Every invoice you send carries a second, unspoken question: how would you like to be paid?
Most people never answer it. The invoicing tool picks a default, usually card, and the customer pays however the button lets them. That works, but it quietly decides three things for you — what the payment costs, how long it takes, and what can still go wrong after it lands. Those three are worth deciding on purpose.
What each one costs
These are Stripe's published US prices, which is what most small-business invoicing runs on underneath:
- Card: 2.9% + 30¢ per payment
- Bank transfer (ACH Direct Debit): 0.8%, capped at $5, plus $1.50 to verify the customer's bank account when they link it
The card fee scales with the invoice. The bank fee stops scaling at $625, where 0.8% hits the $5 cap. So:
| Invoice | By card | By bank transfer |
|---|---|---|
| $200 | $6.10 | $3.10 |
| $850 | $24.95 | $6.50 |
| $3,000 | $87.30 | $6.50 |
| $8,000 | $232.30 | $6.50 |
On a $200 job the difference is three dollars and nobody should lose sleep over it. On an $8,000 job it is $225 — the cost of a day's materials, gone to the payment network because the customer happened to reach for a card.
Some invoicing tools charge 1% on every bank transfer with no cap, which narrows the gap at the top end. Check your own tool's rate before you do this arithmetic with Stripe's.
Speed and risk, in one paragraph each
Cards are approved in seconds and pay out on your normal schedule. Their weak spot is the chargeback: a customer can dispute a card payment for months afterwards, commonly up to 120 days.
Bank transfers are authorized in seconds but take up to four business days to actually move, and a transfer can still fail during that time if the account comes up short. What that waiting period looks like on an invoice, and what to do while it lasts, is its own topic — we wrote it up in How Long Does an ACH Payment Take?
Neither is a reason to avoid either method. Together they suggest a simple split.
A rule of thumb
If you want one line to remember:
- Under about $300: offer card. The fee is small and the speed is worth it.
- Over about $650: prefer bank transfer. Above that point every dollar of the card fee is money you didn't need to spend.
- In between: offer both and let the customer choose.
Two adjustments. Business customers often prefer bank transfer — their accounts-payable team is set up for it and may not have a company card to hand. And a regular customer who has paid you by bank before is the lowest-risk payer you have; there is no reason to steer them to a card.
How to actually ask
You don't need a policy document. You need one sentence on the invoice or in the email that sends it:
For invoices over $650, paying by bank transfer helps keep my costs down.
That's it. Most customers don't mind; many don't know there is a difference. Put both options behind the same Pay button so choosing bank transfer is no extra work for them.
If you are thinking about passing card fees on to customers as a surcharge instead, check your state's rules and your card processor's terms first — surcharging is regulated, and a polite request to pay by bank usually gets you most of the way there without the paperwork.
How it works here
In ScanThisText, a Pay link offers card and, for US businesses connected to Stripe, bank transfer — at Stripe's own prices with nothing added by us. While a bank payment is clearing, the invoice shows Payment processing to both you and your customer, so nobody pays twice; it flips to Paid when the money arrives, or reopens on its own if the transfer fails.
Every account can send three invoices a month free, with card and bank-transfer pay links on your own Stripe account. See the plans.
Prices from Stripe's pricing pages, checked October 2, 2026.
