Mobile Credit Card Terminals: Innerfence vs. Square

March 16, 2012

You carry your phone in your pocket – why not your credit card terminal?
With advances in portability and user friendliness, businesses both large and small are losing the wires that tie them down and making the switch to mobile credit card terminals.
San Francisco giant Square took on Redmond-based Innerfence. I own both the Square credit card reader and the Innerfence reader for the iPhone and iPad. There are many options in the marketplace today but I love these two mobile payment terminals. And here’s why.
Innerfence
Innerfence’s credit card terminal has many benefits for all sizes and types of businesses. I do love free, I was beyond excited when I heard Innerfence offers a free credit card reader for your device. Innerfence is easy to use, has stable and solid hardware that requires only a single card swipe and, of course, it is always secure. If you have multiple devices that you’d like to use for transactions, Innerfence allows one account for all of your devices and your funds clear in 1-2 business days.
We all know customer service is important and talking to real people makes all the difference. Innerfence has an entire team of troubleshooters in Ohio to provide friendly and helpful 24/7 customer service. Innerfence is compatible with many devices including iPhone, iPad, Mac, Android, and Windows phone. With all of its useful features like including maps, signatures, electronic receipts, refunds, and transaction history, Innerfence will solve all of your payment headaches!

Fee Schedule:

Innerfence

Square

$25 per month

$0 per month

24 ¢+ 1.74 – 3.79% fee per transaction

2.75% fee per transaction; manually-entered cards cost 3.5% + 15¢ per transaction

SQUARE
Square was the first app and card reader that I owned. At the time, I was operating a small side business and couldn’t afford to have additional monthly charges to run cards. The $0 fee per month was a big win for me, as well as the lower percentage per transaction. The Square app is easy to use and I was able to automatically receive payments in my bank account the next business day. Square has a helpful feature that offers the ability to pull monthly reports.
One of the downfalls to Square is the small card reader. I had to run cards multiple times, making clients nervous that I was stacking charges up on their card. Much of the time, the transaction would need to be manually entered, costing me the manually entered transaction fee.
Overall, both companies offer products that allow businesses to swipe cards on mobile devices and keep the client interaction face to face.  Innerfence has a wonderful support team compared to Square, which could take hours to get an issue resolved due to the extremely hard to find helpline number.   If your business runs over $1,000 worth of transactions, I highly recommend speaking with a representative before you make a decision on which mobile payment terminal will suite your company best.
We would love to hear your thoughts and the payment method that work best for your company.
To sign up for your free Innerfence credit card reader click here.  To sign up for your free Square credit card reader click here.

WRITTEN BY

thinkspace

thinkspace