iPhone card readers let you accept credit and debit card payments with your iPhone or iPad and minimal equipment. Read this article to learn more about how these Apple card readers work and how much it costs to use them.
Here’s more on choosing a mobile credit card processor that meets your small business's needs, along with detail on how we arrived at our ranking of services.
iPhone card readers let you accept credit and debit card payments using your iPhone or iPad rather than requiring you to use a point-of-sale system or credit card terminal. Aside from the hardware used in these transactions, the procedure of the transaction is identical to that of traditional credit card processors. When you swipe a card through the iPhone credit card reader, your customer's information is securely routed to the processor, the card network, your customer's bank and, at last, your bank account, where the money, minus the processing costs, is deposited.
The most important features of the best iPhone card readers include the following:
If you're looking for a card processor that lets you accept online payments, be sure to look at our Accept Credit Cards Online review. For a full-service processor that can help you accept in-store payments, look at our Credit Card Processing review. You can also read articles about mobile credit card processing.
While researching iPhone card readers, we looked for processors that offer competitive pricing and charge minimal fees since we know affordability is a top priority for small businesses. We also looked at companies offering month-to-month service without early termination fees, since you should be able to switch processors easily if you find better service elsewhere. Since your time is valuable, we looked for services with quick setup times. To be sure we found the best card reader for iPhone options for you, we considered both credit card processors that offer mobile processing as a stand-alone service and payment facilitators that sponsor merchants to help them accept card payments.
Our reviewers reached out to every company multiple times, at various times on various days. We contacted company agents as potential customers via phone and email. We used our results from this evaluation to score each company on pricing, consistency, ease of application and customer service. Processing costs and fees ended up being key differentiators.
In addition to the transparency on each processor's website, this score reflects our testers’ interactions with customer service representatives, including how forthcoming agents were with quality information. Many of the reps we spoke with referred us back to information on their company's website. We compared the information we received from each company throughout our evaluation for consistency. The companies that earned the highest scores provided complete and consistent information.
Half of the processors in this review can set up your account in one day or less. Three processors can take up to two days, while two processors may take three or more days. You can apply for any of the processors in our review online. Some processors require documents like your business license, your tax ID number and your EIN (employer identification number).
We also looked at the time it takes for each processor to deposit money into your account following a transaction. Many processors take up to two days to do this, which is the average in this industry. Some processors, such as Cartwheel Register and CDGcommerce, can deposit money into your account by the next business day if you batch out before a certain time. Square has an instant-deposit feature that can give you immediate access to your funds. Other processors, like PayPal Here and QuickBooks GoPayment, may take up to three days to clear your account.
It's important to carefully consider mobile processors that provide iPhone card readers so that you can find the one that's the best fit for your small business.
Before you sign up for an account with a mobile processor that provides iPhone card readers, be sure to take the time to contact the companies directly to get quotes that are specific to your business. It's also important to read through the full contract or user agreement before you sign it to be sure you aren't surprised by any fees.
After you pick a service and sign up for an Apple card reader, you need to install the processor's app on your phone or tablet. Your iPhone or iPad needs to have access to either Wi-Fi or a data plan in order to process cards.
You can then attach a small card reader, also called a swiper or dongle, to your iPhone, usually by plugging the equipment into your headphone jack.
EMV Chip Readers for iPhones: iPhone credit card readers need to be able to accept EMV chip cards or you may be liable for fraudulent purchases. Although some processors may claim that the EMV certification requirement doesn't apply to iPhone card readers, it actually does, according to Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover. Half of the processors in our review currently offer EMV-compliant card readers for iPhones and several of the others have them in development. Processing apps that scan the cards using your iPhone's camera are exempt from this requirement as they use different technology to process the card data.
Very few of the companies offering iPhone card readers charge a monthly fee or PCI-related fees. Most also don't set a monthly minimum processing requirement, and those that do are typically full-service credit card processors that also offer mobile credit card processing as a stand-alone service. Approximately half of the companies we reviewed don't charge chargeback fees.
Flat-rate pricing is the most popular pricing model for processors that provide iPhone credit card swipers, and most of the services in our review offer it. Flat-rate pricing is the easiest to understand since you usually pay a single percentage rate for each transaction, regardless of the type of card. Many times, you pay a different and slightly higher rate if you manually enter the card's information rather than swiping it. Some processors in our review also charge a per-transaction fee, though some only require this on keyed-in transactions.
Initially, flat-rate pricing may look more expensive than the typical starter rates that some companies advertise. One of the trademarks of flat-rate pricing, however, is that there are fewer fees with this model than with a traditional merchant account that has tiered or interchange-plus pricing. Many of the best mobile processors don't charge any additional fees.
There are some variations to flat-rate processing. Some companies, such as Cartwheel Register and Moolah, charge the same flat rate no matter how the card information is captured. Some processors charge a per-transaction fee on top of the flat rate. The per-transaction fee ranges from $0.05 to $0.30.
