15 Jun 2016

A question about : Card Machine for a small Cafe

Hi all
Can anyone advise me what card machine I should consider looking at for a small restaurant. We would like to be able to take card payments, but with so many options out there, I wouldn't know where to start looking.
Many thanks.

Best answers:

  • Your replies will depend on your estimated card turnover.
    There are different levels of merchant services available to you, the very small turnover options are the likes of izettle etc at 2.75% dropping to 1.5% for larger turnover but no monthly costs. Or there are the proper merchant services who charge a monthly cost but the rates are lower, it would normally mean a decent monthly card turnover to be beneficial by the time you take the rental into consideration.
    Streamline are a major player in this market.
    Oh I forgot to mention the other down side to the likes of izettle is that the 2.75% is taken on all card payments including debit cards, where as the proper merchant services such as Streamline only take a fixed debit card fee of about 25p or thereabouts.
  • Much like iZettle is Worldpay Zinc, these services suit under Ј20k of card sales per year. You need a tablet or phone and internet connection to use with them which is why they're so cheap (WPZ even has a referrer programme - you can ask for codes on the referrers forum)
  • If you sign up with Costco, they have special rates going with net pay
    12.50pm for a machine, 1.5% credit cards and 12p debit cards
    https://www.netpay.co.uk/costco
    Or you can get a GPRS machine for 17.50 a month
  • We used iZettle at the restaurant I used to work at, and while they're priced slightly higher than some options on the market, their support is second to none and they were always on the other end of the phone if ever we had a problem (thrice we needed them!) and they answered calls within 2 minutes.
    Never any major problems and they even came and setup the machine and demo'd it for us for nothing.
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