ACH

Also called Automated Clearing House, bank transfer, eCheck, direct debit, Same Day ACH

The bank-to-bank rail behind direct deposit and recurring debits. Pennies compared to cards, slower, and reversible for days.

What it is

ACH is the batch-processed network that moves money between US bank accounts. It carries payroll direct deposits, vendor payments, recurring bill debits, tax payments and most of what businesses think of as "bank transfers." It runs under Nacha's Operating Rules and settles in batches rather than in real time, typically next business day, with Same Day ACH available at additional cost. The economics are the entire argument. Where cards cost 2–3% plus a fixed fee, ACH is typically priced at a small percentage capped in dollars or a flat per-item fee. Published examples: Square charges 1% with a $1 minimum on invoices, capped at $10 on paid plans; Braintree charges 0.75% capped at $5; BILL charges $0.59 per ACH; Melio charges $0.50. On a $12,000 invoice, that's the difference between roughly $350 on a card and roughly $10 on ACH. Capability is expanding. Nacha announced the Same Day ACH per-payment limit will rise to $10 million, and Plaid Transfer now spans RTP, FedNow, same-day ACH, wires and Request-for-Payment through a single API, with Signal risk scoring to suppress returns.

Why it matters to your business

For any invoice above a few hundred dollars, offering ACH alongside cards is the single fastest margin improvement available to a small business. No processor switch, no renegotiation — just a second button on the invoice. A $12,000 install at 2.9% costs $348; on ACH it's often $10. The caution is timing and documentation. Don't complete high-value work on an unconfirmed ACH debit, and keep the authorization record — who agreed, when, to what amount, at what frequency — for every recurring debit. That record is your entire defense in a dispute.

Where it gets contested

ACH's structural weakness is reversibility. Unlike RTP or FedNow, which are credit-push and irrevocable, an ACH debit can be returned days after it settles — and for consumer accounts, the return window for unauthorized transactions is substantially longer than most merchants realize. A business that ships goods or completes work on the strength of an ACH debit is carrying real risk. Return rates are also policed. Originators exceeding Nacha's return-rate thresholds face scrutiny and can be shut off by their originating bank. Merchants who treat ACH as "cheaper cards" and collect authorization sloppily discover this the hard way, because authorization documentation requirements for ACH are stricter than for cards, not looser. The newer friction is fraud rules. Nacha's credit-push fraud rules establish base-level payment monitoring obligations on all parties in the network except consumers, aimed at business email compromise and impersonation schemes. Originators have complained about compliance cost falling on parties who aren't the fraud vector; Nacha's position is that BEC losses are only detectable network-wide if everyone monitors. Both are reasonable. The effect is more scrutiny on ACH origination.

How to check it yourself

Look at your last ten invoices over $500. Multiply the total by your card rate, then by 1% capped at $10. The difference is what offering ACH would have saved on ten invoices. Then ask your provider what ACH costs on your account and how long funds take to become final.

Receipts

Claims above that are checkable, with where to check them. Published so you do not have to take anyone's word for it.

Nacha announced the Same Day ACH per-payment limit will increase to $10 million (April 2026), and new Operating Rules establish base-level ACH payment monitoring on all parties except consumers to reduce credit-push fraud
nacha.org ↗
Published ACH pricing: Square 1% with $1 minimum ($10 cap on paid plans), Braintree 0.75% capped at $5, BILL $0.59 per ACH, Melio $0.50
bill.com ↗
Plaid Transfer spans RTP, FedNow, same-day ACH, wires and Request-for-Payment through one API with Signal ACH risk scoring, moving $1B+ monthly
plaid.com ↗
Roughly 1 in 3 B2B payments arrives late and the average B2B supplier accepts 5–6 payment forms
pymnts.com ↗