Electronic Checks Here to Stay: Why JotForm Added an Integration with eCheck.Net

November 27, 2024         By: Chad Reid

If you asked 100 different customers how they’d prefer to make payments, would you get the same response from each one? Chances are, probably not. For a myriad of reasons, customers need different ways to make a payment. The trick for the online merchant is figuring out how to appease every one of them.

This is the crux of why JotForm built an integration with eCheck.Net, which is a platform that allows customers to pay businesses via electronic check. And while the method might seem dated, the demand is real.

There’s a comfort level many consumers feel by paying straight from their checking account instead of using a credit card, and with good reason. Using eChecks is generally thought to reduce fraud for the payer, and it provides a relatively fast settlement. Plus, just about everyone who could pay you already has a bank account.

JotForm, an online form building platform, has long integrated with dozens of payment processors — including Square, Authorize.Net (which operates eCheck.Net), and Stripe — so that users of the software can collect payments simultaneously with form submissions. This is a handy feature for event registration forms, order forms, donation forms, and application forms.

But there’s a world of difference between enabling a JotForm user to collect credit card payments and enabling them to collect electronic check.

One of the biggest reasons JotForm users wanted to receive check payments is sheer cost. Even on the low end, it costs a merchant a 2.7% fee for every credit card payment they receive. While customer payment convenience no doubt outweighs any added fees for the merchant, that’s a price that can seriously add up.

However, collecting payment via electronic check through eCheck.Net only charges a %.75 processing fee. A large percentage of JotForm users requesting this integration were schools and nonprofits, where they need to keep as much of the money they collect as possible. This integration was also added to benefit JotForm users in industries that still predominantly collect payments by check, including insurance, utility and property management companies.

Paying by electronic check isn’t exactly groundbreaking technology; eCheck payments have been around for a few decades. But for reasons relating to both payer preference and payee cost effectiveness, it made sense for JotForm to address concerns and make the integration with eCheck.Net possible.

The best part is the fact that paying via electronic check is just as easy as paying using a credit card online. The payer simply enters in their account and routing information.


Chad Reid is the Director of Communications for JotForm, a software that helps small businesses create online forms so they can collect and manage data. Chad has several years’ experience in marketing and public relations, and earned a master’s degree in communication from Purdue University.