Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Don't be Square

Be there first with a better deal, worry about losing the customers later;
Square, the payments startup with a square credit-card reader, is eliminating a monthly flat-fee option for smaller businesses in favor of its usual “per swipe” fee.
Starting Feb. 1, Square will charge merchants 2.75% each time they swipe a credit card, or 3.5% plus 15 cents for a transaction entered manually, according to the company’s website.
Until now, Square has offered businesses with monthly debit- and credit-card transactions of roughly $21,000 or less the option to pay a monthly fee of $275.
The change is prompting concern among some of Square’s more than four million customers, which include small businesses that were attracted to Square because it offered a cheaper alternative to traditional credit-card processors, which charge swipe fees of 1.5% to 3%.
Which could mean up to a $300 per month difference in costs of transactions for each small business. Not much, but, at the emargin could make an entrepreneur unhappy.

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