- The three pricing structures for Positive Pay
- How to price so pricing drives adoption instead of blocking it
- When to revisit pricing
- The most common pricing mistake at community FIs
Pricing models that actually work
Three pricing structures.
Per-account flat fee. A fixed monthly fee per enrolled business client, often in the $25–55 range for check plus ACH. Simple, predictable, easy for the business client to understand. The most common model and a fine default.
Tiered by volume. Pricing that steps down as the business client's transaction volume or your total enrolled book grows. Rewards adoption and scale. Worth introducing once you have enough enrolled clients to make tiers meaningful.
Per-query for premium features. For features like image-based Payee Match, a per-query or per-image price (often a fraction of a dollar per image) instead of a large upfront block. This lets a business client scale into the feature instead of paying for capacity they haven't used.
Price so pricing drives adoption.
Pricing is an adoption lever, not just a revenue lever. Price too high and you suppress enrollment — and a suppressed program generates no income at all. Price reasonably and you unlock enrollment, and enrollment is what compounds.
The move most mature FIs make: bundle Positive Pay into a higher-tier business banking package rather than presenting it as a standalone fee. The business client pays more for the tier, but it reads as a level of service, not a fraud tax. Fee resistance drops sharply.
When to revisit pricing.
Most community FIs set Positive Pay pricing once, at conversion or launch, and never touch it again. That's the most common pricing mistake. The market moves. Your costs move. Your value proposition strengthens as you add features.
Revisit pricing on a schedule: at every contract renewal, at every new feature launch, and at least once a year regardless.
"Most institutions are underpriced on Positive Pay. They set the price at conversion and never revisit it."
CTO, $1B+ community FI, 5 branches
The most common mistake.
Underpricing out of fear. Treasury teams price Positive Pay low because they're afraid of fee resistance. But fee resistance is a framing problem, not a price problem. Solve the framing — bundle it, anchor it against fraud cost — and you can price the product at its real value.
Pull your current Positive Pay pricing and the date it was last changed. If it's been more than 18 months, schedule a pricing review this quarter.
What's next.
Lesson 4.2 turns pricing into the income math you bring to your board.