Pay vendors by bank for free, or float the bill on a card even when the vendor does not take cards.
Reviewed by Tom · Founder & lead reviewerMelio digitizes the bill-pay side of a small business. You forward invoices by email, upload PDFs, or sync bills from QuickBooks; Melio reads the details and queues them for payment. You choose how to pay - free ACH bank transfer or a credit card for a fee - and separately choose how the vendor receives the money: bank deposit or a paper check that Melio prints and mails. That split is the clever part: you can put a bill on your card even if the vendor only takes checks. It supports approval workflows so an owner signs off before money moves, partial payments, and payment scheduling. The two-way QuickBooks Online sync marks bills as paid automatically, which is the difference between a payments tool and an accounting mess.
Melio's core proposition is generous: ACH bank payments to vendors are free, and Melio makes its money on optional extras. Paying by credit card costs about 2.9% of the transaction - worthwhile only when the float on your card or the rewards you earn beat the fee, or when cash is genuinely tight and 2.9% is cheaper than the alternative. Faster payment options, expedited checks, and some advanced features carry additional fees, and Melio has been layering subscription tiers onto what was once a purely free product, so read the current pricing page carefully. For a business paying a handful of vendors monthly by ACH, the effective cost can still be zero. Compare against Bill.com, which charges per user monthly and per transaction; Melio usually wins on price for simple AP.
Start using Melio if you are still writing checks, logging into multiple bank portals, or paying vendors late because bill-pay is a chore. The free ACH rails alone justify the switch for most QuickBooks-based small businesses, and the card option is a legitimate cash-flow tool if you do the fee math honestly rather than habitually. Bookkeepers managing several clients also get a lot of leverage from its approval flows. Skip it if your payables are international-heavy, if you need purchase orders and procurement controls, or if same-day payment speed is routinely critical - the free rails are not fast, and the fees for speed erode the value. And whatever you do, do not put every bill on the card at 2.9% out of convenience; that habit gets expensive quietly.
Small businesses that want to stop writing checks and occasionally use a credit card to smooth out cash flow on big vendor bills.
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