With all the POS systems out there, How do you know what to choose? Well, that’s a great question. Here are 2 options with a ton of flexibility that can grow with your business. With over a hundred apps to choose from and more on the way you can totally customize these systems and use what you need without paying for what you don’t.
Square is currently dominating the payments space (it seems like the company is everywhere and has a hand in everything these days), but that doesn’t mean there aren’t other options if you decide Square isn’t for you. One of those options is Clover Go, a mobile solution developed by First Data.
Clover Go exists as part of a larger ecosystem of Clover products — a full-fledged POS and hardware setup called Clover Station, a compact version called Clover Mini, and a tablet version called Clover Mobile. Each of these requires specific hardware purchases. For the Go system, the only required hardware is the card reader. However, the mobile app has a less robust feature set than the full-fledged POS. Then again, it’s also the newest product in the family, with the announcement of its launch in January 2016. I’m sure we’re likely to see upgrades and improvements as time wears on.
Square on the other hand, is a truly standalone solution. You can purchase your reader through some retail outlets such as Staples, but your account is still set up directly through Square, which aggregates payments and discloses very little when it come to their actual “qualified” card purchases, rates and fees. This stands in contrast to Clover Go, which sets you up with a genuine merchant account of your own.
The fact that you get your own merchant account means that you’ll get greater account stability than you would with Square otherwise. However, depending on who you go through, you may wind up with a contract and/or a monthly fee, none of which apply to Gateway Merchant Services Partners.
