Most small business owners are primarily interested in the ins and outs of their industry, not the intricacies of payment processing. Yet for the overwhelming majority of business owners, working with a merchant service provider and/or a payment processor is a requirement for accepting credit cards, debit cards, and much more. This leaves most business owners with a decision: what payment processing hardware and software is best for my organization?
Clover and Square have been two of the biggest names in payment processing for many years. Today, we will break down the similarities and differences between these two platforms, why they have remained popular over the years, and ultimately give our opinion on the platform which is best for small businesses.
Clover Offers Customized POS Systems for Businesses
Clover offers “smart, customized point of sale systems that make running your business easier”. Clover frequently partners with merchant account providers to provide a full suite of products ranging from POS system hardware, business management software, and much more. Clover currently offers hardware including traditional POS systems, mini POS systems, flex systems, and mobile payment solutions.
Some of the unique features of Clover include:
Customizable menus: whatever matters most to your business, put it front and center on your POS interface! You can manage and run reports in real-time, view customers’ statistics, manage employees, manage permissions, and much more.
24/7/365 support: with the help of a qualified merchant service provider, any software, hardware, or account issues can be handled any time day or night.
Extensive app market: the apps available on Clover cover just about every need a small business owner might have from bookkeeping to creating a custom gift card program.
Detailed customized reports: reports are accessible through your POS or remotely through a mobile device or desktop. With Clover, business owners can get real-time input on their business from anywhere!
Square is a One-Size-Fits-All Payment Processing Solution
Square is perhaps best known for its stripped-down approach to payment processing. Square focuses on providing a one-size-fits-all solution with static pricing and baseline features. Much like Clover, Square offers built-in software with its POS systems. Unlike Clover, Square focuses on ease of use at the expense of customization, features, and overall capabilities. To understand what Square offers, let’s look at Clover vs. Square side by side.
Square’s customers must process payments via Square. Perhaps the biggest difference between Clover and Square is that Clover allows customers to work with third-party payment processors for greater flexibility. Square customers must process all payments through the Square platform. For many businesses, this is an issue as they might prefer to choose their own merchant service provider.
Additional apps and software are free on Clover, but come with an additional cost on Square. Another difference is in the way Clover and Square handle apps on their platform. Square offers Square Tools and third-party apps at an additional cost. Clover offers a full suite of apps that are customizable for no additional charge.
Square’s main selling point is cost, but is it truly less expensive? At this point, you might be wondering why any business would choose Square over Clover. The fact of the matter is that Square is more heavily marketed specifically at startups and small businesses as the cheapest alternative. Yet this doesn’t tell the whole story. Where Square customers are locked into a fixed rate (which was just raised significantly in 2019), Clover customers can work with a qualified payment processor to get an even lower rate in some circumstances.
Should You Choose Clover or Square for Your Small Business?
Clover is a powerful solution that has the capability to grow and transform with businesses of all sizes: from single-person startup to multinational conglomerate. We believe that Clover is the superior choice due to its cutting edge hardware, customizable software solutions, robust app store, and high-level customer service.
At the end of the day, Clover partners with merchant service providers and payment processors to provide the best possible solutions for small to medium-size businesses. By relying on the products of Clover and the support of a well-established merchant services provider, business owners get the best of both worlds. With Square, business owners may find themselves stuck with a payment processing solution without any room for growth.
True Merchant Proudly Offers Clover Solutions
By partnering with Clover, True Merchant is proud to offer both point of sale (POS) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solutions for businesses of all sizes. With our focus on merchant services and secure payment processing, POS and ERP systems are a natural extension of our other features such as CardSecure, EBT Payment Processing, and much more. With True Merchant, you can get the reliable products of Clover with the highly personalized customer service of a local company. Unlike Square, we take the time to get to know all of our customers and find the right solutions to meet your individual needs.
Ready to start running your business better with a Clover POS system? Email us to speak with one of our Clover Specialists or tweet us @TrueMerchant!
