What is the best way to receive credit card payments for freelance jobs?

What is the best method for accepting credit card payments?

Stripe or Square.

I like Stripe, which will take major credit cards as well as AliPay, Android Pay, Apple Pay and even Bitcoin. They’ve had an online advantage with their API and easy implementation on websites, with integrations for Squarespace, Wordpress, Shopify, wooCommerce, etc.

If you have an online business, I’ve heard really good things about the details from Square in its reporting to sellers.

I avoid Paypal or Venmo (which PayPal owns) as there are numerous examples of accounts getting locked after complaints by payors. (Also, Venmo is not supposed to be used for business, and a popular scam is to engage in commercial transactions, complain, and get their money back.) Braintree is another company gobbled up by PayPal but I remember they used to have a decent CC payment setup for small businesses, although I don’t know if it still is good, or if it even exists at this point.

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I offer Stripe and PayPal, most people prefer Stripe and it auto deposits to my bank account which is appreciated.

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Just to add to what others mentioned. It highly depends on where you are located in the world. You need to use a services that can work with your bank somehow.

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I prefer Stripe as we have fewer problems with corporates. Many corporate block PayPal regardless it’s for credit card payments rather than “PayPal” money. Less hassle. My impression is that PayPal much more expensive for small customers, but check yourself.

Square

No monthly fee, the readers are relatively inexpensive and the per transaction charges are far more reasonable than anything else. Links to most banks for automatic deposits.

Square on ipad has a really nice point of sale system that works for standardized things but cn be adapted to handle time based work segments.

Stripe and Square are actually pretty competitive with each other:

https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/5068-what-are-square-s-fees

Stripe wasn’t available when I first needed to handle credit cards but good to know there are more options now.

However Square is still noticably less for swiped transactions. No per transaction fee on Square but 30 cents per transaction in addition to higher feed for Stripe.

Lots of my transactions are relatively small in dollar size so any per transaction fees add up fast.

Square 2.75%
Stripe 2.9% plus 30 cents per transaction