Best virtual terminal: 7 options for phone and mail orders

The best virtual terminal lets you take a card payment from your computer when the customer isn't in front of you: a phone order, a mailed form, an emailed invoice, a monthly charge on a saved card. It should also price those sales clearly and let you leave if it stops fitting. Clearo Payments publishes this list, and we rank our own virtual terminal first on the criteria below. Facts about the other six companies come from their own websites, checked in October 2026.

Every sale through a virtual terminal is card-not-present: Visa's dispute guide describes a card-absent environment as a sale made without a valid card or cardholder present, naming mail order, telephone order and internet sales (Visa). Those sales cost more and carry more fraud risk than a tap at the counter; our guide to card-not-present transactions explains why.

How we chose the best virtual terminals

We ranked each virtual terminal on five criteria:

1. Pricing you can check: interchange-plus, so the higher interchange on keyed sales passes through at cost and the provider's markup sits on its own line.
2. A virtual terminal you can walk away from: no long-term contract and no cancellation fee.
3. A named person to call when a payment fails or a customer disputes a charge.
4. Proof before you switch: a free statement review that prices your real month on the new terms.
5. The jobs a virtual terminal has to do: phone and email payments, invoices, payment links and recurring billing.

Some businesses will rank these differently. If you already sell in person with Square, its entry is the natural place to start. If you have a merchant account and want a gateway with its own recurring billing, read Authorize.net. If you raise money for a charity and already use PayPal, look at PayPal's entry.

After Clearo, entries follow how closely each company's own pages match these criteria, and the table reflects those pages as of October 2026.

1. Clearo Payments

Why Clearo ranks first

Clearo meets every one of our criteria for a virtual terminal. Our virtual terminal runs on interchange-plus pricing with no long-term contract and no cancellation fee, every client has a dedicated rep, and the free statement review shows the numbers before you switch. It also handles the four jobs on our list in one place: phone and email payments, invoices, payment links and recurring billing. When a keyed payment fails or a customer questions a charge, your rep is the person you call.

How the pricing works

Keyed and online card payments fall into higher interchange categories than tapped ones, and the card networks set that cost, not us. With interchange-plus, we pass each sale's interchange and network fees through as charged and show our margin as its own line. That makes a keyed-heavy month easy to audit, because you can see what the networks charged and what we charged. Visa publishes its categories in its interchange schedule, and our pricing page explains our side. Nothing is folded into a single blended rate.

What you get

The virtual terminal takes phone and email payments, sends invoices and payment links, and runs recurring billing. For card-not-present protection, our online payments add hosted checkout and fraud screening with AVS, CVV checks and velocity rules, and we provide PCI compliance support and chargeback management tools. If customers also pay in person, our POS terminals and mobile payments cover the counter and the road, and same-day or next-day funding options keep deposits moving.

Switching

Send a recent statement for a free statement review, and we'll show your effective rate today and what the same month would cost on interchange-plus. Based on its client records, Clearo says businesses moving from flat-rate pricing have saved 20 to 50% on processing costs. Your result depends on your card mix, average ticket and volume, which the review works out from your own numbers. There's no long-term contract or cancellation fee, your dedicated rep is there from day one, and Clearo says setup takes under 48 hours.

If you want a virtual terminal built into POS software you already run, or you key in a handful of phone payments a year, one of the options below may fit more naturally.

2. Helcim

Helcim is a payment processor for US and Canadian businesses with a virtual terminal for processing payments on your computer, a fit for owners who want interchange-plus pricing without a long-term contract. It describes its pricing as interchange plus, and its pricing page lists no long-term contracts, no cancellation fees and no setup fees. It also offers an automated recurring payments and subscription manager and free invoicing.

Best for: businesses that want a virtual terminal, recurring billing and invoices on interchange-plus pricing without a long-term contract.

3. Square

Square is a payments and point-of-sale company that offers a Virtual Terminal for credit card processing, a natural fit if you already sell with Square; its US page describes it as requiring no long-term contracts and no monthly fees. Square's US help article explains how to save a customer's card and set up recurring payments on it, with later charges running as recurring Square Invoices.

Best for: Square sellers who need phone payments and recurring charges on saved cards.

4. Authorize.net

Authorize.net is a payment gateway for businesses with a merchant account; a support article on its site explains that using it requires a merchant account from a provider based in the United States or Canada. It lets businesses accept credit card payments online, in person and by phone, offers digital invoicing, and its pricing page lists Automated Recurring Billing with no separate setup or monthly fee.

Best for: businesses with a US or Canadian merchant account that want a gateway for phone payments, invoices and recurring billing.

5. PayPal

PayPal offers a Virtual Terminal for businesses, a fit for sellers and nonprofits that already use PayPal, and the page lists a per-transaction fee, a percentage plus a fixed fee, with no monthly fee. Its nonprofit page says organizations can accept credit or debit card contributions that arrive offline, with no coding, extra software or equipment required.

Best for: businesses and nonprofits already on PayPal that want to key in card payments with no monthly fee.

6. Clover

Clover is a point-of-sale company whose Account Only page says it offers a virtual terminal to process payments online without dedicated hardware, a fit for businesses that take payments remotely. Its virtual terminal page lists AVS and CVV checks, and its pricing page describes a percentage of each charge plus a flat fee, with separate typed-in rates. Clover's 2023 announcement of Tap to Pay on iPhone was aimed at US small and mid-sized businesses.

Best for: businesses that want remote card payments with AVS and CVV checks and no dedicated hardware.

7. Chase

Chase offers a virtual terminal for accepting payments remotely on a computer, which suits businesses that want card processing from a bank. Its merchant fees page says the browser-based terminal needs no additional hardware and lists flat per-transaction rates by payment type, including keyed-in or invoiced virtual terminal payments, plus a monthly fee for the virtual terminal.

Best for: businesses that want a browser-based virtual terminal from Chase, priced at flat rates by payment type.

When do you need a virtual terminal?

You need one when customers pay you without being there to tap, dip or type the card in themselves. The common cases: phone orders and deposits, mailed or faxed order forms, invoices for work already done, and recurring charges on a card the customer agreed to keep on file. If the customer is standing in front of you, use a terminal or a mobile reader instead. A chip read or a tap costs less than a keyed sale, and Visa notes that card-absent merchants may see more disputes because the card isn't read electronically.

A virtual terminal also isn't the only remote option. A payment link or an emailed invoice lets the customer type their own card details on a secure page, so your staff never hears the number. Our view: use links and invoices by default, and keep keyed entry for customers who insist on paying over the phone. Our guide on taking card payments over the phone walks through both.

How do you take card payments by phone safely?

Take the card number, run the payment, and keep nothing you don't need. The PCI Security Standards Council says card security codes can't be stored once a payment is authorized, even in encrypted form (PCI SSC). That rules out sticky notes, order slips with the code written on them, and email threads with card details.

Two more rules catch businesses out:

• Call recordings count. PCI SSC's guidance on telephone payments says sensitive authentication data captured in recordings must be deleted (PCI SSC).
• Saved cards need consent. Visa's stored-credential framework requires the cardholder's consent before you store card details for future use (Visa). For recurring charges on consumer debit cards, the CFPB's Regulation E requires authorization in writing, signed or similarly authenticated by the consumer (CFPB).

Done this way, your PCI paperwork can stay small. PCI SSC's SAQ C-VT questionnaire covers merchants that enter one transaction at a time, by keyboard, into a third-party, internet-based virtual terminal, using a device kept apart from their other systems (PCI SSC). Your acquirer confirms which questionnaire applies. For a consent template that leaves the security code off, see our credit card authorization form guide.

What does a virtual terminal cost?

You pay for the software, if your provider charges for it, plus processing on every keyed sale, and processing is usually the bigger number because card-not-present sales sit in pricier interchange categories. On Visa's schedule effective April 18, 2026, a Traditional Rewards consumer credit card costs 0.39 percentage points more in interchange when it's keyed or taken online than when it's dipped or tapped (Visa).

Put a number on it. Say an HVAC company in Tulsa keys $25,000 in repair payments over the phone in a month, all on Traditional Rewards cards. That gap adds about $97.50 in interchange for the month compared with tapping the same cards on site, before any markup. A mobile reader in each van would keep most of that.

Fraud is part of the cost too. The Federal Reserve's fraud study found that remote payments made up 61.1% of card fraud by value in 2016 (Federal Reserve), and a fraudulent keyed sale usually comes back to the merchant as a chargeback. Check four things in any quote:

Which virtual terminal features matter most?

Buy for the jobs you do every week. This checklist covers most service businesses, from contractors to an accounting firm in Sacramento that bills clients monthly:

1. Address verification (AVS) and card security code checks on every keyed sale. Our AVS guide explains the response codes.
2. Payment links and emailed invoices, so customers can enter their own card details.
3. Recurring billing with a consent record for each saved card. Our recurring billing guide covers trials, reminders and cancellations.
4. Saved cards stored with the provider as tokens, never in your own files.
5. A separate login for each staff member, with permission to refund only where it's needed.
6. Receipts that go out automatically by email.
7. Reports that separate keyed, linked and recurring payments.
8. A matching in-person option, so a customer who visits can tap instead.

If you also need a merchant account behind the terminal, our list of the best merchant account options compares the account side. For invoice basics, see how to send an invoice.

Your next step

If you key in phone or email payments today, your statement shows what they cost. Send it for a free statement review, and we'll break out your keyed volume, your effective rate, and what the same month would cost on interchange-plus pricing. If you're setting up phone payments for the first time, contact us and a rep will help you choose between keyed entry, payment links and recurring billing.