Since switching to Plane, PadSplit has streamlined payments and significantly reduced fees for their contractors.
PadSplit was founded in 2017 to help people find affordable housing in co-living spaces. Based in Atlanta, Georgia, PadSplit offers its members the ability to rent private, furnished rooms for a low weekly price, with utilities and wireless internet included, without having to sign long-term leases. The startup offers room rentals throughout Georgia and Texas and in Jacksonville, Florida.
In early 2021, PadSplit began using Plane to pay international contractors. Camille Price, Business Financial Strategist at PadSplit, was looking for an automated solution to speed up the payments process, and she liked that Plane supports payments in over 240 countries. “Plane was the best when it came to covering all of the countries we needed that some of the other platforms didn’t cover,” she says.
Before using Plane, PadSplit’s payments process involved many manual steps, especially when it came to paying contractors in countries not supported by other payment platforms. In those cases, Camille says, they used a money transfer service: “It was tedious, because I had to go in and manually enter payment amounts every month.” Initially, she found the manual process to be “okay,” but as PadSplit hired more people, it became much more time-consuming. “It just grew to be unbearably tedious and unnecessary,” Camille says. “Plane has simplified the process a lot. The automation was huge, to be able to have contracts saved in one place and payments automated. And even if I weren’t able to do payroll, it would still run.”
Since using Plane, Camille and her team have greatly appreciated working with a platform that doesn’t charge prohibitive exchange fees. Camille says, “Plane decreased our costs, because we transferred from using three different systems that didn’t work. They were for different countries, and the fees were really, really high, so it was really beneficial to move to Plane.” The transparent pricing system has also impressed Camille, who notes that, unlike other platforms, Plane truly has no hidden fees. She says, “I’m grateful that Plane really is transparent, and that we know what things are going to be charged.”
Plane's clear pricing and optimal exchange rates have made it easier for PadSplit to hire, because they make PadSplit an even more appealing place to work. During the pandemic, PadSplit moved to an entirely remote office, and it has grown to a global team of over 40 international contractors. Camille says, “It’s a lot easier for us to hire and to seek out international employees or contractors, because we know that high fees and payments are not going to be a hurdle for them to work for us. And so it’s definitely impacted who we can hire.”
Whenever she has a question, Camille finds Plane’s customer support team easy to work with. “The customer service is very, very quick to respond,” she says. “And I love that I can tell they will figure out the answer. Even if they don’t know the answer right away, they will get back to me. Every issue is taken very seriously.” As PadSplit continues to grow and Plane’s platform continues evolving, Camille feels assured that she and her team will be supported. She says, “If there’s an issue, Plane is quick to respond and to make it right.”