For Merchants: It’s Not Just Cards vs. Cash Anymore

38% of small businesses accept Zelle as a form of payment, according to the latest Small Business Cash Flow Trend Report produced by OnDeck and Ocrolus. 29.2% accept Venmo and 28.6% accept PayPal. Apple Pay / Google Pay and CashApp were right behind them at 22.6% and 16.4% respectively.

These figures emphasize the diversity of payment streams that Main Street has now become accustomed to. Long ago it was simply cash vs. card. 40.1%, however, said that they still don’t accept any alternative payment methods at all.

The survey did not ask if businesses accept Bitcoin or crypto but it could in the future. Block, for example, which owns CashApp, recently began rolling out Bitcoin acceptance tech to all of its Square merchants.

While small businesses have historically been cost conscious about which payment method they prefer to accept payments, 31.6% of those surveyed said they passed their credit card processing fees on to their customers.