Accepting payments using your phone or tablet

This discussion on going on in one of my Facebook groups and there are a lot of options and opinions so I thought I would take a minute and try and document 3 different payment systems and their features and fees.

Currently I use Square.

Vendor	Square (www.squareup.com)	PayPal (www.paypal.com)	Amazon (www.amazon.com)
Fees with card present	2.75%	2.70%	2.50%
Fees without card present	3.5% + $0.15	3.5% + $0.15	2.75%
Fess for getting a card reader	Free if you order online. $10.00 if you purchase the reader in a store but you get a $10.00 credit to your account. Up to 10 days to receive in via DHL.	Free when ordered online. You can get a reader at Staples. It costs $15.00 but they credit your account for that amount once you register online.	The Secure Card Reader costs $10. Order online. They credit your first $10 in processing fees. Includes free two-day shipping.
Getting your money	Square will transfer your money to your checking account in a couple of different ways. Standard Option - based on the time of day that the transaction occurred. Sunday 5 p.m. PT to Monday 5 p.m. PT. Money transferred on Tuesday morning Monday 5 p.m. PT to Tuesday 5 p.m. PT Money transferred on Wednesday morning Tuesday 5 p.m. PT to Wednesday 5 p.m. PT Money transferred on Thursday morning Wednesday 5 p.m. PT to Thursday 5 p.m. PT Money transferred on Friday morning Thursday 5 p.m PT to Friday 1 p.m. PT Money transferred on Monday morning Friday 1 p.m. PT to Sunday 5 p.m. PT Money transferred on Monday morning You can also setup a payment schedule based on your "Close of Day". Does not have Daily Deposit limits.	PayPal will transfer money to your checking account when you initiate the request. The transfer can take 3 - 5- days. With swiped cards and PayPal Payments you can use your PayPal debit card for immediate access to your money.	In order to ensure that funds are deposited to your bank account on the next business day for swiped transactions, you must set up automatic daily transfers or manually transfer the funds from your Amazon Payments account to your bank account by 4 pm local time (4 pm Pacific for AK and HI). Up to $1000.00 per day for manually swiped transaction are available for next-day deposits. Amounts over this have a 7-day clearing period.
Devices supported	iPhones, iPads, Android 4.0 and higher	iPhone and iPad running iOS 6.0 and later. Android 4.0 on phones. Samsung tablets are supported.	iPhone 4 and higher. Android phone - Samsung Galaxy S3, S4, S5. iPad tablets and select Fire tablets.

All of these vendors have accessories like stands and registers and printers (check Android printing requirements per vendor).

There is a lot more information available on the respective vendor sites as they have store options and inventory options and reporting options, etc., etc.

My focus in this blog was to highlight the card readers themselves and their fees.  I do not endorse anyone in particular even though I use a Square.  You have to decide what is best for you.

Remember, if you are going to use one of these at a craft show or some other event you will need access to wi-fi or some sort of hotspot for real time transaction processing.

Mark