ACH bank payments on Shopify, in plain English.

ACH has been around since 1974 and processes the vast majority of payroll deposits, mortgage payments, and B2B settlements in the country. For merchants, ACH means: charging a customer's bank account instead of charging their credit card.

The pricing difference is dramatic. Stripe's published US rate for domestic cards is 2.9% + 30¢ per successful transaction; its published ACH Direct Debit rate is 0.8% with a $5.00 cap (stripe.com/pricing, retrieved August 25, 2026). On a $500 order, that's $14.80 vs. $4.00. On a $5,000 order, it's $145.30 vs. $5. The cap is what makes ACH disproportionately better for high-AOV merchants.

ACH also behaves differently from cards in ways that matter operationally. There is no chargeback in the card sense, ACH has returns (insufficient funds, closed account, unauthorized debit) with their own windows and codes. And because there is no card network in the path, ACH sits entirely outside the card-brand surcharge rules covered in our surcharge guide.

In October 2025, Shopify launched native ACH bank transfer support. The announcement was significant, first time Shopify offered direct bank-to-bank payments on platform. The catch: only available on Shopify Plus B2B checkouts.

If your store is:

• Shopify Plus + selling B2B: native ACH at checkout.
• Shopify Plus + selling B2C: no native ACH. Consumer checkouts are excluded.
• Shopify Basic / Grow / Advanced, any sales channel: no native ACH at all.

That leaves the vast majority of Shopify merchants without a native ACH option. For the merchant with a $2,500 custom order from a retail customer who wants to pay by bank transfer, the choices are: (a) lose the order to friction, (b) take it outside Shopify, or (c) eat the card fee.

There is a second cost worth naming here. On Basic, Grow, and Advanced, using a payment provider other than Shopify Payments inside checkout triggers Shopify's third-party transaction fee, published as 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow, 0.6% on Advanced and 0.2% on Plus (shopify.com/pricing, retrieved August 25, 2026). That fee is why "just bolt a different gateway into checkout" is rarely the cheap answer it looks like.

PayLayer was built to close that gap. It's a consumer-facing ACH payment-link app that works on every Shopify plan, including Basic.

The break-even between credit card and ACH depends on order size. With Stripe:

• Below ~$30 order: roughly the same. The flat $0.30 card fee dominates.
• $30 to $625 order: ACH wins, gap grows linearly with order size.
• $625 and above: ACH hits the $5 cap. Every dollar above is pure savings, your effective ACH rate drops below 0.8% on large orders.

The $625 figure is arithmetic, not a published Stripe number: 0.8% of $625 is $5.00, which is where the published cap binds.

The categories where ACH wins decisively:

• B2B, large invoices, repeat buyers who already pay by ACH.
• High-AOV consumer, furniture, jewelry, electronics, custom goods, made-to-order anything.
• Recurring / subscription, predictable monthly amounts where the cost gap compounds.
• Made-to-order / pre-order, orders where settlement timing matters less.

Cost is not the only variable. ACH is slower and asks the customer to authenticate with their bank, so on a $45 impulse purchase the conversion cost of the extra step will usually exceed the $0.94 you save. Steer, don't force.

ACH is slower than card. Card payments authorize instantly and you typically see funds in your Stripe balance within 2 business days. ACH transfers settle in 3–5 business days in most cases, with the vast majority clearing within 5.

For most merchants this is fine, the customer is rarely waiting at the door for an immediate ship. For "ship today" SKUs, set merchant policy: ship after the payment clears. PayLayer surfaces ACH status in real time so your fulfillment team always knows.

Two timing details that catch people out. First, "business days" excludes weekends and bank holidays, so a Friday authorization commonly lands the following Wednesday or Thursday. Second, an ACH debit can be returned after it appears to have settled, most commonly for insufficient funds. Treat the clearing window as the point at which you fulfill, and keep a policy for the rare return.

1. Your customer picks bank transfer at checkout. It appears as one more payment option in your existing checkout, on desktop and mobile, and the order is created as Payment pending.
2. The pay link emails itself. The instant the order lands, PayLayer sends a branded email carrying your store name and support address, not PayLayer's. They click "Pay".
3. The customer connects their bank. Via Stripe Financial Connections (Plaid-grade tech). Customer logs into their bank with their existing credentials. Credentials never touch your servers or PayLayer's.
4. The customer authorizes the transfer. One tap. Stripe handles the NACHA-compliant authorization record.
5. The order marks itself Paid. Funds settle to your Stripe 3–5 business days later. PayLayer flips the Shopify order from Payment pending to Paid, emails the customer a confirmation, and reconciles the transfer to the order on its own.

Need to bill someone outside checkout, an invoice or a phone order? You can also create a one-off payment link from the PayLayer admin with just an email and an amount. Same email, same bank flow, same automatic reconciliation.

The design point worth understanding: because this runs beside checkout rather than inside it, it works identically on Basic and on Plus, and it does not attract Shopify's third-party gateway transaction fee the way swapping your checkout provider would.

• The customer sees their own bank's login screen. Never types account / routing numbers. Stripe Financial Connections fetches them after authentication.
• Your store sees: customer email, amount, status (sent / processing / settled), redacted last-4 of bank account.
• Stripe handles money movement and the PCI/NACHA compliance scope.
• PayLayer sees Stripe payment-method tokens and your Connect account ID. Never customer credentials, account numbers, or full PII beyond what Shopify and Stripe expose.

See the full security posture for details.

• Lead with ACH on high-AOV pages. A "Pay by bank transfer" callout on cart and product detail pages converts the right customers without changing your default checkout.
• Pair it with a surcharge. If you use FeeLayer to pass card fees to customers, ACH becomes the obvious "avoid the fee" path. Most high-AOV customers will switch.
• Be explicit about timing. "Funds settle in 3–5 business days" in the email and on the payment page. Setting expectations prevents support tickets.
• Use ACH for repeat customers first. Customers who've paid you before, especially B2B, are the easiest converts. The first ACH is the hardest.

PayLayer isn't the only way to take ACH alongside a Shopify store. Here's the landscape:

• Shopify native ACH (Plus B2B only), best UX, but the eligibility restriction excludes most merchants.
• Stripe direct (off-Shopify), works, but the customer pays outside your store, breaking attribution and reconciliation.
• PayPal Invoicing, works, but PayPal's "ACH" goes through PayPal balance, not directly bank-to-Stripe. Different rates, different cleanup.
• Off-Shopify checkout apps, replace Shopify checkout entirely. Setup fees often $449–$1,599. You lose Shop Pay, lose Shopify's checkout optimizations, and take on a much larger PCI surface.
• PayLayer, an automated bank-transfer option at checkout with the pay link sent by email. No checkout replacement, no setup fee, $9/month flat. Designed specifically to fill the consumer-ACH gap on Shopify.

For a fuller cost comparison across every method a Shopify merchant can accept, see Shopify payment methods, cost-first.

This guide is informational and reflects publicly available pricing and product information as of August 25, 2026. Stripe rates, Shopify plan pricing, and Shopify product availability can change. Confirm current rates at stripe.com/pricing and shopify.com/pricing, and Shopify ACH availability with your Shopify representative. This is not legal or financial advice.