Checks Aren’t Going Away. And That’s Not a Bad Thing.
Every few years, someone in the payments industry declares the paper check dead. And every few years, the data disagrees. According to a study from the Atlanta Federal Reserve, as much as 83% of small firms with up to $10 million in annual revenue and 80% of “very small” firms with up to $1 million in revenue still use paper checks.
Additionally, according to the latest AFP survey, 72% of organizations that use checks plan to continue doing so for the foreseeable future.
So instead of planning around a checkless future, it’s worth asking a better question: why do small businesses — the backbone of the economy — keep reaching for the checkbook, and what does that behavior actually tell us?
The Backbone of the Economy Doesn’t Chase Trends
Small businesses aren’t slow to adopt new payment technology because they don’t know it exists. Many have been operating for decades on relationships, trust, and a simple philosophy: if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it — including how they pay vendors, contractors, and people.
“Digitizing” isn’t automatically a win; it’s a cost, a disruption, and a risk to relationships built over years. The real story isn’t that small businesses are behind. It’s that they’ve made a rational calculation, and paper checks are still the answer.