Best solution for taking occasional card payments?

[anonymous-user]

Our business is mostly supplying services to other businesses, and as such, most payments to us are made by BACS, however we are getting a few private customers who naturally want to pay by card.

At the moment it's just one or two people per week, but it's inconvenient for both them and us to have to tell them to go to the cash machine before they can pay us.

The average payment from these private individuals is around £200-400.

I know WorldPay is probably the biggest and most well known, but it seems like every month now there is a new company popping up offering a chip and pin machine that links to your iPhone or iPad and charges you around 2.5% and no fixed contract.

With that in mind, can anyone recommend anything or is it still best to just get something like a Worldpay terminal and have done with it?

[Frimley111R]

I think you can do it via paypal too?

[mlatham]

I work in the payments industry. If you want to PM me I can talk you through some different options. Best solution depends on how you want want to take payment (all face to face or some phone or e-comm) and whether it's likely to increase or always be around £400pm

[MrSparks]

I would recommend PayPal Here.

I have a service business very much the same, the odd card payment here and there... I got a Cardsave account because the fees are low... however they're now charging us a "minimum useage charge" of £25 a month!!

I would strongly recommend PayPal, you'll lose another percent but you can use it as much or as little as you like.

[mlatham]

Paypal definitely not the cheapest though. If you're doing regular payments say £1800 per month which looks about right from what OP said it'd cost £49.50 in transaction fees each month at 2.75% as charged by PayPal. You could rent a terminal and get a normal merchant account with much cheaper fees and pay less than that. Not everyone charges £25 per month minimums! However the right solution does depend very much on how you take payments, the value and regularity. PayPal might well be best for doing a small number of low value transactions because there are no minimums as pointed out.

[Gareth1974]

Costco offer this service, not sure if the prices are good (or not) http://www.netpay.co.uk/costco

Edited by Gareth1974 on Wednesday 15th July 15:57

[igiveup]

Sorry not in the game, but this sprung up on my Farcebook once, seems pretty good

https://www.izettle.com/gb

[anonymous-user]

Thanks for the ideas so far chaps