Mobile Card Terminals - Any Recommendations?
Mobile Card Terminals - Any Recommendations?
Author
Discussion

madmover

Original Poster:

1,785 posts

215 months

Tuesday 7th June 2016
quotequote all
Looking to get a couple of handheld payment terminals, with the view that some staff can take payment at the end of their appointments. We travel all over the country so it would need to be a terminal which runs off cell signal.

I've seen a couple but they all seem to command a healthy premium or a large % of the transaction. Can anyone recommend any good ones?

Thanks in advance!

dartissimus

954 posts

205 months

Wednesday 8th June 2016
quotequote all
We bought a Paypal card reader, £59.95 one-off payment, for our occasional use.
The charges are high, but it links to our existing Paypal account and is v straightforward to use.
For occasional use it's fine, and no monthlies.
For bigger stuff an extra terminal with a sim card from a Merchant Service provider will maybe cost £15 - £18 per month,
that's about £60k worth of 3%'s.

mlatham

67 posts

150 months

Wednesday 8th June 2016
quotequote all
OP, my company does merchant accounts and card machines. If you want to PM me I'd be happy to provide some details of what we can offer.

skilly1

2,905 posts

226 months

Wednesday 8th June 2016
quotequote all

speedchick

5,290 posts

253 months

Thursday 9th June 2016
quotequote all
I have an iZettle, really easy to set up and use, and the money usually in my bank about 3 days later. Paid about £50, for it and the first couple of transactions paid for it. Not always used at events, but good to have it there as an option.

bristolracer

5,954 posts

180 months

Saturday 11th June 2016
quotequote all
I have 'sum up'

dfen5

2,398 posts

243 months

Saturday 11th June 2016
quotequote all
Just got a mobile one through SagePay. No problems really and the support's been excellent. Fees bit high if you get someone paying with a business credit card but other than that, reasonable and fast payers too.

markmullen

15,877 posts

265 months

Saturday 11th June 2016
quotequote all
I've used iZettle quite a bit. It's worked well.

mjb1

2,585 posts

190 months

Saturday 11th June 2016
quotequote all
For low volumes/low transaction values iZettle might be appropriate. A 'proper' PDQ will always have a monthly fee, but likely a lower commission rate than iZettle, so once you get to a certain threshold they make more sense. That will vary depending on what rates you can negotiate.

Also, consider your geographic area - what's mobile coverage like? Most mobile card terminals like a 3g or better signal (I think the phone companies are reducing/disabling 2g data services where they think a 3g signal is generally obtainable). If you're working in rural areas, you might have trouble with a mobile PDQ. On the other hand iZettle can work via wifi, so that gives you another option. There might be proper PDQ machines available that use mobile and wifi connections, not aware of any myself though.

I'd recommend getting a quote from Payment Sense. I do integrations with their terminals, and they seem pretty reasonable.

madmover

Original Poster:

1,785 posts

215 months

Sunday 12th June 2016
quotequote all
Thanks for the recommendations folks. WIFI isn't something we would use, as I'd never trust anything banking related attached to a 3rd party wifi connection. We'll be using one which runs off 3G. In the event there's no signal, we'd have to either invoice on Net 30 or have a telephone payment made if they've abused credit terms previously.

Thanks again,

Andy