While it may seem as if new business-to-business payment methods are cropping up all the time, ACH is the only payment rail that has shown consistent growth in the market over the past decade.
According to the Cleveland Fed, the number of B2B payments made via ACH more than doubled, from 3.6 billion in 2015 to 8.7 billion in 2024. ACH has been the most-used B2B payment method since 2020.
Other prominent payment methods—including wire transactions, credit cards, and debit cards—have remained fairly steady over that period. Checks are the notable exception. Nearly all of the growth in ACH payments has come as checks have declined.
Taking Share from Checks
In 2015, checks were the most widely used B2B payment method, with 4.6 billion payments. Fast forward to 2024, that number had fallen to 2.7 billion, while checks’ share of total B2B payments dropped from 32% to 13%. Despite the decline, nearly 90% of businesses still used checks in 2025.
“The slow move towards ACH away from checks is about cost, automation, and reducing risk,” said Ben Danner, Senior Analyst of Debit at Javelin Strategy & Research. “If you think about paper checks, there is a huge risk with mishandling, counterfeit, and alterations just to name a few things. When you add up all the costs associated with paper checks, ACH is just a better modality and also gives businesses the option of speed with same day ACH. Businesses have slowly followed consumer trends in moving towards digital payments in general.”
ACH also has a cost advantage. The median fee for sending or receiving an ACH payments is 25 to 50 cents per transactions. Checks, by comparison, carry a median fee of $1 for sending organizations and just under $1 for receiving organizations.
Middle of the Pack
ACH and checks tend to be used for mid-sized B2B payments. In 2024, the average ACH transaction was $8,084, compared with $5,577 for checks. Wires were used for significantly larger payments, averaging nearly $3.2 million per transaction. Credit and debit card transactions, meanwhile, averaged $275 and $119, respectively.
As ACH has gained ground and checks have declined, the other major payment methods have seen relatively little change. Credit cards and wire payments accounted for nearly 30% and 2% of B2B payments, respectively, with both shares remaining largely unchanged over the decade. Debit cards saw somewhat more movement, increasing from 13% to 17%.
