Merchant Swipe

[PAWS]

Does anyone use Merchant Swipe? It showed up as an app on my Blackberry App World. It says a monthly fee of $14.99 plus 20 cents per transaction plus rates as low as 1.85%...which makes me wonder how high it goes, etc. If anyone does use this method, how do you like it? What are your monthly costs roughly? I currently have a PayPal account and a few clients use it to 'send money' to my email address. The downside is not everyone has a PayPal account and one client just plain says she doesn't 'trust paypal'. The nice part is that they only take a small amount of money (less than $5 on a $150 transaction) and I can withdrawl up to $500 a month from it with the free account. If I offered Merchant Swipe, more clients might use debit or credit cards since they don't have to have a PayPal account. The fees are a tax deduction for me, so the cost doesn't seem too bad. I could also require cash or cards only for new clients...just pondering. Thanks for reading my ramblings!

[kats_melody]

Your discount rate will be based upon the merchant bank's assessment of your creditworthiness. The rate they quote is OK, but not terrific.

We use Intuit Payment Solutions, and we get a 1.69 rate and .25 a transaction. They have a similar app for Blackberry and the iPhone. You can even get a Bluetooth card reader. Swiping the card gets you the lowest discount rate. Entering the numbers manually can get you a discount rate of 2.5 percent or higher. It pays to get the reader.

Laura

[PAWS]

Thanks for your input, Laura. May I ask what you paid for the Blue Tooth card reader?

[kats_melody]

Intuit Payment Solutions. Go here and there is a number you can call for more information. We use a laptop with a USB reader, connected to a 3G aircard. For a low volume application like mobile grooming, it's really the cheapest way to go. We also use the laptop for GPS, web surfing, answering e-mail, and getting e-mail attachments of our voicemails so we can return calls throughout the day.

Not having the Bluetooth reader, I couldn't tell you the price. The USB reader was $100 shipped.

Laura

[PAWS]

Thank you!