ACH Payment Processors: Stripe vs Authorize.net vs Quickbooks Online

Is your Startup considering ACH payment processors? We recently compared these processors…

  • PayPal
  • Stripe
  • Authorize.net
  • Quickbooks Online (Quickbooks Payments)
  • Bill.com
  • Local Banks

PayPal

No longer pushing ACH payments in PayPal or Venmo due to arrangement with Visa in July 2016. Previously $0.50/transaction.

Stripe

Their platform is built for the web. Great option if you only accept online payments. Many great developer frameworks exist, but many of them have limited support for offline payments (e.g. cash or check).

Costs: 0.8% transaction fees (max $5/transaction). Funds in 7 days.

Authorize.net

Well established provider supported by many platforms and developer frameworks.

Costs: $25/mo + 0.75% transaction fees ($10 minimum/month). Funds in 3-10 days.

Quickbooks Online (Quickbooks Payments)

QBO added ACH support and huge improvements to API in past few years. Unbeatable price, but default transaction limit is $5000/month. There are several online complaints about Intuit holding large transactions and requiring extensive documentation before they release funds.

QB Online Costs: $0/mo + $0.00/transaction fees. Funds in 5-7 days.

QB Desktop Costs: $0/mo + $0.50/transaction fees. Funds in 2-3 days.

Bill.com

Sync Invoices and Payments with QBO. Collect ACH payments. May be a good alternative if you have trouble with Quickbooks Payments.

Costs: $39/mo + $0.49/transaction fees. Funds in ? days.

Local Bank

Most local banks can process ACH transactions for their business customers. They typically provide a web interface similar to a Bill Pay interface, where you can store customer bank account information and input payment amounts as needed.

Some local banks can also accept/process your NACHA formatted ACH files that include 1 or more transactions. This means your application must be capable of securely storing the customer bank account information and generating the NACHA formatted ACH files. Great option for large-scale operations. Generally requires hardware or software token-based 2FA.

Costs: $0-50/mo base fee + $0.10-$0.50/transaction. Funds in 1 business day.