Text-to-Pay

Text-to-pay is the practice of sending invoices or payment requests via SMS, with a tap-to-pay link the customer opens on their phone, enters their card or ACH info (or uses a saved one), and pays in seconds.

It has become the dominant payment method for small service businesses because of three things: customers actually open texts (98% open rate vs. 20% for email), tapping a link is faster than digging through inboxes, and stored payment methods make repeat payments friction-free.

How It Works

1. The technician marks the job complete in the field.
2. The system generates an invoice and sends it via SMS to the customer with a “Pay Now” link.
3. The customer taps, sees the invoice, and pays with a card or ACH.
4. Funds land in the business’s bank account in 1–2 business days (depending on the payment processor).

For repeat customers, a card on file can be charged automatically — often the customer just gets a receipt rather than an invoice request.

Why It Beats Traditional Invoicing

	Traditional invoice	Text-to-pay
Delivery	Paper or emailed PDF	SMS
Open rate	20–40%	~98%
Time to pay	14–30 days	Same day
Friction	Customer has to log in / mail check	Tap, pay, done
Late payments	Common	Rare

Service businesses that switch from emailed invoices to text-to-pay typically see their average days-to-pay drop from 21+ down to 1–3.

What It Doesn’t Do

Text-to-pay isn’t a payment processor on its own. There’s still a real payment processor — usually Stripe — handling the card transaction. The text-to-pay layer handles the delivery, the link generation, and the customer experience.

Related

See the Online Payments feature page for how Kairvio implements text-to-pay.