ACH, Cards, or Wire: How Devs Should Accept Payment

Accept payments as a freelance developer by offering two methods, not six: a bank debit or bank transfer as the default, and a card as the fallback. On a $4,000 invoice, ACH through Stripe costs $5.00 because the 0.8% fee is capped, while the same invoice paid by a domestic card costs $116.30 at 2.9% + $0.30 (Stripe's published US rates, checked September 2026). ACH is slower, taking up to four business days to settle on Stripe's standard timing, so the trade is roughly $111 against two or three days. Offer the card anyway for clients who will otherwise sit on the invoice, take a wire only for large or international amounts where finality matters, and put the account details directly on the invoice so nobody has to email you for them.

Billable does not process payments and takes no cut of your invoices, so there is nothing here we are steering you toward. All fee figures below come from each provider's own published pricing pages and were checked in September 2026. Processor pricing changes, so verify against the linked pages before you quote a number to a client.

What does each payment method cost you?

The only comparison that means anything is net received on one real invoice. Here is a $4,000 invoice, which is a normal two-week engagement for a contract developer, run through each method at published US rates.

Method	Published rate	Fee on $4,000	You receive	Time to cash
Stripe ACH Direct Debit	0.8%, $5.00 cap	$5.00	$3,995.00	Up to 4 business days (T+4), or T+2 for eligible US accounts
Square Invoices, ACH	1%, $1 minimum, $10 cap on paid plans	$10.00	$3,990.00	Bank transfer timing
Wise Business, USD received locally	Free	$0.00	$4,000.00	Bank transfer timing
Wise Business, USD received by wire	6.11 USD	$6.11	$3,993.89	Wire timing
PayPal, standard card on an invoice	2.99% + $0.49	$120.11	$3,879.89	Balance credited immediately
Stripe, domestic card	2.9% + $0.30	$116.30	$3,883.70	Balance credited immediately, then your payout schedule
PayPal Checkout on an invoice	3.49% + $0.49	$140.09	$3,859.91	Balance credited immediately
Stripe, international card	2.9% + 1.5% + $0.30	$176.30	$3,823.70	Balance credited immediately
PayPal, international commercial payment	3.49% + 1.50% + $0.49	$200.09	$3,799.91	Balance credited immediately

Sources: Stripe's published US pricing for the 2.9% + $0.30 domestic card rate, the additional 1.5% on international cards, the additional 1% when currency conversion is required, and the 0.8% ACH Direct Debit rate with a $5.00 cap; Square's fee schedule for 1% ACH on invoices with a $1 minimum; PayPal's US business fee page for 3.49% + $0.49 on PayPal Checkout invoicing, 2.99% + $0.49 on standard card payments, and the extra 1.50% on international commercial transactions; Wise Business pricing for free local USD receiving and the 6.11 USD wire receiving fee.

Two things jump out of that table. First, the bank rails are effectively free at this invoice size because their fees are capped or flat, while card fees scale with the amount and never stop scaling. Second, the spread between the best and worst option is about $200 on a single invoice, which is roughly two billable hours for most contract developers. Do that twenty times a year and the method you default to is worth a few thousand dollars.

Also watch for fees layered on top of the payment fee. Stripe Invoicing's Starter tier adds 0.4% per paid invoice, which is another $16.00 on this one, on top of whatever the payment itself costs. That is a fine trade if you want hosted invoice pages and automated reminders. It is a waste if you are generating the PDF yourself and emailing it.

Why is ACH the default for US clients?

Because your client's accounts payable process already runs on it. Nacha, which administers the network, reported 35.19 billion ACH payments worth $93.00 trillion in 2025, including 1.4 billion Same Day ACH payments worth $3.9 trillion. When you ask a US company to pay a contractor invoice by bank transfer, you are asking for the thing their finance team does by default, not for a favor.

The cost structure is the real argument. A capped percentage means the fee stops mattering the moment your invoices get serious. At $400 the Stripe ACH fee is $3.20 and the card fee is $11.90, a difference nobody will lose sleep over. At $4,000 it is $5.00 against $116.30. At $12,000 it is still $5.00 against $348.30.

The cost of that is speed and certainty. Stripe's own documentation puts ACH Direct Debit settlement at up to four business days, with a faster two business day option for eligible US accounts, and it is a delayed-notification method, meaning a payment can fail after it looked successful. The same page notes that ACH disputes are final with no appeal process, and that a customer generally has up to 60 calendar days to dispute a debit on a personal account, or two business days on a business account. For invoicing a company, that two business day window is unusually favorable to you.

None of this means you should require ACH. Requiring anything is how invoices end up in a queue behind whatever is easier.

When are card fees worth eating?

The framing that gets developers into trouble is treating the card fee as a loss. It is a loss. It is also often the cheapest thing in the transaction.

Run the numbers on the alternative. That $116.30 card fee on a $4,000 invoice is about 2.9% of the total. If offering the card gets the invoice paid in two days instead of thirty-five, you are paying 2.9% for a month of cash you would otherwise be financing yourself, plus the reminder emails you did not have to write, plus the slightly damaged relationship that comes with chasing. Most of the time that is a good deal.

Three situations where I would take the card without hesitating:

The client is a startup paying on a corporate card. Their card is how they pay for everything else. Asking them to set up a new vendor in a bank portal introduces a person who has to approve it.
The invoice is small. Under about $800, the absolute difference between a card fee and an ACH fee is under $20, which is not worth a single email.
The client is late and offers to pay by card right now. Take it. A collected invoice at 97.1% beats an uncollected one at 100%.

Three where I would push back to a bank transfer:

Recurring retainers. The fee repeats every month forever, and the client is already set up as a vendor.
Large milestone payments. Anything past $5,000, the card fee is a line item you would never accept from a supplier.
Anything where the client is passing the cost back to you as a discount request. If they want the fee off the total, the fee was never yours to eat.

Bill by the hour off your commit history and this gets easier to reason about, because you can see what each payment method costs per hour worked. The git log import turns commits into line items, and once the total is real, the 2.9% is real too.

How do international clients change the answer?

They invert it. Domestically, the card is the expensive convenience. Internationally, the card is expensive and slow to reason about, because two surcharges stack: Stripe adds 1.5% for international cards and another 1% when currency conversion is required, taking a $4,000 invoice from $116.30 of fees to $216.30. PayPal adds 1.50% to its base rate on international commercial transactions, which puts a PayPal Checkout invoice at $200.09.

For cross-border work, the two options worth setting up are a multi-currency account and a wire.

A multi-currency account like Wise Business gives you local account details in several currencies, so a client in the EU or the UK pays a local transfer at home and you receive it without a cross-border markup. Wise's published pricing lists free local USD receiving and a 6.11 USD fee for USD received by wire, with conversion starting at 0.23% when you do need to move between currencies. The comparison against holding everything in PayPal is worth its own read, which is Wise vs PayPal for freelancers.

A wire is the right tool for large amounts and for clients whose finance team only does wires. The Federal Reserve describes the Fedwire Funds Service as a real-time gross settlement system whose transfers are "immediate, final, and irrevocable once processed", operating Monday through Friday on a business day that ends at 7:00 p.m. Eastern, with a 6:45 p.m. Eastern deadline for third-party transfers. That finality is the product. Nobody is clawing a wire back from you. The cost is that both banks usually charge a fee, your incoming one included, and those are set by your bank rather than published on a single page, so call yours and write the number down.

What payment instructions belong on the invoice?

The most expensive payment method is the one your client cannot figure out. Every method you offer needs its details on the invoice itself, not in the email body, not on request.

For a US invoice, that block looks like this:

PAYMENT

ACH / bank transfer (preferred)
  Account name:   <your legal or business name>
  Bank:           <bank name>
  Routing (ABA):  <9 digits>
  Account:        <account number>
  Reference:      INV-2026-0142

Card
  Pay online: <payment link>
  A 2.9% + $0.30 processing fee applies and is included above.

Terms: Net 14. Late fee 1.5% per month after the due date.

Four details do the work. The word preferred next to the bank rail steers most clients without blocking anyone. The reference field is what stops a $4,000 deposit from being unidentifiable, since an ACH credit with no memo is a reconciliation problem for both of you. The card fee disclosure prevents an argument later. And the terms line gives the finance team the date they schedule against.

One more rule: do not put four methods on an invoice. Two is right, three is the ceiling, and every additional option is a decision you have handed to somebody who wanted to click one button. The rest of the fields that belong on the document are in what belongs on a software development invoice.

FAQ

Should I pass card fees to the client?

Card surcharging carries network rules and state-level restrictions, so check your processor's surcharging guidance and your own state before you try, but for freelance work I would not bother. Passing on 2.9% turns a $4,000 invoice into a $4,116.30 invoice and invites a conversation about the fee instead of the work. The cleaner move is to price the fee into your rate and offer the card as a free convenience, or to offer it only above a threshold. If you do surcharge, disclose it on the invoice in the payment block, not in a footnote.

Is wire transfer worth it under $10k?

Usually not domestically. A wire's advantages are finality and speed, and ACH gets you close enough on a routine $4,000 invoice for a fraction of the effort, since a wire costs both parties a fee and requires someone at the client's bank to key in your details. The cases where a wire earns its keep under $10,000 are international payments where the alternative is a 4% to 5% card surcharge, and clients whose accounts payable process simply does not do ACH to individuals.

How many payment options should I offer?

Two, with three as the maximum. One bank rail and one card covers something like every US client you will invoice. Add a third only for a specific recurring situation, such as a multi-currency account for European clients. Past that you are maintaining accounts, reconciling across platforms, and tracking multiple 1099-K style year-end reports for no gain.

Are checks ever still fine?

Occasionally, and less often every year. Some US institutions, municipalities and older firms still cut paper checks and will not be moved. If that is your client, take the check, but set expectations in the terms line: a mailed check adds a week of transit before your bank even starts clearing it, so a Net 30 invoice paid by check is really Net 40. Ask whether their AP system can do an ACH credit first. Most can, and most just default to whatever the last vendor accepted.

Pick the two methods that fit your clients, then make them permanent. Billable is a free invoice generator that runs entirely in your browser, with no account and no server, and it saves your payment terms and instructions as a preset so every invoice carries the same block without retyping it. Start from the free invoice template for developers, fill in your bank details once, and the next invoice takes about a minute.