Case Studies, Features, Marketplaces

Case Study: Bubble, the platform that creates an instant economy between parents and babysitters

Hannah Mellow By Hannah Mellow on 3 October 2019   •   3 mins read
<span id="hs_cos_wrapper_name" class="hs_cos_wrapper hs_cos_wrapper_meta_field hs_cos_wrapper_type_text" style="" data-hs-cos-general-type="meta_field" data-hs-cos-type="text" >Case Study: Bubble, the platform that creates an instant economy between parents and babysitters</span>



Traditionally, babysitting has been a cash job, or if a sitter worked for an agency, they typically had to wait days or weeks to get paid. However, Bubble’s founders Ari Last and Adrian Murdock wanted to give sitters the security of being paid automatically into their bank account. “Cashless payments were a massive incentive for parents and sitters,” Murdock explains. “They don’t like having to deal with cash at the end of a night."

As a start-up, Bubble needed a payment provider that was flexible enough to grow with its business as it scaled; a business that didn’t mind handling low volumes initially, but that could also accommodate higher volumes once the business grew. It also wanted to speed up the payment to the babysitter as initially, when it started out processing payments manually, it took three plus days for the funds to reach the sitter’s bank account.

Instant Payments For Babysitters

Modulr replaces outdated manual payment processes and bank integrations with a simple REST API or Application Programming Interface. Modulr’s API allowed Bubble to easily automate the payment to the babysitters’ bank account, dispensing with inefficient and time consuming manual file upload processes.

Integration with Modulr’s API was straightforward allowing Bubble to easily automate payments and receive notifications of incoming funds from parents.

Real-time visibility of incoming funds to its Modulr holding account means Bubble can release payment to the babysitter automatically without waiting for the funds to clear. Babysitters can be paid in a matter of hours, not days, and there is no more awkwardness at the end of the evening for babysitters having to negotiate cash payments with parents.

Instead of having to adapt their business model to fit a payment provider’s way of doing business, Modulr’s payment service accommodated how Bubble wanted to manage its business.

The high level of automation also enabled Bubble to scale its business more easily as payment volumes ramped up. Since going live with Modulr in December 2017, Bubble has paid out more than £60,000 a month to babysitters and it hopes to triple that volume via Modulr’s payment API this year.

The Benefits of Working with Modulr

Simple integration
Payment to babysitters is fully automated and immediate via an API and will support the business as it grows.

Low error rate
Bubble don’t need to employ a large team of finance people to manage payment processes.

Data security
Customer data and personal information kept secure.

Improved competitiveness
Competitive pricing allowed Bubble to save approximately 20 pence to 30 pence per payment.

Automatic Notifications
Modulr's API triggers automatic notifications when funds have arrived in Bubble's account, so they can pay babysitters before funds have cleared.

Scalability
The Modulr API can scale easily as Bubble's payment volumes grow.



What Bubble thinks

"Modulr’s API is a scalable, automated way of paying people, which allows us to be cost efficient, otherwise we’d need a much larger finance team. We didn’t want to employ a team of three to five people to do this."

Adrian Murdock - Co-founder , Bubble

Bubble founders

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