Square vs. Intuit GoPayment vs. PayPal Here

Which mobile credit card processor reigns supreme? Digital Trends examines three popular readers to help you decide which one is right for your small business.

Square:

Square is pretty nifty for two reasons. For one, it works well with devices that have cases on due to its thinness. Second, it detects the card as you swipe it whether or not you’re ready to start payment.

With Square, you can pay either 2.75 percent on all sales, or you can pay $275 a month for 0 percent as long as the item price doesn’t exceed $400.

With Square, there actually is no telephone support offered with the device, meaning one-on-one and fast support can be hard to find when you need it most. Instead, Square offers a Twitter account you can request help through, as well as a knowledge base and a expedited email service.

Intuit:

Intuit’s GoPayment reader is pretty basic, but the build quality is probably the best among all three of the readers.

The GoPayment will charge 2.75 percent on all swipes, or you can opt-in for a monthly plan of just $13 a month, which drops the swipe rate down to 1.75 percent. For the monthly payment to pay off, you’d need to be selling more than $1500 a month or so in stuff. GoPayment has versatility for the small business user, as well as a fair starting rate.

Both PayPal and Intuit, already with a big financial background, offer up both phone and email support, as well as a knowledgebase. Intuit offers GoPayment support separate from other Intuit products.

PayPal:

PayPal Here offers an impressive software back-end, even if its very picky with devices. The reader PayPal gives is also the most plastic-y and doesn’t seat very nicely on top of the devices, which is a little disappointing.

PayPal offers a very straightforward pricing plan: 2.7 percent on everything, no matter your volume or item prices. If simplicity is what you had in mind, then PayPal takes the cake in pricing.

PayPal tries its best to integrate PayPal Here into the rest of the services the company offers, which offers a very seamless experience from your PayPal account to your PayPal Here reader.

Read the full review.