Maybe they honestly can't afford it and need to use it for the credit aspect.

Some aren't comfortable with automatic withdrawal from their checking account.

Some it's just a habit and don't use checking accounts.

I'd say about 15% pf customers would rather take the fee.

The normal cash back on a card is 1% and some even higher so to them its not that big of a deal...but to a business it ads up.

Our profit margin is about 20% of sales. If we gave up 3% of sales, that is taking away 15% of our profits!

To give example numbers, if we charge $100 per month we pocket $20 after expenses (rent, payroll, etc)...but If we swallow the credit card fees that's $3, and makes the profit down to $17. So after all this hard work of customer acquisition, providing services etc, such a little thing takes away 15% of our profits (and that's before it passes through to us as income tax!).

ACH used to be a flat $.50 per transaction...it takes time to reconcile invoices and payments so right now just sucking it up.

The problem was that vendors tended to make arbitrary minimum fees for using cards which in no way reflected the actual fees they were paying. Smaller stores were steering customers to cash as it was easier to under-declare earnings with cash. In response Amex in Australia reduced their fees to stores while simultaneously reducing the value of their awards points programmes (since those were ultimately funded by the fees being charged.)

This also plays into application stores - since developers often don’t pass on fee reductions (such as the subscription fee reduction of 30%->15% after 1 year.)