Article by Jason Mace, founder of SOTpay.
More landowners and site operators are charging for parking than ever before. Retail parks, leisure sites, gyms, holiday parks, pubs, event spaces, and private car parks are all circling the same question:
How do I charge for parking on my own land without it turning into a project?
For years there were only two real answers, and neither was good.
The first was a pay and display machine. That means the capital cost of the unit, ongoing maintenance, card readers that fail in the cold, coin boxes that need emptying, and the occasional morning where you arrive to find the whole thing has been forced open overnight.
The second was to hand the job to a third-party parking app. They collect the money, they own the relationship with the driver, they set the terms, and they take their percentage. You solved the operational problem by giving away the asset, which is the parking income from your own land.
That friction matters more than it first looks, because charging for parking is rarely as simple as putting up a sign.
Anyone who has looked into it seriously runs into the same list of things sitting behind that one decision:
All of that has to work without adding staff you do not have or hardware you do not want to maintain.
There is now a third route, and it changes the economics.
A driver scans a QR code on your signage, pays in their browser, and drives away. There is no machine to install, no app to download, and no account to create. It is the same scan-to-pay habit customers already use at coffee counters and restaurant tables.
Scan. Pay. Done.
The part that matters most for operators is what sits behind that simple journey, which is who stays in control.
You keep control. The driver is your customer. The revenue lands with you. You set the tariffs, the free periods, the grace times, and the terms of use. You are not renting access to income that comes from land you already own.
It also works with what you already have. If you run ANPR, the payment journey sits alongside it. If you do not, the scan and browser route stands on its own. The integration is a small piece of code rather than a development project, so a site can go live without ripping anything out or waiting on a long build.
The sites that get parking right over the next few years will charge fairly, keep the driver experience simple, and keep control of the revenue their own land generates.
That is exactly why we built Park Pay Zone.
Jason Mace
Founder, SOTpay
Jason Mace is the Founder of SOTpay and the entrepreneur behind Gala Tent, one of the UK's leading event shelter manufacturers. With more than 25 years of experience building businesses across events, hospitality, ecommerce, and payments, Jason has developed a strong reputation for identifying operational inefficiencies and creating practical commercial solutions around them.
Alongside SOTpay, Jason also operates Empress Rooms, a modern self-service hotel designed around streamlined guest experiences, secure keycode access, and operational efficiency. His experience across both hospitality and payments provides a unique perspective on the growing importance of frictionless customer journeys within modern business operations.
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