Which card reader has no monthly fee, and what does it really cost?

Square is still the default answer to "is there a card reader with no monthly fee?" for a reason. The Free plan costs $0 a month, the POS app is included, and you pay 2.6% + 15¢ on each in-person payment. With a $25 average ticket, that is $16 on $500 of monthly card sales, $64 on $2,000 and $160 on $5,000. The contactless reader is $59, Square Terminal $299, and you can take Tap to Pay on iPhone with no hardware at all.

The 15¢ fixed fee is what you watch. On a $5 coffee it is 3% on its own, so Square's real rate on small tickets is much higher than the 2.6% headline. If most of your sales sit under $10, run the numbers against PayPal POS, whose fixed fee is 9¢.

The catch with Square, as with every flat-rate processor, is risk control. New accounts are the most exposed: sellers on Square's own community describe capped daily transfers, reviews of a few business days and requests for documents in the first weeks. Square can also keep a rolling reserve, a slice of each payment held back, when volume jumps or disputes pile up. Tell Square before a big event, keep your ID and bank details current, and have a second way to take cards during your first month.

Helcim is the answer for sellers who have outgrown flat rates but refuse a monthly plan. Instead of one price for every card, it passes on the real card network cost (interchange) and adds its own margin: 0.40% + 8¢ per in-person payment below $50,000 a month, with no monthly fee. Whether that beats a flat rate depends on the interchange of the cards your customers use.

That is also why we do not print a single monthly cost for Helcim in our table: it depends on your card mix, and any number would be a guess. The useful check is your last month of statements. Take your current processor's total fees, then ask Helcim for a quote on the same sales. If you take a lot of debit, the saving shows up fast.

The hardware costs more up front: the Card Reader is $199 and the Smart Terminal $349, against $59 or $29 elsewhere. Spread over two years, that is about $8.30 a month for the reader: Helcim has to save you at least that much against your current fees before it pays off. Helcim's own statement comparison tool lets you upload a statement and see the difference.

PayPal POS, the old Zettle, quietly has the lowest flat rate of the big no-monthly-fee options in the US: 2.29% + 9¢ per in-person payment. With $25 tickets, that is $13.25 on $500 a month, $53 on $2,000 and $132.50 on $5,000, the lowest of our table each time. The first reader costs $29, extra ones $79, and the standalone PayPal POS Terminal $199.

Money lands in your PayPal Business balance, usually within minutes. That is handy if you already sell online with PayPal, because everything sits in one place. It also means your cash lives at PayPal until you move it to your bank, which matters if your account ever gets reviewed.

And that is the weak spot. Among low ratings, frozen balances and slow support come up again and again, sometimes after a change as small as a new address. Update your details before you change anything, keep the receipt for your hardware, and move your balance to your bank on a schedule.

SumUp keeps things blunt: $0 a month, 2.6% + 10¢ per in-person payment, 3.5% + 15¢ when you type the card number in. With $25 tickets, that is $15 on $500 a month, $60 on $2,000 and $150 on $5,000, a little under Square because of the smaller fixed fee. Payouts are next day.

SumUp's best feature is that it costs nothing when you sell nothing. No minimum and no plan, which makes it a fair pick for a seasonal stand or a craft seller who does three fairs a year. For self-employed workers who live on their phone, our ranking of card readers for the self-employed goes further.

The weakness is the same one you will read in almost every review: support. Getting a human on the line takes time, and that hurts on the day a payment fails or a payout is paused for a profile check. If you keyed in many cards, note the 3.5% + 15¢ rate: on a $100 phone order that is $3.65, so send a payment link when you can.

Stripe Terminal is a building block, not a reader you plug in and go. Your developer wires it into your own app or site, and in exchange your online and in-person sales share one Stripe account and one reconciliation. There is no monthly fee. You pay 2.7% + 5¢ per in-person payment. Tap to Pay on iPhone and Android adds 10¢.

With $25 tickets, the card reader route costs $14.50 on $500 a month, $58 on $2,000 and $145 on $5,000, between PayPal POS and SumUp. With Tap to Pay, the extra 10¢ pushes it to $16.50, $66 and $165, the most expensive line in our table. So if you go with Stripe, buy the $59 M2 reader rather than living on phones. The S700 smart terminal is $299.

Stripe charges $15 for each dispute you receive, $15 to counter it (refunded if you win) and $15 to appeal, never refunded. Budget for it before you launch, and keep proof of delivery for every order. If no one on your team writes code, this is not your tool: Square or SumUp will have you taking cards the same afternoon.

Clover shows up in many "no monthly fee" lists, and it belongs here as a warning. The Clover Go reader and the countertop terminals are good hardware, but they are often sold by banks and resellers, each with its own plan. In practice, many sellers end up with a monthly software fee, a contract, or both, which is exactly what you came here to avoid.

Pricing is on quote, through Clover itself or the bank that resells it, so we cannot give you one cost per month without inventing it. What we can give you is the list of questions to ask in writing before you sign: the per-tap rate, the monthly software fee, the length of the contract, the early termination fee, and whether the hardware is bought or leased.

If the answers come back with a monthly fee and a multi-year term, compare them with Square at $0 a month and Helcim at $0 a month with interchange-plus. Over a three-year contract, even a modest monthly software fee adds up to more than the price of a Helcim Smart Terminal, so the free hardware a reseller offers is rarely free. For a trade business that invoices on site, our ranking of card readers for contractors covers the alternatives.