Stripe's ordinary processing fee applies, charged to you by Stripe exactly as it would be if you used Stripe with no software in between. North's share is zero: no take-rate, no platform fee, no per-invoice charge, at any volume, for as long as North exists. That is the first of the ten commitments on the pricing page.
- Do I need a Stripe account already?
- You need one, and North walks you through creating or connecting it from Settings; it is Stripe's own onboarding, which asks for the details Stripe needs to pay you out. Once it is connected, every invoice you send can carry the card button. Payouts arrive on your Stripe account's own schedule, to your bank.
- What happens to card payment if I stop paying for Pro?
- Invoices you already sent stay payable by card; nothing already made stops working. New invoices go back to bank transfer, with your payment details on the document as they always were. You can reconnect at any time and the button returns.