Tipalti vs Trolley for UK Businesses: Which Fits Your Needs?

Tipalti enables high-growth companies to scale quickly by making Accounts Payable (AP) and mass payouts strategic with operational, compliance, and financial controls. Companies can efficiently and securely pay thousands of recipients within minutes.

Key product features with Tipalti: 

• Onboard partners with a multi-language, white-labeled, self-service portal that offers a choice of payment methods and validates payment and banking data in real-time using 26,000 global banking rules. The portal emphasises ease of use, is accessible 24/7 for partner visibility into payments, and partners also receive proactive, branded Instant Payment Notifications (IPNs).
• VAT compliance, including self-billing that aligns with HMRC requirements and may help with MTD, streamlining invoice processing.
• Global Payments from the UK: Send cross-border payments from your UK base to 196 countries in 120 currencies via a wide range of payment routing. 
• Integration with core UK payment infrastructure, supporting UK domestic options like BACS and Faster Payments, alongside CHAPS, SEPA for Eurozone payments, international bank transfers (wires), and options like PayPal.
• Fully localised cloud-based solution for the UK market, with an FCA-approved e-money license that enables businesses to manage both domestic UK payments (including BACS and Faster Payments) and cross-border payments within a holistic payables platform, providing confidence to finance teams.
• Seamlessly trigger payments to your entire partner base with performance analytics from your performance marketing systems while integrating detailed, accurate transaction and reconciliation reports with your ERP system or accounting systems, improving visibility into cash flow.

Tipalti transforms the entire partner payments operation for today’s fastest-growing, global, digital-first companies. Every creator, streamer, developer, affiliate, or publisher on your platform can count on a best-in-class partner experience above all.

Trolley’s payouts platform is integrated with a global banking network, so you can pay contractors worldwide. It manages the payment process from onboarding to end-of-year reporting.

There are four main functions of the Trolley platform:

1. Pay: This feature automates payment workflows from payout creation to approvals and disbursement, supporting global payouts. While Trolley facilitates payments to various countries, specific details about integration with UK payment systems are not explicitly outlined.
2. Tax: Trolley provides tax compliance solutions, including digital tax form collection and reporting. However, the extent of its VAT and UK-specific tax support is not specifically mentioned in their publicly available information.
3. Sync: Connect Trolley to your ERP and automate the flow of data between your systems. Trolley offers a combination of natively built integrations and Zapier connections.
4. Trust: secure onboarding processes, tools to collect and verify identity documents, and a dashboard to manage fraud detection and risk.

Trolley has some performance marketing platform integrations — Paladin and Refersion — and ERP integrations with Xero, QuickBooks, and NetSuite. Integrations with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central and Sage may be coming.

Trolley offers two different plans depending on your needs. They are:

• Standard: Pick and choose pay, tax, sync, and trust solutions as needed, each with monthly SaaS fees starting at approximately £39/month. Usage fees are charged for tax statements, ID verifications, and payment transactions. This modularity can be appealing for some startups or small businesses.

• Plus: custom pricing and enhanced pay, tax, sync and trust features, now including multi-entity support.

Tipalti’s UK operation has been well-established, with its London headquarters since 2021. The platform is fully localised for the UK market and supports domestic payment methods like BACS and Faster Payments. As an FCA-authorised e-money institution, Tipalti can provide services closer to a bank account with higher capital requirements and strict safeguarding rules for client money, potentially offering greater security for UK businesses processing high volumes of payments.

When evaluating payment platforms, consider your specific UK payment requirements, including domestic payment methods, currency handling needs, and the importance of local support.

Both Tipalti and Trolley support PayPal as a payment option, though they implement it differently. Tipalti uses PayPal’s Mass Transaction (MT) model, while Trolley utilises the Account Direction (AD) model.

Tipalti’s implementation typically offers no funding or payment limits, attractive FX rates that may result in savings of upwards of 1 – 2.5% for partners, and faster payments that land after 1-3 Business Days. UK businesses can access support during UK business hours from Tipalti’s London-based team, with designated Customer Service Manager, Account Manager and Implementation Manager support. The system applies OFAC, Anti-Terror, and Anti-Narcotics list screening to PayPal payments, as with other payment methods.

Trolley, on the other hand, utilises the Account Direction (AD) model, connecting to your existing PayPal account. This approach may have different transaction limits, processing timeframes (typically 1-6 days), and exchange rates compared to the MT model. 

When comparing the two approaches, consider your payment volumes, frequency, and the importance of specific PayPal implementation details to your payees.

Since the UK’s exit from the EU, currency management has become more complex for UK businesses. Tipalti offers advanced FX solutions, including intercompany transfers between 27+ currency accounts and hedging capabilities to reduce FX volatility risk. This allows UK businesses to effectively manage payments in multiple currencies while minimising exchange rate risks. Trolley offers more limited currency account options and no FX hedging, which may be less attractive for UK businesses with significant cross-border payment needs post-Brexit.

Trolley also supports multiple currencies, though with more limited currency account options and without FX hedging capabilities.

Tipalti’s end-to-end Mass Payments platform future-proofs your operations, so you don’t have to keep allocating more resources to payables as you grow. Tipalti’s Multi-Subsidiary capability enables payers to manage a large number of subsidiaries within the same instance of Tipalti, allowing for centralised controls and financial reporting.

Coordinate and manage payments across multiple subsidiaries with features including: Independent branding, payment methods, tax onboarding flows, partner communications, reconciliation, reporting, and modules per subsidiary. 

This can be particularly valuable for companies with multiple business units or those growing through acquisition that need to maintain separate payment workflows and reporting. While Trolley now offers multi-entity support via its Plus plan, businesses requiring deep, independent customisation per entity may find Tipalti’s dedicated module a better fit.

Payment processing is regulated differently across jurisdictions. Tipalti operates as a regulated money services business (MSB) in the US with direct money transmission licenses (MTLs) in states requiring them. They’re also registered as an MSB in Canada and licensed as an Electronic Money Institution (EMI) in both the UK and the EU.

Trolley takes a partnership approach to regulatory compliance, working with banking partners in the US for MTL coverage and with payment service providers like CurrencyCloud in the EU. In the UK, they operate as an FCA-authorised payment institution.

Both approaches meet regulatory requirements, though with different structures. Tipalti’s direct licensing model involves significant infrastructure investment, while Trolley’s partnership model leverages established providers. The distinction between e-money institution status and payment institution status in the UK reflects different regulatory categories, each with its own requirements and capabilities.

Being a licensed Money Transmitter represents an important distinction between Tipalti and some other payout providers. Tipalti’s customers can benefit from their global payments infrastructure, which includes partnerships with blue-chip banks like Citi, JP Morgan Chase, and Wells Fargo, with built-in redundancy across these financial institutions.

Both platforms offer tax compliance solutions for businesses working with international partners. Trolley provides IRS tax compliance for US-sourced payouts and DAC7 compliance for digital platforms with sellers in the EU. Their solution includes digital W-8/W-9 collection, automated withholding calculations, and 1099/1042 reporting and e-filing. For DAC7 compliance, Trolley enables the collection of required seller data and the generation of XML files required across all 27 EU jurisdictions. Note that the Trolley Plus plan may be required to enable both IRS and DAC7 tax compliance simultaneously.

Tipalti also addresses these compliance requirements through its KPMG-approved guided digital tax process. Its system adapts to regulatory changes, such as the recent termination of the US-Hungary tax treaty, which affected withholding requirements. For UK businesses with international transactions, Tipalti’s system also supports local and VAT tax ID collection in 50+ countries, with validation against 3,000+ rules to prevent ID errors—particularly valuable for managing post-Brexit VAT compliance.

When comparing these capabilities, consider which specific tax jurisdictions are most relevant to your business operations and which platform’s approach better aligns with your compliance workflows.

Trolley offers a modular pricing structure with their Standard plan allowing you to mix and match payments, tax, sync, and trust products, each with their own monthly SaaS fees. For UK businesses with lower payment volumes, this approach starts at approximately £39/month per module, enabling you to select only the capabilities you currently need. Features like granular user roles, dedicated customer success manager support, and NetSuite integrations require an upgrade to Trolley Plus.

This contrasts with Tipalti’s bundled approach, which includes payments, tax, sync, and additional features together starting at £99/month for UK businesses. Tipalti may charge a one-time implementation fee for ERP integration (rather than Trolley’s ongoing fee) and offers add-ons for additional entities (a feature not currently available with Trolley).

When evaluating total cost of ownership, consider your specific requirements, payment volumes, and how each platform’s pricing structure aligns with your current needs and future growth.

For businesses with specific identity verification requirements, Trolley Trust allows you to collect IDs from payment recipients during onboarding and verify them against official government templates. The system adds another layer of security by comparing submitted live selfies to confirm identities, and can automatically trigger re-verifications when discrepancies are detected.

While Tipalti performs extensive background fraud/AML/sanctions checks, it doesn’t offer the same explicit ID document collection/verification service as Trolley Trust. 

When suspicious payee activity is detected or there’s a “hit” against a compliance list, Tipalti’s system requests additional documentation and opens a case for review by their compliance team. Tipalti also offers a fraud module that identifies connections between blocked payees and others in your network, allowing your compliance team to review and make blocking decisions.

For businesses that require formal identity documentation as part of their compliance framework, Trolley’s purpose-built verification tools may better address these specific needs.

UK businesses managing contractors face specific compliance considerations, including IR35 off-payroll working rules. While neither platform offers comprehensive IR35 assessment tools, Trolley’s ID verification service may provide additional documentation that could help establish contractor status and working relationships.

This documentation capability could be particularly valuable for UK companies managing both domestic and international contractors. 

Consider how each platform’s capabilities align with your specific contractor management requirements and documentation needs for IR35 compliance, particularly if you’re using a mix of domestic and international contractors.