Best ACH Payment Processing for Small Business

The best ACH payment processing for small business requires more upfront due diligence and specialized features, as it is usually the first payment processing option a business will adopt. These newer businesses rely on a payment processor’s reliability and flexibility to carry their business through this early growth stage, and the delicate nature of young businesses means they have a low tolerance for costly downtime or account holds, flags, and freezes.

To help businesses find the best modern ACH payment processing companies, our third-party research team analyzed over 35 payment processing firms to find the top options and ranked them based on the following criteria:

Value Score: A 1.0-5.0 score that summarizes the value an ACH processor provides to small businesses. This score is based on factors like pricing, fee transparency, unique features, security, ease of use, and more.
Year Established: ACH processors that have served the industry longer demonstrate an ability to maintain healthy merchant accounts for businesses of all sizes and risk profiles.
High-Risk Support: Payment processors with high-risk support generally perform a more comprehensive underwriting process up front, lowering the risk of unexpected account flags or freezes down the line. Additionally, this support eliminates the fear that a business will lose their merchant account if they grow too quickly.
Dedicated Account Manager: Dedicated account managers ensure access to personalized support that helps resolve costly issues sooner, saving time and money for small businesses.
Instant Onboarding: Streamlined onboarding processes give payment processors an edge because they require less time before coming online, allowing SMBs to start making money sooner.

Below are our rankings of the best ACH payment processing for small businesses after considering all of the factors above, including each processor’s client specialty:

The Best ACH Payment Processing for Small Businesses

Rank	Company	Value Score	Esta-blished	High-Risk Support?	Dedicated Account Manager?	Instant On-boarding?	Specialty
1	Paynote	4.8	2012	Yes	Yes	Yes	All-around best full-stack ACH and credit card payment provider with upfront underwriting that guarantees the safety of merchant accounts for all legal industries
2	SoarPay	4.4	2015	Yes	Yes	No	ACH payment processor with low rates for basic service
3	Stripe	3.9	2010	No	No	Yes	Generalist payment processing with a focus on high-volume eCommerce
4	Square	3.6	2009	No	No	No	Generalist mobile ACH payment provider specializing in compact POS hardware
5	QuickBooks	3.4	1983	No	Sometimes	No	Holistic finance management platform with payment processing capabilities
6	Fast Spring	3.2	2005	No	Yes	Yes	ACH payment processing with a focus on international and SaaS support

Paynote

Paynote is the best all-around ACH payment processing platform on the list, and they offer unique benefits to small businesses looking for their first payment processor. They are the only platform on the list that underwrites upfront, which means that any small business that uses Paynote as their first payment processor will never have to worry about their merchant account being flagged, frozen, or held based on their risk profile or the speed of their growth.

Additionally, their ability to accept not only ACH payments but also eCheck, credit card, and mobile wallet payments makes them a great first option for growth-focused merchants. This is because they won’t have to reach out to another company to add more payment methods as they grow. The Paynote platform is also developer-friendly, which means it is far easier to integrate with whatever website or storefront a small business currently uses. This makes it a great option for small businesses as it won’t increase the costs by forcing businesses to transition to other software to accommodate a new payment processor.

Value Score: 4.8
Year Established: 2012
High-Risk Specialization: Yes
Dedicated Account Manager: Yes
Instant Onboarding: Yes
Contact: Paynote website

SoarPay

SoarPay is the only other ACH processing company for small businesses on this list that supports high-risk merchants and offers specialized features to serve them better. While this makes them another solid partner for businesses looking to scale, they are particular about the industries they will support, which limits their value as a specialist for businesses operating in high-risk industries. As a result, we recommend Soarpay for small businesses simply looking for low fees and basic service that can scale.

Value Score: 4.4
Year Established: 2015
High-Risk Specialization: Yes
Dedicated Account Manager: Yes
Instant Onboarding: No
Contact: SoarPay website

Stripe

Stripe is among the largest firms on the list, but they are not exceptionally well-suited for small businesses. However, what they do excel at is small eCommerce businesses looking to scale without issue in low-risk industries. They offer all of the benefits of a premium generalist processor, but bring along the disadvantages of a generalist processor as well.

These include a lack of dedicated account managers and delayed underwriting processes designed to speed up onboarding by skipping vital steps in the risk assessment process. Since Stripe doesn’t do underwriting up front, merchant accounts for high-risk or rapidly growing merchants can get flagged, frozen, or even terminated without warning. As a result, we recommend Stripe for small businesses that aren’t looking to grow super quickly and value brand recognition from a payment processor.

Value Score: 3.9
Year Established: 2010
High-Risk Specialization: No
Dedicated Account Manager: No
Instant Onboarding: Yes
Contact: Stripe website

Square

Square is a household name in the mobile payment processing space. They are known for quality customer support and convenient mobile payments through their compact POS hardware. However, they charge the highest rates on the list per transaction, with relatively few value-added features.

They also do not underwrite up front, which makes them riskier for fast-growing businesses or businesses in industries that could be considered mid-high risk. Overall, they offer convenient mobile POS hardware, and we recommend them for businesses that hold this as a top priority. Otherwise, there are likely better options on the list.

Value Score: 3.7
Year Established: 2009
High-Risk Specialization: No
Dedicated Account Manager: No
Instant Onboarding: No
Contact: Square website

QuickBooks

Intuit QuickBooks is a comprehensive back-office software that offers both finance management tools and limited payment processing. The primary reason they are listed here is that a small business that already uses QuickBooks can get its payment processing from a platform they already work with. While this payment process is relatively basic with little-to-no high-risk support, it is functional, and some businesses prize simplicity over all else. These businesses may benefit from keeping everything under one roof with QB.

Value Score: 3.4
Year Established: 1983
High-Risk Specialization: No
Dedicated Account Manager: Sometimes
Instant Onboarding: No
Contact: QuickBooks website

Fast Spring

Fast Spring offers ACH payment processing for small businesses and specializes in global SaaS products. Their fees are high relative to most other options on the list as a result of their support for multinational payment processing, so we only recommend them for the few small businesses that deal internationally. Their core market, SaaS companies, often falls into this category, and they have great reviews and a strong reputation for quality customer service. Due to their limited expertise, though, they land at the bottom of this list.

Value Score: 3.7
Year Established: 2005
High-Risk Specialization: No
Dedicated Account Manager: Yes
Instant Onboarding: Yes
Contact: Fast Spring website

Get the Best ACH Payment Processing for Small Business

If you have any more questions regarding what places Paynote’s service among the best ACH payment processing for small businesses, contact us today for more information.