Small businesses increasingly see growth coming from the digital channels that extend their reach without requiring another storefront.
The PYMNTS Intelligence report “Why Main Street’s Digital Survivors Are Pulling Ahead: Four Years of Small Business Data” draws on 23 surveys conducted from July 2022 through February 2026. It finds that most small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are growing and confidence is near a four-year high.
The gains remain uneven, but the data also point to practical opportunities in digital sales, broader payment acceptance and more purposeful use of financing. In February 2026, 51% reported higher revenue from a year earlier, while only 13% reported a decline. That down share stood at 22% in July 2022.
Key Points:
- Digital channels are carrying more sales. Among businesses using delivery aggregators, 61% reported higher sales through that channel, up from 49% in January 2022. Owned mobile apps followed at 51%, while 48% of marketplace sellers and 46% of social media sellers reported gains. These tools can serve as a second front door, giving an SMB more customer access without the cost of opening another location.
- Payment gaps create room to grow. Credit card acceptance has reached 79% both in stores and online, but newer methods remain uneven. SMBs accept Venmo online at a 41% rate compared with 36% in stores. Apple Pay stands at 32% online and 30% in stores, while buy now, pay later reaches 13% online and 8% at physical locations. Closing those gaps could give customers more ways to complete a purchase.
- Financing can support expansion. Of the SMBs that sought outside capital in February 2026, 37% did so as a strategy and 28% cited both strategy and necessity. Only 13% named an inability to secure financing as a threat to survival. That creates an opening for lenders and FinTechs to offer working-capital products tied to invoices or sales activity, with faster decisions and clearer business uses.
The report also shows why these opportunities carry urgency. Fifty-seven percent of SMBs now sell through their own websites, just 4 percentage points below the 61% that sell through physical stores. At the same time, businesses with more than $1 million in annual revenue posted average growth of 13.7% from 2020 levels, compared with 0.6% among the smallest firms. Overall confidence has also risen: 82% are very or extremely confident they’ll survive the next two years, up from 78% in July 2022. Smaller businesses can’t reproduce scale overnight, but they can adopt several practices associated with larger peers. Wider sales reach, more payment choice and smarter use of capital offer a workable route forward.
