Why TrueLayer became the backbone of Invoicr
Six months before launch, we had a problem. We'd built Invoicr around a single idea: let UK plumbers, electricians, and builders get paid direct to their bank account, not through a card processor taking 2.5 per cent plus fees. The maths was clear. On a £500 invoice, our users would save £8 or more per transaction. But we had no way to actually move that money.
The open banking landscape looked messier than we expected
When we started exploring open banking in early 2023, the UK had plenty of providers. PSD2 regulations meant the infrastructure existed. But "exists" and "works for what you need" are different things.
We spent two weeks mapping out our requirements. Our users work on mobile, often on-site. They needed to send an invoice, get paid, and move on. No waiting. No friction. The payment method had to be indigenous to the app, not a redirect to some external payment page. And it had to handle the reality of UK tradespeople: variable invoice amounts, sometimes same-day payment requests, sometimes payment plans stretched over weeks.
We looked at three providers in detail. Two of them offered open banking, but their integrations felt like afterthoughts. Complex onboarding. Callbacks that required backend gymnastics. One required users to re-authenticate every 90 days.
TrueLayer was different. They'd built for developers, not for compliance teams. The API was clean. The documentation didn't make me want to scream. And they understood the use case: embedded payments. Not a redirect. Not a hosted page. Your app, your flow, their rails underneath.
A conversation that changed our minds
I called the TrueLayer sales team on a Thursday afternoon. I remember being skeptical. I'd heard "we're developer-friendly" before. But their account manager asked a single question that stuck with me: "What does your user do when they're standing in someone's kitchen waiting for confirmation they've been paid?"
It was the right question. Because that's the reality. A plumber finishes a job. The client's there. They both want to see the money move. Fast. No browser redirects. No "we'll confirm within 24 hours." Now.
TrueLayer's architecture made that possible. We could embed the payment consent screen directly in the app. The user authorises their bank payment. The money flows through open banking rails. We see confirmation in real time. The plumber gets paid before they pack their tools away.
That conversation convinced us they weren't just selling us a checkbox. They'd thought about the actual problem.
Building and learning what "reliable" really means
Integration took longer than we expected, but not because of TrueLayer. We had to learn the shape of open banking ourselves. Bank connectivity varies. Some banks respond instantly. Others take longer. Some require specific formatting. We had to build resilience into our app to handle the variance, not blame it on the provider when things moved slower than we hoped.
What impressed us was TrueLayer's support during that learning phase. When we hit edge cases (and we hit plenty), their team helped us understand what was happening on their side versus what was our responsibility. We didn't get passed between departments or told "that's how open banking works." We got solutions.
By the time we launched Invoicr in late 2023, we'd tested hundreds of payment flows. Different banks. Different account types. Different network conditions. The system was solid.
What it meant for our users
A month after launch, a customer messaged us. He's an electrician in Leicester. He said he'd used other invoicing apps before, tried to set up card payments, got bogged down in merchant accounts and processing delays. Then he sent his first Invoicr invoice via open banking and got paid within hours.
"It just works," he wrote. "No messing about."
That message matters more than any technical explanation. Because TrueLayer wasn't the hero of that story. The electrician was. Our app just removed the friction between him and getting paid fairly.
The cost difference is real. A card processor takes around 2.5 per cent plus per-transaction fees. On a £500 invoice, that's roughly £12.50. Open banking costs us a fraction of that. Our users keep the difference. On a £500 job, they're saving £8. Scale that across dozens of invoices a month and it's the difference between breaking even and making money as a one-person business.
We could have chosen differently. We didn't
Looking back, choosing TrueLayer wasn't about picking the biggest name or the cheapest option. It was about finding a partner who understood that the app itself had to be invisible. Your customer pays you. The money arrives. You move on with your day.
The technical architecture matters, but only because it serves that outcome. And TrueLayer's architecture, their documentation, their willingness to think through edge cases with us - those things all pointed toward a platform built for exactly what we were trying to do.
As we've expanded Invoicr (adding Pro and Business tiers, rolling out features like WhatsApp invoice delivery and automated payment reminders), open banking has remained the core. It's not a payment option alongside cards. It's the payment option. For UK tradespeople, it's simply better.
If you're building something for UK freelancers or small business owners, and payment friction is part of your problem, it's worth asking yourself: does your payment infrastructure serve your users, or does it serve the payment processor? Once you ask that question, the answer often points you somewhere unexpected.
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