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iZettle lets you process payments on your phone (now with a free card reader!)


Guest PaulOBrien

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Guest PaulOBrien

If you run a small business and you want to take card payments, the associated costs are often high. The market is blighted by monthly fees, hardware costs and large percentage costs for small volume payments. If you're a budding market trader, cake maker or computer fixer, cash might still feel like your only option. We've been trying out iZettle, who are looking to resolve this problem. And it's great.

Let's look at the costs first.

It's fast, free and easy to sign up to iZettle and as part of the sign-up, they'll offer you their free 'Card Reader Lite', which will allow you to process chip and PIN payments. The device connects to your phone or tablet via the headphone port and charges via microUSB. It's solid, reliable and easy to use. If you do want something a bit more fancy, the £79 Pro version connects via Bluetooth and also accepts contactless payments, but you can always buy that later.

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There's no monthly fee for using iZettle - you simply pay a (very reasonable) percentage of processed transactions. The actual amount varies depending on the volume you process per month, but even so, at worst it is just 2.75% and at best it's 1.5%. That's it. No other costs. Impressive, no?

But is the service really any good?

Of course, price wouldn't matter if the service didn't work properly or wasn't suitably slick for you to put in front of your customers, but thankfully that isn't the case.

The app is well designed, performs great and works on the wide range of devices we've tried. The payment flow is straightforward - the seller inputs an amount into the application and enters a description for the payment (e.g. '2 sausage rolls') or selects from a list of products that they have previously defined. The customer can view the details on the device screen and when they're happy, they put their card into the reader, punch in the PIN and the payment is processed immediately. After successful payment, a screen is displayed where the seller can enter an email address to send a receipt to. A physical receipt can also be printed at this point if desired. And that's it! A fully featured interface online allows the seller to manage their payments and issue part or full refunds if desired.

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If all this sounds too good to be true, I know exactly where you're coming from. My wife runs her own small business and for a long time we've looked for exactly this sort of solution, but there's always been a catch.

Head on over to iZettle to get started and let us know how you get on!


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Guest Mobile_Dom

This is perfect! my mum runs her own crafts and custom baby clothes and until she's only been able to accept cash, sh e was looking at the paypal here service and reader, but to start her off, this might just be perfect, thanks Paul!

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Guest kradcliffe

Hi Paul,

How does it deposit money in the bank account? Once a month for example or per transaction?

Reason I ask is that our bank charges for every pay-in as it's a business account.

Thanks - Keith

Edited by kradcliffe
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