ACH vs Card Payment Revenue for Software Platforms
The short answer
Card and ACH can both generate payment revenue for a software platform. What matters is the spread between the price your merchants pay and your provider's cost, the share your contract pays you, and the expense of running the program. A larger invoice does not automatically mean a larger profit.
ACH pricing can be flat, percentage-based, or capped. For example, Stripe's published U.S. ACH Direct Debit price is 0.8% per successful charge, capped at $5. Authorize.net's published eCheck schedule lists a 0.75% transaction rate, plus monthly and exception fees. These are public merchant prices checked October 24, 2026, not platform buy rates or Swipesum quotes. Stripe also lists separate verification and risk-tool charges.
Model the merchant price and the provider cost separately for each method and invoice size. A cap on the merchant's fee limits revenue; a cap on the provider's charge limits cost. Your margin depends on both. Compare the payment mix your merchants actually use, including returns, disputes, minimums and any revenue split.
Card against ACH: how each one behaves as invoices grow
The difference in one table:
| Card | ACH | |
|---|---|---|
| How to model pricing | Use the merchant's contracted rate and the provider's cost schedule; do not assume every fee is a percentage | Model each flat, percentage or capped fee separately |
| What a larger invoice does | Changes percentage-based fees and costs; the spread depends on both schedules | Changes percentage-based fees until their respective caps apply; flat fees stay fixed |
| What drives platform income | Eligible volume, card mix, merchant pricing, provider costs and the revenue-share agreement | Payment count, invoice sizes, merchant pricing, provider costs, caps and the revenue-share agreement |
| What to compare | The margin and platform share at representative ticket sizes | The margin and platform share below, at and above each cap |
A cap in your merchant price limits revenue on large tickets, while a cap in your provider's charge limits cost. If merchant fees are capped but provider costs keep rising, the spread can shrink. Pricing exceptions can also narrow that spread. Run the actual schedules before deciding which payment method makes more money.
Revenue starts when merchants activate and process. Increasing embedded payments adoption covers that part of the operating plan.
Hypothetical example: a home-services software platform
Hypothetical example: the numbers below are invented to show the arithmetic. They are not typical rates, market data or a Swipesum result.
A home-services software platform prices ACH to its contractors at 0.8% capped at $5.00 per payment, and its provider charges it a flat $0.50 per ACH payment.
- A $400 deposit: the contractor pays $3.20 and the platform keeps $2.70.
- A $4,000 final invoice: 0.8% would be $32.00, so the cap applies; the contractor pays $5.00 and the platform keeps $4.50.
The cap applies from $625 ($5.00 divided by 0.8%). Above that, a larger invoice earns nothing more, so a platform whose volume sits in large invoices earns from the number of ACH payments, while one whose volume sits below the cap earns from their size.
Price the deposit stream and the final-invoice stream separately, and check whether your provider's charge is flat, a percentage or capped too: the margin is the difference between the two structures, not either one alone.
The amounts kept in this example are payment spreads before any contractual revenue split, verification charges, returns, monthly minimums, support or other operating costs. They are not net profit. Apply the platform's contractual share before subtracting its own operating expenses.
What to negotiate with a payments partner
The general terms of a payments program, including how shareable income is defined, who carries onboarding and support, and how a revenue share is calculated, are covered in PayFac-as-a-Service vs. becoming a PayFac. For card and ACH economics specifically, settle these:
- The structure of your ACH price to merchants: flat, a percentage, or a percentage with a cap, and where the cap sits.
- The structure of your provider's ACH charge, and whether it is passed through or bundled.
- Whether card costs are passed through by interchange program or bundled into one rate.
- Who can grant pricing exceptions to large merchants, and on which method.
- How returned ACH payments and card disputes are charged, and to whom.
If you are moving merchants from another provider, the SaaS payments migration playbook covers moving merchants, saved cards and billing.
Where Swipesum fits in the operating plan
Swipesum Connect gives a software platform embedded-payments technology and a payments team to run the program with it: merchant onboarding, payment acceptance, monetization design, risk and compliance workflows, reporting and support. For card and ACH, monetization design is where these pricing structures are decided.
Price card and ACH before your merchants do
Talk to the Swipesum Connect team about pricing card and ACH for your merchants, against your provider costs and your invoice mix.
