Complete guide

How to accept credit card payments

Updated October 2026. Evergreen page — refreshed in place as facts change.

Taking cards used to mean a bank appointment, a merchant account application, a separate gateway and a rented terminal. Today most small businesses sign up online with one provider and take their first payment the same week. This guide covers what you need, which setup fits, the channels customers pay through, what it really costs, and how the money reaches you.

What do you need before you can accept cards?

Every card provider is required to verify who it is paying out to. This is know-your-business (KYB) verification, the business version of the ID check a bank runs, and it is the step that decides how fast you can start. The documents are the same almost everywhere.

How long the review takes is mostly a question of how the provider staffs it. At Anytime Capital, creating a business account takes a couple of minutes, and most applications with complete documents are approved the same day.

• Your legal business name, address and formation documents (sole proprietors can usually use their own name)
• An EIN, or your Social Security number if you are a sole proprietor
• Government ID for each owner of 25% or more, plus a controlling officer
• A short description of what you sell, how, and roughly how much a month
• A bank account in the business's name for payouts

Should you get a merchant account or an all-in-one provider?

There are two ways to be set up. The traditional route is your own merchant account with an acquiring bank, usually arranged through a processor or sales agent, plus a separate payment gateway for online sales. Underwriting takes longer, pricing is often interchange-plus with monthly fees, and there may be a contract.

The route most small businesses take now is an all-in-one provider. Stripe, Square and PayPal work this way: the provider holds the merchant relationship and you sign up as one of its businesses, with checkout, processing and payouts in one account and a flat published rate. Our guide to payment gateways and processors explains who does what behind the scenes.

Which ways can customers pay you?

Decide how customers will actually pay before you pick a provider, because providers differ most on the channels, not the card brands. Visa, Mastercard, American Express and Discover are accepted by every mainstream provider.

With Anytime Capital Payments, every checkout, link, invoice and subscription takes Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover, JCB, Diners Club, UnionPay and Maestro, plus Apple Pay and Google Pay. Payment links and invoices also take ACH bank debit, and USDC and USDT can be requested to your wallet.

• Online checkout: a hosted page or an embedded form on your own site, for ecommerce and bookings
• Payment links: a link you send by text, email or DM, or print as a QR code, with no website needed
• Invoices: a bill the customer pays online, with reminders, deposits and partial payments
• In person: a card terminal, tap to pay on a phone, or a QR code the customer scans and pays on their own phone
• Subscriptions: recurring charges for memberships, retainers and software
• Keyed-in or phone orders: typed card numbers, which usually carry a higher rate

What does it cost to accept credit cards?

Flat-rate providers publish one percentage plus a fixed fee per payment. The fixed fee matters more than it looks: 30 cents is 3% of a $10 sale on its own. In person rates are lower than online ones because a card that is physically present is less likely to be fraud.

The headline rate is not the whole bill. Look for monthly plans that unlock a lower rate, extra charges for international cards and currency conversion, dispute fees, and fees to be paid out instantly. Anytime Capital Payments has no monthly, setup or PCI fees; our per-payment rate is on the pricing page, and the fee calculators work out any sale at each provider.

How and when do you get paid?

A card payment is approved in seconds, but the money reaches you on the provider's payout schedule. Many providers pay out to your bank account one or two business days later, and a new account may wait longer for its first payout. Paying out sooner usually costs extra: Stripe's Instant Payouts are 1.5% of the amount and Square's instant transfers 1.95% (published US fees, October 2026).

Anytime Capital Payments starts from the other end. Your payments balance and your Anytime Capital business account sit on the same platform, so settled sales sweep into the account instantly, nights and weekends included. From there money goes out by RTP or FedNow in seconds, same-day wire, ACH, local rails in 71+ countries or same-day USDC and USDT transfers.

How do you protect the business from fraud and chargebacks?

Accepting cards means accepting that some payments will be disputed. Basic protections are built into every mainstream provider: address and security-code checks, fraud screening, and 3D Secure, which asks the customer to confirm a payment with their bank and usually moves liability for fraud disputes to the card issuer.

On Anytime Capital Payments every card payment gets a 0–100 risk score before it is charged, you can block by score, amount and card country, require 3D Secure above an amount you choose, and refund pre-dispute alerts automatically. Our chargeback guide covers the rest.

Step by step: your first card payment

Once you have chosen a provider, getting to a first payment is short. The order below avoids the two common stalls: waiting on verification with nothing else ready, and building a website checkout before you have taken a single payment.

• Create the business account and submit verification documents in one sitting
• Connect the business bank account, or open one with the provider, for payouts
• Add your logo and colour so checkout, invoices and receipts look like your business
• Send a payment link or an invoice for your first sale, which needs no website
• Switch on fraud rules and decide the amount above which 3D Secure applies
• Add a checkout to your website, in-person payments or the API when you need them