Payment methods to offer clients in 2026, and what they cost

Offer at least two ways to pay: a card or wallet button for speed, and a bank transfer option for large invoices where a percentage fee gets expensive. The methods you accept decide how fast money arrives and how much of it you keep. On a $5,000 invoice, a 2.9% card rate costs $145 before the fixed fee. Here is what each option costs in 2026 and which mix makes sense.

Online payment matters more than which method you pick

The biggest gain comes from accepting digital payment at all. Xero says invoices with an online payment option get paid up to twice as fast (Xero). That figure comes from the vendor, so read it as "faster", not as a guarantee. But the direction holds up in practice: a client who has to find your bank details, open a banking app and type a reference has a dozen chances to put it off until Friday.

Clients also expect it. Worldpay's Global Payments Report puts digital payment at 66% of e-commerce value in 2024, up from 34% in 2014. In stores it rose from 3% to 38% over the same decade (Worldpay). Your clients pay online for everything else, and a pay-by-link invoice feels normal to them.

So the first decision is simply whether a client can pay in one click. Only after that does the mix of methods become a cost question.

What each method costs you

Every method has a price, and the price scales differently. Cards charge a percentage. Some bank rails charge a small flat amount. Wallets sit on top of cards. Here is the rough picture for 2026, using each provider's own published rates where we could confirm them.

Cards are the default and the most expensive per dollar. Stripe's standard online card price is 2.9% plus a fixed fee per successful domestic transaction, with an extra percentage for international cards (Stripe pricing). Exact fixed fees and currencies depend on your country, so check the page for yours. The point is that the percentage grows with the invoice. A $400 invoice loses about $12 to the rate. A $6,000 invoice loses about $174.

Digital wallets such as Apple Pay and Google Pay ride on the card networks, so the fee you pay is that of the card behind them. Their advantage is friction. A client can approve a payment on their phone in seconds without hunting for a card number, and that lifts the number of invoices that get paid on the first try.

PayPal is convenient and costs more. PayPal's published rates list 3.49% plus a fixed fee for PayPal Checkout and 2.99% plus a fixed fee for standard card payments (PayPal business fees). International payments carry an additional percentage on top (PayPal merchant fees). Offer it when a client asks, but don't make it the button everyone sees first.

Bank transfers are the cheapest for you on large amounts, because the fee doesn't scale with the invoice the way a card percentage does. What it costs depends on the rail and country. In the US that's ACH, in the UK Faster Payments, in the euro area SEPA. Your bank or gateway publishes the price. The trade-off is speed and effort for the client. It can take a day or three to clear, and a transfer that needs a reference number invites mistakes on your side when you match payments to invoices.

The mix that works for most small service businesses

Use card and wallet for small and mid invoices, and a bank option for the big ones. Under a few hundred dollars, speed beats the fee, so lead with the button that takes ten seconds. Above a few thousand, the fee starts to hurt, so make bank transfer the first choice and card the convenient fallback.

A short line on the invoice does most of the work: "Pay by bank transfer, or use a card if you prefer." You aren't forbidding anything. You're choosing the default. Most finance departments are happy to send a bank payment for a $6,000 retainer, and you keep the difference.

Don't over-engineer it for small amounts. Asking a client to set up a bank transfer for a $150 invoice costs more in delay than the fee you'd save. Save the nudge for invoices where the percentage adds up to real money.

If you work with clients abroad, the mix changes. A card from a customer in another country may carry the international surcharge mentioned above, and a local payment method in their market often converts better than a foreign card. Our comparison of Stripe, PayPal and regional gateways goes through which gateway fits which market.

Fees are a pricing question, not just an accounting one

Whatever you accept, know the real cost before you quote. Processing fees come out of every invoice, and if you haven't priced them in, they come out of your margin. Add your average processing cost to your rates so the project price covers it. That's cleaner than a visible surcharge, which can feel petty to clients and runs into card-network rules in some markets. The rules vary by country and card scheme, so check with your gateway before adding a surcharge.

One more habit helps with cash flow: send the payment link with the invoice, not in a follow-up. Our guide to payment links versus invoices explains when each makes sense. A deposit link sent with the signed agreement works well, because the client is already in a "yes" frame of mind.

Whichever gateway you choose, keep the money flow simple. When a client pays through your own gateway account, the money lands with you. A platform that sits in the middle and holds your funds adds a delay and a point of failure you don't need.

How Delivvo lets clients pay the way you choose

Delivvo connects to the payment gateway you already use, so each invoice gets a pay button and the money goes straight from your client to you. Delivvo takes 0% of the payment, and it is never the merchant of record. The only cost is your gateway's own rate, which is exactly the number you've just compared.

Here is the flow.

1. Open Payments and connect your gateway. Delivvo connects to your own Stripe, PayPal or Square account.
2. Create an invoice, or let a one-page quote create it for you when the client picks a package, signs and pays the deposit.
3. The client opens your portal, sees the invoice under your branding and pays with the options your gateway offers on its checkout page.
4. For a larger project, split the total into a payment schedule of up to 12 payments, with a deposit first and the balance due on delivery.
5. If an invoice goes unpaid, an automation sends reminders at 7, 14 and 30 days and stops as soon as the invoice is paid.

Wallet buttons and local methods depend on what your chosen gateway supports, so pick the gateway that fits your clients' region.

Every invoice also carries a verification code, so a client's finance team can confirm it came from you. The payments page lists each gateway and what it covers: Delivvo payments.

For the wider picture, see how payments work and the CRM for service businesses.

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