B2B Payment Methods: Costs, Speed, and Fraud Risk Compared

B2B payment methods are the ways one business pays another, and the main ones are paper checks, ACH transfers, wire transfers, corporate and virtual cards, and real-time payments. Each differs in what it costs the payer, how fast it settles, and how often fraudsters target it.

Most AP teams run four or five of these rails at once, and very few chose the mix on purpose. A vendor set up in 2014 got a check because that's what the company sent then. A vendor set up last year got ACH because its invoice listed bank details. The result is a vendor master where the payment method for each supplier reflects history more than cost or risk.

The mix is shifting fast anyway. Checks fell to 26% of B2B payments in 2025, from 81% in 2004, according to Nacha's coverage of the 2025 AFP Digital Payments Survey. For a payer, the useful question now is which vendors go to which rail, and why.

Key Takeaways

• The five main B2B payment options are paper checks, ACH, domestic wires, corporate and virtual cards, and real-time payments through RTP or FedNow.

• Checks look free because there's no transaction fee, but they cost the most to issue and carry the highest fraud exposure of any method.

• Virtual cards had the lowest fraud rate of any method in AFP's most recent survey, while the supplier, not the payer, pays the card interchange fee.

• ACH is the default for most vendors who won't take a card, and wires are best kept for large, time-critical payments with verified instructions.

• The practical answer is a rule for each vendor type rather than one method for everyone.

What are the main B2B payment methods?

Five rails carry nearly all B2B payments in the US, and they fall into three families of paper checks, bank transfers, and cards. They differ most in who controls timing, whether a payment can be reversed, and who ends up paying the fees.

Why do companies still pay by paper check?

Companies still pay by check mostly out of inertia, because the vendor was set up that way and nobody changed it. A paper check is a written order telling the payer's bank to pay a set amount to the named payee, delivered by mail and cleared through the banking system over several days.

Usage has stayed stubborn. In AFP's 2022 Payments Cost Benchmarking Survey, 86% of organizations still used checks for outgoing payments, according to the AFP's announcement of the 2022 results, even as most said they were moving B2B payments to digital rails. Check volume across the US economy has been falling for years.

The federal government has reached its own verdict. Treasury checks are 16 times more likely than electronic payments to be reported lost or stolen, returned undeliverable, or altered, according to Executive Order 14247, signed in March 2025 to phase out paper checks for federal disbursements. If the largest payer in the country has decided checks are too risky, that's a reasonable signal for everyone else, and the true cost of paper checks is usually higher than AP teams estimate once printing, postage, and exception handling are counted.

How do ACH credits and debits work?

ACH is the US network for batched electronic bank transfers, settling the same day or within one to two business days. It's the most widely used electronic rail for paying suppliers, and an ACH payment costs a fraction of a check.

The two directions matter for control. In an ACH credit, the payer pushes money to the vendor's account and decides when it moves. In an ACH debit, the vendor pulls money from the payer's account under an authorization, which is convenient for utilities and subscriptions but hands timing to the other side.

B2B use keeps climbing. The ACH Network carried about 8.1 billion B2B payments in 2025, up about 10%, according to Nacha's 2025 network volume report, and Same Day ACH carried 1.4 billion payments worth $3.9 trillion.

When does a wire transfer make sense?

A wire makes sense for large, time-critical payments where same-day finality matters. A domestic wire moves money between two US bank accounts individually and with same-day finality, which means it can't be reversed once sent. That finality suits real estate closings and big equipment purchases, and it's also why wires carry real risk.

Wire transfer fees run far higher than ACH, and banks charge on both the sending and receiving sides. The bigger cost is fraud. Business email compromise caused $3,046,598,558 in reported losses in 2025 across 24,768 complaints, according to the FBI IC3's 2025 Internet Crime Report. The typical scheme is a spoofed email asking AP to update a vendor's bank details before a large payment, and because wires are final, money that leaves under false instructions is very hard to recover.

How do corporate and virtual cards work for B2B payments?

A virtual card is a card number issued for a specific supplier, amount, or time window, with no physical plastic. Single-use virtual cards are generated for one payment and then expire, which makes a stolen number almost worthless, and how B2B virtual card payments work covers the full flow from issue to settlement. Corpay issues single-use virtual cards for supplier payments, so each card number is tied to one approved invoice.

The card networks dominate this rail. Visa holds roughly two in five commercial card payments, according to Visa's Fiscal 2025 Annual Report.

Suppliers pay for card acceptance through interchange, and on Visa commercial cards that's 2.70% plus $0.10 for a card-not-present payment and 1.30% plus $35 at the large-ticket rate, according to Visa's USA Interchange Reimbursement Fees schedule effective April 18, 2026. The payer typically pays nothing and earns a rebate funded by part of that interchange, a relationship explained in interchange fees and card rebates. Any honest case for paying suppliers by card has to account for who's paying.

What are real-time payments (RTP and FedNow)?

Real-time payments settle in seconds, at any hour, through The Clearing House's RTP network or the Federal Reserve's FedNow Service. They're final like wires and cheaper per payment, and they carry rich remittance data with the payment itself.

RTP has real volume behind it. The network passed $1.3 trillion in 2025, up 428% from 2024, and carries 98% of bank-to-bank instant payments, according to The Clearing House. FedNow is younger and much smaller, settling 8,413,402 payments in 2025, according to Federal Reserve Financial Services volume statistics.

For most AP teams, instant payments are still a niche tool rather than a default. Not every supplier's bank can receive them, and few invoice terms reward paying in seconds instead of on the due date. The strongest use cases today are urgent payments and suppliers who value speed enough to ask for it, and real-time payments adoption is worth watching rather than forcing.

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How do B2B payment methods compare on cost, speed, and risk?

The cheapest-looking method, the paper check, is usually the most expensive once handling and fraud are counted, while virtual cards and ACH credits come out ahead on both cost and risk for most vendors. Side by side, from the payer's view, they look like this.

Cost figures for checks and ACH are medians from the AFP's 2022 Payments Cost Benchmarking Survey. Other cells are qualitative notes based on how each rail settles.

The fraud picture is where the gap between methods gets wide. In AFP's 2025 Payments Fraud and Control Survey Report, 63% of organizations experienced attempted or actual check fraud in 2024. The rates for other methods were 38% for ACH debits, 30% for wires, 21% for corporate or commercial cards, 20% for ACH credits, and just 5% for virtual cards.

Two things stand out. Checks are hit more than three times as often as ACH credits, which is a strong argument for moving any vendor who can accept ACH. And ACH debits fare far worse than ACH credits, because a debit authorization is something a fraudster can forge or abuse, while a credit only moves when the payer sends it. Banks offer positive pay to screen checks and ACH debits against what the payer actually authorized, and any company still writing checks should have it turned on. Corpay's fully managed AP pays suppliers by virtual card, ACH, or check, which makes moving a supplier off checks a change of rail rather than a new process.

How do you choose a payment method for each vendor?

Choose by vendor type rather than by habit. A short rule set covers most of a vendor master, and it can be applied one vendor at a time as invoices come due.

• Card-accepting suppliers go on virtual card, which earns a rebate and carries the lowest fraud rate.

• High-value or contract vendors who won't take a card go on ACH credit, with bank details verified by phone at a number already on file.

• Large, time-critical payments go by wire, with a callback on every change to payment instructions.

• Small local vendors go on ACH, or on card if they already accept it from their retail customers.

• Vendors who insist on checks stay on checks for now, with positive pay on the account and a standing plan to move them.

Supplier attitudes are more flexible than AP teams assume. Card-accepting suppliers are 14 percentage points more likely to say they are very efficient at maximizing working capital, according to Mastercard's 2025 commercial card acceptance research, a global Harris Poll of 1,042 businesses. Faster payment is worth something to a supplier's own cash position, and the conversation about switching goes better when it starts there.

The vendor who insists on a check is usually making a habit decision rather than a financial one. Typically someone in their AR department has deposited checks the same way for fifteen years and doesn't want a new process. A five-minute call that explains how payment will arrive, what the remittance will look like, and who to contact when something is off converts more of these vendors than any letter. Most of the resistance is about the unknown, and the call makes it known. Supplier enablement programs are built around exactly that kind of outreach.

When should a vendor be paid by virtual card?

Pay by virtual card when the supplier already accepts cards and the payment is a routine invoice rather than a large-ticket contract. That covers most software, office, and travel vendors.

The decision gets harder with suppliers on thin margins, for whom interchange is a real cost. Some will accept card for faster payment, and some will ask for a surcharge or a different method. It helps to know what the supplier sees on their side, and accepting virtual card payments covers the receiving view.

When is ACH the better choice?

ACH is the better choice when the supplier won't accept a card, the payment is recurring, and there's no need for same-day finality. It's cheap, it's predictable, and an ACH credit puts timing entirely in the payer's hands.

The main control is verifying bank details. Any request to change a vendor's account, especially one that arrives by email, should be confirmed by phone at a number already on file before the next payment runs.

Do you still need checks?

Probably, for a small and shrinking group of vendors. The ones that usually remain fall into a few groups:

• Suppliers with no way to receive electronic payments.

• One-off payees, such as a single refund or settlement, who aren't worth enrolling.

• Vendors whose contracts or internal rules still require a check, at least until the contract renews.

The goal is to make checks the exception you choose rather than the default you inherited, and to know exactly which vendors are still on them and why.

How does a B2B payment move from invoice to settlement?

A B2B payment moves through five steps, from an approved invoice to a payment file, across a rail, with remittance sent to the supplier, and finally into reconciliation. That sequence is what people mean by B2B payment processing, and it's the same no matter which method carries the money.

1. The invoice is approved and scheduled for payment on or before its due date.

2. AP builds a payment file or batch, assigning each payment to a rail based on the vendor's method.

3. The payment travels whichever rail the vendor is set up on.

4. Remittance details reach the supplier, so their AR team can apply the payment to the right invoice.

5. The payment is reconciled against the bank statement or card statement and posted to the ledger.

Electronic rails now carry most of the money through step three. US noncash payments reached 236.6 billion in 2024, and ACH reached almost three quarters of noncash value for the first time, according to the Federal Reserve Payments Study's 2025 initial findings. Steps four and five are where the work lands for AP, because each rail produces its own remittance format and its own bank or statement line, and running five rails means reconciling five different ways.

Pay every vendor the right way with Corpay

The hardest part of choosing a payment method for each vendor is running all of them at once without five processes, five reconciliations, and an enrollment backlog. Corpay handles that as one program. Corpay payment automation is fully managed AP that pays each vendor by virtual card, ACH, or check from a single payment file, and Corpay's team handles supplier enrollment so AP doesn't have to make the calls.

For card-accepting suppliers, Corpay virtual cards, including single-use virtual cards, move spend onto the lowest-fraud rail. Corpay customers receive $800M+ in rebates per year. Payments post to the ledger through 100+ ERP integrations, including NetSuite, Sage Intacct, Business Central, and Acumatica. Teams see about 40% time saved, and most programs are live in weeks.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the four types of payment methods?

The four broad types are cash, checks, cards, and electronic bank transfers such as ACH and wires. In B2B payments, cash is rare, so the practical options are checks, ACH, wires, corporate and virtual cards, and real-time payments.

What is the cheapest way to pay suppliers?

For the payer, virtual cards are usually cheapest, since the supplier pays interchange and the payer often earns a rebate. Among bank transfers, ACH credits cost far less than checks or wires. Checks are typically the most expensive once printing, postage, and handling are counted.

What is the safest B2B payment method?

Virtual cards had the lowest share of organizations reporting attempted or actual fraud in AFP's most recent survey, and checks had the highest. ACH credits are also relatively safe, because the payer controls when money moves and can verify bank details first.

Do suppliers pay fees to accept virtual cards?

Yes. Suppliers pay interchange on every card payment they accept, set by the card network and varying by card type and transaction size. Many accept the fee in exchange for faster payment and less collections work, while some ask for a different method.

What's the difference between ACH and a wire?

ACH moves payments in batches and settles the same day or within one to two business days, at low cost. A wire moves one payment at a time with same-day finality. It costs more, and it can't be reversed once sent.

Are real-time payments used for B2B?

Yes, but adoption is still early. The RTP network and FedNow both handle business payments, and volume is growing quickly, but many suppliers' banks can't receive instant payments yet. Most companies use them for urgent payments rather than as a default.

David Luther

Product Marketing Program Manager

David Luther, MBA is a product marketing program manager with years of experience in commercial banking, finance, and technology sectors, with research and writing appearing in financial publications.

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