Two Easy Options for Accepting Credit Cards

One of our readers emailed me today asking how they could easily (and I assume inexpensively) start accepting credit cards from their clients. This is also a good thing to know for when your small business clients want to accept credit/debit cards from their customers. The good news is, there are several options that are both easy and affordable. This was my advice for her:

There are two really easy options for accepting credit cards.

First, if you have a smart phone (iPhone, iPad or Android phone) you can get Square (www.squareup.com), which has a little card reader that plugs onto your phone or iPad. There’s no cost for the card reader- the fees are per use, at 2.75% of each transaction when you swipe the card, or 3.5% if you type in the number (like for cards someone tells you over the phone). There are no contracts, and no setup fees of any kind.