For credit managers and B2B finance teams

B2B Payments The methods, what each costs you to receive, and how to steer customers to the right one

Business customers pay by check, ACH, wire, instant payment and card, and each one lands differently in your bank account and on your cost line. Here is how the methods compare from the side that gets paid, and where B2B companies quietly overpay.

Written by Robert Day, just under 30 years in credit card processing, including more than a decade as an executive at Fifth Third Processing Solutions, later Vantiv and Worldpay, now part of Global Payments.

41%of US B2B payments were made by ACH in 2024, up from 25% in 2015

13%were made by check in 2024, down from 32% in 2015

2% to 2.5%typical cost to accept a credit card, and more on many commercial cards

Sources: Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, citing Association for Financial Professionals (AFP) survey data; AFP 2022 Payments Cost Benchmarking Survey.

What B2B payments are
Methods compared
B2B card processing
Steering customers

What are B2B payments?

B2B payments are payments between businesses: a distributor paying a manufacturer, a contractor paying a supplier, a clinic paying for inventory. They look nothing like a consumer checkout.

Bigger amounts

A single invoice can run to tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, so a small percentage fee becomes real money.

Paid on terms

Most are invoiced and paid later, on net 30, net 45 or longer, which is why days sales outstanding matters so much.

More paperwork

Purchase orders, approvals and remittance detail travel with the payment, and mismatches cause delays and disputes.

Different card rules

Business, corporate and purchasing cards carry their own interchange rates, and the data you send with the payment changes the price.

B2B payment methods compared

Here is how the main methods compare for the business receiving the payment.

Method	How fast you get the money	Typical cost to receive	Best for
Check	Days to weeks, including mail and deposit	About $1 in bank fees, plus handling	Customers who will not switch yet
ACH	One to two business days, or same day	About $0.25 to $0.50	Most invoices, especially recurring and large ones
Wire	Same day	About $7	Very large or international payments
Instant payment (RTP, FedNow)	Seconds, any time, any day	Set by your bank	Urgent payments up to $10 million
Credit, purchasing and virtual cards	One to two business days	A percentage of the payment, often 2% to 3%	Customers who want to pay by card, at a cost you have negotiated

Fees are median figures from the AFP 2022 Payments Cost Benchmarking Survey, as reported by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. The $10 million instant payment limit applies on both the RTP network and the Federal Reserve’s FedNow Service, which raised its limit to $10 million in November 2025. Your bank’s fees may differ.

The pattern is plain. Bank-to-bank methods cost cents or a few dollars per payment no matter how large the invoice. Cards cost a percentage, so on a $50,000 invoice the difference is not cents, it is hundreds or thousands of dollars. That does not make cards wrong. It makes their price the thing worth managing.

B2B credit card processing: where the money goes

Business customers like paying by card because it gives them float, rewards and an easy approval trail. When they do, most of what you pay goes to interchange, the rate set by the card networks, which makes up 80 to 90 percent of what it costs to accept a card. The rest is your processor’s markup. B2B companies overpay in four predictable places.

Missing Level 3 data

On Visa corporate and purchasing cards, sending invoice line-item data drops the rate from 2.70% to 1.75% plus $0.10. Most B2B companies do not send it, usually because their gateway or ERP integration cannot. See Level 3 credit card processing.

Virtual card payments

More customers now pay suppliers with single-use virtual cards from their accounts payable programs. For you, a virtual card is a commercial card payment, with commercial card interchange. The same Level 3 and pricing rules decide what it costs.

Bundled or tiered pricing

Flat-rate and tiered pricing hide interchange inside one number, so you cannot see what you are paying for, and a lower interchange rate can simply become more margin for the processor. Interchange-plus pricing shows every line and passes savings through. That is why we tell B2B companies the last thing they want is bundled pricing.

Rules that change underneath you

The card networks change their rules and rates every April and October, and every merchant agreement lets the processor change its fees at any time. Visa rebuilt its entire commercial card program between 2025 and 2026. An account set up correctly two years ago rarely still is. See what Visa CEDP costs you.

How to accept credit card payments from business customers

B2B credit card payments work differently from a retail checkout. Most arrive against an invoice, often weeks after the sale. Set up for that:

Take payment where the invoice is paid. A pay link on every invoice, or a customer portal, beats reading card numbers over the phone.
Keep cards on file the safe way. For repeat customers, store cards with their permission through a PCI-compliant gateway, never in email or ERP notes.
Send Level 3 data from your ERP. Make sure your gateway passes invoice line items on corporate and purchasing card payments, or you pay the higher rate on every one.
Accept virtual cards from customers’ AP programs. They are commercial card payments, so the same data and pricing rules decide what they cost.
Price it on interchange-plus. It is the only pricing model where a lower interchange rate actually reaches you.
Decide on surcharging deliberately. If you pass fees on, lower your cost first, then follow the rules on caps, debit cards and disclosure.

What it is worth in a real account

A B2B animal health manufacturer processing about $425 million a year had a competitive markup and a clean statement, yet was losing about $1.84 million a year because its gateway could not send Level 3 data. Read the case study.

How to steer customers to the right payment method

Make ACH the easiest option. Put an ACH payment link on every invoice and in your portal. ACH costs far less than a card, and when it is not offered right there, customers default to check or card. See ACH processing fees.
Accept cards, at the right cost. Cards get invoices paid faster and win customers who insist on them. Get your card cost down first with Level 3 data and interchange-plus pricing.
Put payment methods in the terms. Name the accepted methods in the quote and the contract, not only on the invoice.
Automate the routine. Invoice the same day, send reminders before the due date, and connect your payment portal to your ERP so payments post without manual matching. This is what most B2B payment automation software does.
Be careful passing card fees on. Surcharging is allowed in most states, but it can never exceed your actual cost of acceptance, cannot apply to debit cards, and each card brand has its own rules. Read our surcharging guidance first.
Measure the result. Track days sales outstanding alongside your total cost of getting paid. Our guide to reducing DSO shows how to weigh speed against cost.

We audit the cost of getting paid

weAudit is America’s #1 Credit Card Processing Auditing Firm, and our team came from inside the processors. We audit your processing and ACH statements, find where you are overpaying, fix the setup with your existing processor or a new one, and keep auditing monthly because the rules keep moving.

The first audit is free, so you can see the number before anyone asks for budget.
Our fee is flat and never a percentage of savings, so the savings stay with your company.
We take no revenue share, referral arrangement or financial tie from any processor or ISO, so the advice is not for sale.

Frequently asked questions

What are B2B payments?

B2B payments are payments made between businesses, usually for invoices on payment terms. The main methods are checks, ACH, wire transfers, instant payments and credit, purchasing and virtual cards.

What is the most common B2B payment method?

ACH. By number of payments, ACH accounted for about 41 percent of US B2B payments in 2024, while checks fell to about 13 percent, according to AFP data reported by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.

What is the cheapest way to receive a B2B payment?

ACH is usually the cheapest, with median bank fees of about $0.25 to $0.50 per payment in the AFP 2022 Payments Cost Benchmarking Survey. Cards cost a percentage of the payment, so they cost more on larger invoices.

How much does B2B credit card processing cost?

Commonly 2 to 3 percent of the payment, depending on the card type, the data sent with the payment and the processor’s markup. On Visa corporate and purchasing cards, sending Level 3 data lowers interchange from 2.70% to 1.75% plus $0.10.

Should a B2B company accept credit cards?

Usually yes, because cards speed up payment and some customers insist on them. The key is controlling the cost: send Level 3 data on commercial cards, use interchange-plus pricing, and make ACH easy for customers who do not need to pay by card.