By bank transfer. A SEPA transfer through a provider like Mollie costs a flat 25 cents, whether the invoice is 1,000 or 50,000 euros, while cards through Stripe cost 1.5 percent. You pay for that with a wait of one to two days, which is why I still offer every payment method.
A client of mine sells workshops and wanted booking, contract and payment to run without his involvement. To automate that, I had to work out which payment methods he should offer his customers and what each one costs him. I researched it for him, and on large amounts the gap is clear.
I run my agency from Dubai and work with clients in the German speaking market. Below I cover what cards, Apple Pay and a bank transfer cost, what I pay myself in Dubai, and how I steer customers to the cheapest option anyway.
Cards and Apple Pay start at 1.5 percent, and in Dubai I pay 2.7
For card payments, Stripe is the cheapest provider I found, at 1.5 percent for Austrian cards. It is a fixed percentage that grows with every invoice, and on large amounts it adds up to a sum you notice. Apple Pay does not change that, because a card sits behind it, and depending on the provider the fee is 1.5 to 1.8 percent or even more.
My own account shows how much this matters. In Dubai it is much worse for me: Stripe charges 2.7 percent there, roughly double. So on an invoice I send, my Stripe offers only a bank transfer. I would rather wait a few days than pay the full fees. I also name PayPal as a very good option.
A SEPA transfer costs a flat 25 cents
With a SEPA transfer the maths looks entirely different. Mollie, a Dutch company, charges 25 cents per transfer, and it makes no difference whether the amount is 1,000 euros or 50,000 euros. Card fees grow with the amount, while the transfer fee stays flat, which is why the transfer pays off on large sums.
There is a bonus for automation. Mollie gets read access to the account but no write access, so the AI in the background can see the incoming payment and tell you the money has arrived. An ordinary bank account cannot do that. The downside is a wait of one to two days, so you have to convince your customers to choose the transfer and push them in that direction.
Offer every payment method and recommend the transfer
My advice to my client was to make paying as easy as possible for the customer, so I would definitely offer everything: transfer, credit card, Apple Pay and PayPal. With a card, Apple Pay or PayPal the customer clicks once and pays instantly. On large sums you can otherwise lose a customer because it takes too long, and for that case Apple Pay is faster.
When time allows, I would still make sure customers pay by transfer, because a transfer costs 25 cents and takes one to two days. Once the money arrives, Mollie reports the payment. You get the message through the channel you prefer, such as WhatsApp, email or Teams, and the CRM updates the status of the order by itself. Everything after that runs automatically.
Conclusion: the transfer first, the card as an option
What is the cheapest way to get paid on a large invoice? The SEPA transfer, which costs 25 cents at Mollie, so no more at 50,000 euros than at 1,000, while cards and Apple Pay cost 1.5 percent and up. In Dubai I pay 2.7 percent at Stripe myself, which is why my invoices carry only bank details. The gap is large on big amounts, and the wait of one to two days is the only catch.
Your customers should still be free to choose, because paying has to be easy, and anyone in a hurry will use Apple Pay. One next step: take your last large invoice and work out what the card fee would have been in euros before you decide which payment method sits first on the page.