I just completed researching a new credit card processing system and I am excited about starting to use Square.
Square is like a Paypal account that you can send money to by swiping a credit card on a little device that connects to your iPhone or Android phone.
We just analyzed our merchant account’s credit card processing fees compared to Square’s fees. In summary, Square was the same rate or better than the merchant account that integrates with QuickBooks: Innovative Merchant Solutions. Square has no monthly fee, no minimum fee, and no fee for the swiping device that connects to your smart phone.
Best of all, Square is very easy to use for small business owners like photographers, attorneys, handymen, etc.
At our law firm in Minneapolis, we are switching to Square so we can charge credit cards directly from an iPhone or Andriod phone. I highly recommend it as the easiest and probably cheapest way for small business owners to accept credit card payments.
Signup takes 30 seconds: Get Square.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Square is a great story and its founder is a great entrepreneur, but merchants need to look beyond the hype and into the numbers. The question you should be asking yourself is “Does it make sense for me to accept credit card with Square?” For some the answer will be “yes” (as for the cupcake baker in our story: http://blog.unibulmerchantservices.com/cupcakes-credit-card-processing-and-square), but for quite a few the answer will be “no.”
Simply put, Square is a good match for merchants with low monthly processing volumes (because it comes with no monthly or any other fixed fees) and for merchants whose average transaction amount is very low (because Square charges no fixed transaction fee). However, for everyone else its 2.75% per-transaction rate is simply way too high, as the industry average hovers around 1.70% plus $0.20 per transaction.
J.G.
Great point. Also, Paypal has great rates for accepting online credit card payments. See https://www.paypal.com/webapps/mpp/merchant.
Aaron