B2B payments: methods, costs, and how to get paid faster

B2B payments are the payments one business makes to another, mostly to settle invoices for goods and services. Five methods do almost all the work: ACH bank transfers, credit and commercial cards, virtual cards, wire transfers, and paper checks. Each one trades cost, speed, and risk differently. And for most suppliers, the payment terms printed on the invoice decide when the money arrives more than the method the customer picks.

The volume is enormous. Nacha, the organization that governs the ACH network, counted 35.2 billion ACH payments worth $93 trillion in 2025, and close to 8.1 billion of those were business-to-business. This guide looks at all five from the seller's side: what each costs you, how fast it becomes money you can spend, and what you can change to get paid sooner.

What are the main B2B payment methods?

There are five, and most suppliers end up taking at least three. Here's how they compare when you're the one being paid.

ACH transfers

ACH is the workhorse of business payments. With an ACH credit, your customer pushes the money from their bank to yours. With an ACH debit, you pull it after they authorize you. Nacha says ACH debits settle the same day or the next banking day, and about 80% of all ACH payments settle in one banking day or less. Same Day ACH covers payments up to $1 million (Nacha).

Your bank or ACH provider sets the price, so get the per-payment fee and the return fee in writing. Banks offer ACH, and so do some processors: Clearo offers ACH payment processing alongside cards, priced by quote. We compare the two side by side in ACH vs. credit card.

Credit and commercial cards

Cards are the fastest way to get a yes. The payment is authorized before the customer hangs up or your truck leaves the dock. The catch is cost. Business buyers often pay with corporate or purchasing cards, and those sit in some of the most expensive interchange categories when the card number is keyed in.

Virtual cards

A virtual card is a card number created for one payment, usually by the buyer's accounts payable software or bank. You receive the number and charge it the way you'd charge a card taken over the phone. We cover how they work, and whether to take them, in our guide to virtual card payments.

Wire transfers

Wires are for large, urgent payments. The Federal Reserve describes its Fedwire Funds Service as a real-time gross settlement system whose transfers are immediate, final, and irrevocable once processed, and says it's generally used for large-value, time-critical payments. Ask your bank what it charges to receive one. A wire sent to the wrong account is very hard to get back, so confirm bank details by phone before anyone sends one. Our ACH vs wire guide sets the two side by side.

Paper checks

Checks are slow, and they're fading. Mail time, deposit time, and your bank's hold all stack up before the money is usable. The Federal Reserve's initial findings from its 2025 triennial payments study say check payments kept declining by both number and value in 2024. If a customer still mails you checks, ask whether they'd switch to ACH.

What do B2B payments cost the seller?

Cards cost a percentage of the payment. ACH and wires usually cost a flat fee per payment. Checks cost mostly time. That one difference decides most of the math on large invoices.

Interchange is the part of a card fee that goes to the bank that issued the card. On Visa's interchange schedule effective April 18, 2026, corporate and purchasing cards fall into these categories, among others:

Those are interchange only. Network fees and your processor's markup come on top. Which category a payment lands in depends on the card, how it was taken, and the data sent with it, so ask your processor which ones your transactions actually qualify for. Line-item data and the Product 3 rate have their own guide: Level 3 credit card processing.

Now set that against the alternatives. An ACH payment or an incoming wire for the same $12,000 costs whatever your bank charges per item, a fixed amount that doesn't grow with the invoice. A check costs your time and the days it spends in the mail. On a $300 invoice, the card fee is a few dollars and nobody should argue about it. On $12,000 it's a few hundred. On $120,000 it's a few thousand.

A card fee isn't pure loss, though. If a card gets you paid on day one instead of day 45, part of that fee is buying cash flow. The next section puts a number on it.

What payment terms should you put on B2B invoices?

Payment terms decide when you get paid far more than the payment method does. "Net 30" means the full amount is due 30 days after the invoice date. "Due on receipt" means now. Many suppliers also offer an early payment discount, written as "2/10 net 30": the customer takes 2% off if they pay within 10 days, or pays the full amount by day 30.

That discount is pricier than it looks. Say you invoice $10,000 on 2/10 net 30, and the customer pays on day 10. You give up $200 to get your money 20 days early. Annualized, that's 2% divided by 98%, times 365 divided by 20, or about 37% a year. A card that gets you paid today instead of in 30 days, for a 2.70% fee, works out to about 34% a year on the same math. Both are expensive ways to borrow, and they cost roughly the same. Use either one on purpose, not by habit.

Terms we'd start with for a small supplier:

• New customers: due on receipt, or a deposit up front, until they've paid you on time a few times.
• Established customers: net 15 or net 30, with the due date printed as an actual date.
• Projects: a deposit, then milestone payments tied to finished work.
• Recurring services: billed on a fixed day and collected automatically. Our guide to recurring billing covers the card side of that.

If you want to charge late fees or interest, put them in the signed agreement, not only on the invoice, and check your state's rules first.

How can you get paid faster on B2B invoices?

Most slow payments are process problems, not cash problems. The invoice went to the wrong inbox, didn't match the purchase order, or offered only one way to pay. Fix the process and the money speeds up.

1. Invoice the day you ship or finish the work, not at month end.
2. Ask new customers for their accounts payable email and whether every invoice needs a PO number.
3. Match the purchase order exactly. A different quantity or price can send your invoice back into an approval queue.
4. Put a payment link on the invoice. A customer who can pay by card in two minutes often will. Our virtual terminal sends invoices and payment links and takes card payments over the phone.
5. List your ACH details for customers who'd rather pay by bank transfer, and tell them you'll never change those details by email alone.
6. Show the due date as a date, along with every method you accept.
7. Send a reminder a few days before the due date and again the day after. Include the invoice number, the amount, and the link.
8. Take deposits and progress payments on big jobs so you never carry a whole project.
9. Put repeat customers on autopay, with their written authorization.
10. Get card money into your account sooner. We have same-day or next-day funding options, and you can read how they work in our same-day funding guide.

Which B2B payment method should you ask for?

Match the method to the customer and the size of the payment. Here are the rules we'd use:

A building supply distributor in Houston might take cards on counter sales and small accounts, push ACH for monthly statements over a set amount, and ask for a wire before releasing a large special order. A consulting firm in Chicago billing monthly retainers might put every client on recurring card billing and keep ACH for its two biggest accounts. Same five methods, very different mix. Our page on professional services payments covers the retainer side.

Can you pass card fees on to business customers?

Often, on credit cards. Visa caps a US surcharge at the lesser of your merchant discount rate or 3% and requires 30 days' notice to your acquirer (Visa). Mastercard caps it at the lesser of your average effective merchant discount rate or 4% (Mastercard). Neither allows a surcharge on debit or prepaid cards, and that includes business debit cards.

State law can change the answer. Massachusetts bars surcharging customers who pay by credit card (Massachusetts General Laws), and Connecticut bars surcharges on any payment method (Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection). Ask how your state's rule applies to sales between businesses before you add one. Our surcharging program handles compliance, disclosure, and setup, and our guide to surcharging rules by state goes state by state.

How do you protect B2B payments from fraud?

The biggest B2B fraud risk is usually a fake request to send money somewhere new, not a stolen card. These habits close most of the gaps:

• Treat any email asking to change bank details as suspect, whether it claims to come from a customer or a vendor. Call a number you already have on file before you change anything.
• Never act on first-time wire instructions that arrive only by email. Fedwire transfers are final, so there's no dispute process to fall back on.
• If you pull payments by ACH debit, you're an originator. Nacha's new risk management rules took effect in phases starting March 20, 2026, and require non-consumer originators to have risk-based processes to identify ACH entries initiated due to fraud. Ask your bank what that means for you.
• Know the return windows. An unauthorized ACH debit to a business account has to come back within 2 banking days (Nacha). Card disputes run much longer: Mastercard's chargeback guide allows some service disputes within 120 calendar days of when services ended, up to an outer limit of 540 days.
• For cards taken by phone or keyed from an email, run address and security code checks, and don't keep the security code once the payment is approved. The PCI Security Standards Council says PCI DSS prohibits storing card verification codes after authorization, even encrypted.
• Mail fewer checks. Every customer you move to ACH or card is one less check sitting in a mailbox.

Common B2B payment mistakes

Watch for these:

• Letting every invoice default to a card because it's easy, without checking what the large ones cost.
• Keying in a commercial card when the buyer is standing at your counter. On Visa's schedule, that's 2.70% + $0.10 instead of 2.50% + $0.10.
• Offering 2/10 net 30 without working out that it's about 37% a year.
• Adding a surcharge to a business debit card. It's still a debit card, and the networks don't allow it.
• Shipping a large first order the moment an ACH debit goes out, before the return window closes.
• Leaving payment instructions off the invoice, so the customer has to email to ask.
• Letting overdue invoices sit for weeks without a reminder.

Next step

Card fees are usually the largest cost in B2B payments, and the easiest one to misjudge. Send us a recent statement for a free statement review, and we'll show what your commercial card payments cost by card type and by how they were taken, so you can see where ACH, a surcharge, or a better rate would actually help. If you sell to other businesses anywhere in the US, you can also talk to us about invoices, payment links, and recurring billing, or read our page on B2B payment processing.