The most dangerous phrase in any business is “we’ve always done it this way,” and when it comes to payments, it’s costing finance teams more than most of them realize. A survey of 2,400 finance leaders conducted by Visa in collaboration with U.S. Bank in late 2025 found that wire transfers are the most expensive payment method by a significant margin, averaging $16.39 per transaction, more than twice the cost of any other method. But the more revealing finding is what happens when you look at everything else.
The perception and reality of payment costs often point in opposite directions, and that gap is where the problem lies. Most finance teams assume they know which payment methods are expensive and which aren’t, but when you look at the actual numbers, the picture tends to rearrange itself.
Virtual cards are often perceived as costly, even though they are the lowest‑cost payment method available. Finance leaders report an average cost of $7.25 per transaction, and broader industry benchmarks show this as even lower. By comparison, checks average $8.84 per transaction before accounting for hidden operational costs.
The question is why finance teams so consistently get this wrong. The answer, more often than not, comes down to visibility.
When perception lags reality
Kyle Frase, vice president of Commercial Card Consulting at U.S. Bank, says the root of the issue is visibility. Legacy payment methods like checks, ACH and wire transfers come with a cost that’s easy to see: a clear line item on a budget that feels manageable and familiar. “They have an understood cost per transaction that represents what is being charged, such as $25 per wire or the like,” he says.
Things are different with other payments, he warns. The genuine cost of a check sits almost entirely outside the per-transaction fee, in places like physical handling, postage, escheatment, manual reconciliation and the fraud exposure of putting a routing number on paper. Most of these costs are buried in salaried time that finance teams have learned not to count. Frase recalls one client where the check run alone required one or two people to manage the process, with another two or three spending several days every month stuffing envelopes and mailing payments to suppliers. Plus, they needed escheatment specialists for each state where the company did significant business. “This doesn’t even touch on potential fraud,” he adds.
The research backs that concern: 54% of companies using checks reported a fraud incident in the past year, the highest rate of any payment method in the survey.
Virtual cards, meanwhile, face the opposite problem. Rather than hiding costs, they tend to accumulate costs that don’t actually belong to them. “The perceived cost of a virtual card payment includes the cost associated with the change of payment method along with the interchange fees—or possibly any surcharge—associated with the payment,” Frase says. In other words, finance teams are often pricing in the switching friction, not just the ongoing cost of the method itself.
Building a true total-cost-of-payment picture
For CFOs trying to replace instinct with arithmetic, Kyle recommends starting with the procure-to-pay process. “Take a deep dive into the procure-to-pay process. This could be done with a working capital engagement or an internal process mapping session,” he says. “I think the most important aspect not always attributed to the overall cost of a payment is the time it takes to get from invoice approval to payment delivery.”
Finance teams should price salary time spent on printing and reconciliation, along with float lost to slow settlement. They should analyze fraud exposure relative to historical losses and storage costs that persist after a payment clears. Once those line items are visible, the cost ranking finance teams carry in their heads tends to rearrange.
What the savings actually look like
Kyle frames first-year savings as durable rather than dramatic. “Opportunity is highly dependent on a client’s specific accounts payable profile,” he says, “But those savings are repeatable year after year.” A company that strips out check volume in year one continues to capture roughly the same benefit in year two and beyond.
Rebates tip the balance on payment costs for many CFOs. The research found 93% of virtual card users received rebates, with finance leaders reporting typical amounts between 1.1% and 2% of spend. “The rebate helps justify and offset the cost of adding virtual payments to the mix,” says Kyle. “The rebates can be realized at scale, but they are highly dependent on a client’s commitment to grow the virtual program.”
The shift from check-heavy to card-led isn’t simply a flip that can be switched in one AP cycle. It’s a multi-quarter program involving supplier enablement, term renegotiation, and internal change management. Those who persist stand to win a valuable prize: a payment book whose true costs match its line-item costs. The finance team will no longer find itself paying a premium for the empty comfort of doing things the way it always has.
Finding a better path forward
Understanding where your payment costs actually come from is the first step. From there, it’s about building a clear picture of your procure-to-pay process, identifying where costs are hidden, and making a practical case for change—one grounded in your organization’s specific accounts payable profile rather than industry averages. A payments partner like U.S. Bank with deep experience in payment operations can help you do exactly that.