While the bank will not say what percentage of its checking account customers it expects (or hopes) will be paying new fees, $20,000 is a much higher bar to clear than the direct deposit requirement or the $1,500 to $10,000 minimum balances that the bank currently places on many checking account customers who wish to avoid fees.

As a result, plenty of customers will be looking at their options. What would cause people who count on debit cards to help them live within their means to stick around despite the $5 a month fee?

The first factor is the perceived pain involved with switching. And it is a pain, though not as much as you may think. It shouldn’t take much more than 90 minutes to reboot direct deposit of your paycheck and move all the automated payments from one account to another.

There may be a few hiccups over the next couple of months, but they shouldn’t take more than a few minutes each to fix. Try to leave some money behind in the old account for a few months just in case it takes billers a few cycles to make the switch.

Much depends, then, on how much you value that 90 minutes, versus the $60 in savings you might achieve in Year 1 with your new financial institution. Then you need to weigh the value of your time against the good feeling that would come from rewarding a checking account provider that wasn’t so fee-happy.

A.T.M. convenience is another factor that limits switching. Consumers who haven’t looked at an online-only institution in awhile will be pleasantly surprised by the developments here. Some of them have tapped into nationwide networks of fee-free machines that are bigger than any one bank’s collection of locations. Others let you use any A.T.M. you want and reimburse you for most or all of the fees you pay to withdraw money. Banks like ING Direct, Ally, Charles Schwab and USAA are all worth a look here. They may well pay better interest too, though it won’t amount to very much these days.

There could be plenty of people who have no problem with an extra $5 a month. Claudia Smith, who lives in Fayetteville, Ark., said she wasn’t worried about the new fee, even though she used her debit card extensively. “It’s well worth $5 a month to not have to carry a checkbook,” she said.