We all know that Paypal revolutionized online payments, giving ordinary citizens the ability to accept online credit card payments for anything from eBay purchases to monetary gifts for graduation. But another revolution is brewing…
Square is a credit card service for ordinary people and small businesses that provides a number of advantages over traditional merchant credit card accounts and Paypal. Priced competitively with Paypal and much less expensive than a merchant account, Square provides the ability to enter an amount, type and/or photograph a description of the transaction, and swipe a credit or debit card. Funds are deposited into your bank account daily.
The coolest part of Square is the card reader, which they provide for free when you open an account. It simply plugs into the headphone jack of your iPhone or iPad and allows you to swipe Mastercard, Visa, American Express, and Discover cards. Your customer signs on the screen using the input device that Steve Jobs and Apple made famous–the finger–and you can email a receipt directly to the customer.
So what does this cost in terms of real dollars and cents?Square’s current fee is 2.75%. You may wish to compare this to Paypal’s fee schedule of 1.9% to 2.9% plus 30 cents per transaction. For any transaction $3000 or less, Square’s fee of 2.75% is lower than Paypal’s fee of 2.9% plus $0.30. So if most of your transactions are less than $3000 and you want the ability to scan credit and debit cards and have deposits drop to your bank account daily, Square might be a great solution for you.
You say you want a revolution…This may be it.
All the best…Mike
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A college administrator by profession, Mike Kennamer enjoys the opportunity to take photos and improve his skills by shooting events at work, church, and for friends. He enjoys landscape photography, portraiture and is starting to dabble in HDR. His current photography project involves learning to control flash manually. “My goal”, according to Kennamer, “is to be the best photographer I can be.”
Kennamer is also the President of Kennamer Media Group, Inc., a provider of traditional and online media, specializing in the healthcare industry. On CurrentPhotographer.com he writes about iPhone and iPad applications for photographers.