Help with card machines

[eatmoredrinkmore]

Just that really, I own a small business which at the minute doesn't take card payments but I need to update because people are starting to ask to pay by card, so can I ask for advice from other business owners on the best one please. I can't afford a large monthly cost and really not sure what the demand will be at first, also I don't have wifi so is that something I'll have to invest in as well. I'm not always working in the business so has to be something my staff can use as well.

If you want something cheap and easy, you can get something like the IZettle or PayPal Here. They are pay as you go and no commitment. They run through a phone or tablet, so you will need internet, but if you have a good mobile data connection then this will suffice.
Your other alternative is to speak to who provides your business bank account as they often work in conjunction with merchant services.

I use a company called Paytek/cardsaver. It's fixed £35 monthly plus a charge per transaction. That much cheaper than the one my bank suggested when I started up. There may be cheaper still but am happy as they are easy to deal with, keep you PIP (think that's right) compliant which needs doing annually, and the one time the machine wouldn't work were a quick phone call away and was fixed within 5 minutes of instructions over the phone.

Worldpay are cheaper than most. They have different deals to suit different requirements so worth a call. We now use them instead of Cardnet and are finding them very good with great technical support

I use izettle, have used a PayPal one,, as do a lot of my friends, works well and don't need a business account for it, they are getting more and more popular than the traditional card machines

I like the idea of the izettle Five Does worldpay charge a lot Fig?

Sorry for delay in my reply. We pay £9.99 + VAT per month plus an amount per transaction as follows:

VIRTUAL TERMINAL - £9.95 + vat monthly rental – 30 day rolling contract

FEES PER TRANSACTION: (applies to online and offline merchant accounts)
Authorisation - 4 pence per transaction

Debit Cards – 0.60% + 14p per transaction for the CNP

Credit Cards – 1.49% + 0.25% for the CNP
Commercial Cards -2.29%

We have a virtual terminal ie take payments via a website rather than having an actual machine. This is because we only take payments over the phone.

We have used Worldpay for 6 months now and find them much cheaper than Lloyds Cardnet who we used to use. Also not tied into a long contract which you need to avoid. With Lloyds, we used to sign up to using the card machine for four years each time. We had to pay quite a significant amount to end the contract early.

HTH