Accept payments wherever you work

What does mobile payment processing cost?

The same parts as any card sale: interchange set by the card networks, network fees, and your provider's markup. What changes the bill on the road is how you take the card. A chip read or a tap is a card-present sale. A card number typed in later, because the reader's battery died or it stayed in the truck, is card-not-present, and it costs more.

On Visa's US schedule, as we checked it in October 2026, a Traditional Rewards consumer credit card carries 1.65% + $0.10 when it's dipped or tapped and 2.04% + $0.10 when it isn't present (Visa). Say a mobile groomer takes $8,000 a month on those cards. Keyed instead of tapped, interchange runs 0.39 percentage points higher: $31.20 a month, or $374.40 a year, before any markup.

Then there's the hardware. Buy readers outright where you can: the FTC's business blog describes owners who signed leases costing thousands of dollars for card equipment priced at a few hundred to buy (FTC). Multiply any monthly payment by its term before you sign.

How the markup is packaged matters as much as the device. A flat rate hides interchange inside one rate; interchange-plus pricing shows it, and depending on your volume and card mix it can cost less. A free statement review shows how much of your volume was keyed instead of tapped, and what that cost you.

How to choose a mobile payment setup

• One person in the field: a reader paired with a work phone, with tap to pay on the same phone as the backup.
• A crew: one device per person and a separate login for each, so payments never live on someone's personal phone.
• Check the phone before the plan. Tap to Pay on iPhone needs an iPhone XS or later, and for Android each provider decides which phones its app supports.
• Test where you sell: the far end of the patio, the basement job, the back row of the market.
• Buy hardware outright where you can, and read any lease before you sign.
• Decide in advance whether offline payments are switched on, and how much you're willing to risk on them.

Clearo supplies tap to pay and mobile card readers from partners such as Clover and Helcim, priced on interchange-plus with no long-term contract and no cancellation fees. Your dedicated rep can tell you which devices fit your phones and your country. If your crews also send invoices or take deposits by phone, pair the mobile setup with our virtual terminal; for taking cards at a counter, see the POS terminals we supply.