Clover Go App & Card Reader Review
Clover Go has everything merchants need to take mobile credit card payments, but your pricing and experience can vary widely, depending on what reseller you buy from.
Clover Go
Total Rating | 4.3 |
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Pricing4.1 | |
Ease Of Use4.4 | |
Features4.7 | |
Customer Service4.4 | |
User Reviews3.9 |
Clover Go At A Glance
- Flat-rate payment processing through Clover.com
- Fewer features than Square, but includes dedicated merchant account
- Syncs with your other Clover devices
Pros
- Inexpensive hardware
- Free mobile processing app
- Good web dashboard
- Affordable monthly plans
Cons
- Pricing and terms vary
- Expensive for low-volume merchants
- Mixed user reviews
Table of Contents
What Is Clover Go?
Clover Go is a mobile POS system that allows merchants to accept credit cards and contactless payments with a smartphone or tablet. The system includes a mobile payment reader, POS app, and merchant account. You can also integrate the Clover Go with other Clover hardware, such as the Clover Station Solo, which doesn’t accept contactless payments.
Pricing
Pricing4.1 |
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Hardware 4.3 |
Payment Processsing 3.8 |
Generally, Clover Go is pretty affordable for small businesses, and our Pricing score for Clover Go reflects the device’s reasonable hardware costs and processing fees. You can also use Clover Go on a free monthly software plan. However, one negative about Clover Go pricing is that many Clover service providers require a multi-year service contract.
Clover Go Hardware Pricing
A Clover Go mobile payment reader is $49 if you buy from Clover.com. However, pricing can vary depending on where you buy your Clover system and associated merchant account. Some merchant services providers may give you a free Clover Go if you sign up for a merchant account, while others charge more than $100 for the device.
Clover also sells a $29 countertop stand (pictured above) to hold and charge your Clover Go.
Clover Go Software Pricing
You may also be charged a monthly software fee to use Clover Go. Clover recommends the following plans for use with Clover Go:
Clover Monthly Plan | Price | Features | Best For |
---|---|---|---|
Clover Payments | $0/month | Payment processing, paperless receipts, basic sales tracking | Low-volume mobile payment processing only |
Clover Essentials | $14.95/month | Payments plan features, plus a virtual terminal, basic inventory management, order management, refunds, discounts, taxes, employee permissions, item-level reporting, and offline mode | Low-volume mobile processing with some basic POS features |
Clover Payments Features
- Swipe, chip, and tap card payments
- Mobile wallet payments such as Apple Pay and Google Pay
- Keyed-in payments on the Clover app or website
- Paperless receipts
- Basic sales tracking
- Mobile invoicing
- Bookkeeping (QuickBooks and Xero) integrations
- 24/7 support
Clover Essentials Features
- Payments plan features
- Real-time sales tracking
- Detailed sales reports
- Tax reporting
- Basic inventory management
- Employee permissions and shift management
- Client database
- Loyalty program
- Promotions
- Clover gift cards (digital or physical)
Both plans are generally suitable for low-volume mobile businesses processing less than $50,000 a year. Then again, the $14.95/monthly fee on the Essentials plan can seem like a lot for a very low-volume business, especially when there are mPOS systems with no monthly fees available, such as the Square Contactless Chip + Card Reader and PayPal Zettle. Note that if you do not buy from Clover directly, your merchant services provider may also charge additional monthly fees to use Clover Go.
Alternatively, higher-volume businesses have the option to use Clover Go with a more advanced software plan, such as the Register plan or a restaurant-specific plan. However, you won’t fully benefit from a higher-tier plan unless you are using the Go in addition to a complete Clover POS system, such as a Clover Station or Clover Mini. If you’re using other Clover products already, Clover Go will most likely function as an add-on package with a potential monthly service fee on top of your contract.
Learn more about Clover software plans and pricing by reading our article on Clover POS costs.
Clover Go Payment Processing
All Clover Go accounts come with a Fiserv merchant account, but your rates and terms depend on where you buy your system.
When purchasing from Clover.com directly, you’ll get flat-rate pricing with rates starting at 2.6% + $0.10 for card-present transactions and 3.5% + $0.10 for card-not-present transactions. This higher payment processing rate applies for every payment type except swiped, chipped, tapped, or mobile wallet card payments.
Other Clover resellers package their Fiserv accounts differently and may use various other processing schemes, such as interchange-plus or tiered pricing, with potentially long-term processing commitments.
Ease Of Use
Ease Of Use4.4 |
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Initial Setup 4.4 |
Device Use 4.4 |
Clover Go earns a good Ease of Use score from us thanks to its easy setup, easy syncing, and overall design. Overall, the Clover Go app is easy to use and navigate, though it will take a little time to configure most settings in a web dashboard rather than in the mobile app itself. Once you get the hang of the functions, Clover is just as user-friendly as any mobile POS app.
The device itself is also user-friendly, if a bit clunky. Unlike Square’s Bluetooth reader, the Clover Go can accept swiped transactions as well as EMV and NFC. Clover Go doesn’t support a receipt printer or cash drawer, so if you want something that can also do register duty, you’ll want to look at another Clover product or consider something such as Square.
Regarding the initial setup, note that you get a full merchant account with Clover Go, which should deliver greater account stability than third-party processors (like Square or PayPal). That also means it may take a few more days to get set up with Clover while Fiserv completes the required underwriting. So you shouldn’t expect to be set up and able to process payments on the same day.
Features
Features4.7 |
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Device Hardware Features 4.6 |
Device Software Features 4.8 |
Clover Go earns high marks from us in the Features department; for a mobile card reader, you get a lot of POS functionality with Clover Go.
With that being said, Clover Go features, compared to Square’s, are more limited, with some features tucked behind a paywall. Note that most of these features require the Clover Essentials plan or higher, and many features need to be enabled from within the browser setup and cannot be modified in the Clover Go app:
- New Sale: Every mPOS out there has a quick-pay mode where you just punch in an amount and swipe a card. Clover Go is no different in that regard. Ring up items in the New Sale tab by selecting them from your inventory list or entering a custom item and price and having customers sign for their purchase on your device’s screen. This screen is optimized in landscape mode on the app’s iPad version.
- Card Scanner: If the card readers aren’t working, you can use your device’s camera to scan the card instead of manually entering it.
- Dashboard: In your Clover Go mobile dashboard (as opposed to your Clover’s web dashboard, which is a separate thing), you can update your business details, add employees, and view weekly sales data.
- Inventory: What sets Clover Go apart is its inventory mode. Most mPOS systems allow you to punch in a mix of items and a custom amount if needed. On the other hand, Clover Go has a separate, searchable inventory mode that lets you view and edit items and add new items. However, this feature isn’t available on the free plan.
- Item Descriptions: Pretty standard stuff here; you can see and edit an item’s name, price, category, tax rate, etc. Previously, you could only create items from within the Clover dashboard. You can now ring up custom items in the app and add these new items to your inventory either from the New Sale screen or the Inventory screen. Previous versions of Clover Go also didn’t support variable pricing or pricing per unit, so I was glad to see that Clover now supports these pricing options.
- Item Counts: Clover Go doesn’t have robust inventory counts. However, there is an integration with the dashboard where items sold in Clover Go will deduct from your inventory counts. Refunds will not restock items, however.
- Customizable Tip: You can enable tipping within the web dashboard and set it with up to four preset tip amounts.
- Customizable Tax: Clover Go’s tax management tools aren’t as robust as other options I’ve seen, but I’ll give Clover credit for allowing the application of multiple taxes to items. You can choose from some preset tax rates for an item in the app, but the tax rate options need to be managed from the dashboard.
- Email/SMS Receipts: When a transaction is complete, you can send a text message or email receipts to customers.
- Clover Suite Integration: Clover Go will sync back to the dashboard and work with other data if you’re using additional Clover products. However, not all of the features the other devices support translate into Clover Go.
- Unlimited Users: I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Clover allows you to create unlimited sub-user accounts for free. Clover also supports different permission levels so that you can control access to some features.
- Open Orders: This surprising feature allows you to pull up orders started in any other Clover POS system in Clover Go and vice versa, which is a nice touch, though only available with the Register level plan.
- Barcode Scanning: iOS users can scan barcodes to find items instead of searching for them within the app.
- Searchable Interface: You can find items by entering them in the search box instead of just scrolling through the list, which is another nice touch.
- Discounts: The Clover Go app’s major update added a much-needed discounting feature. This feature allows you to add preset percentage-based or value-based discounts and create new ones on the fly. However, you can only add discounts to the entire order, not individual items.
- Reports: The reporting suite includes the following (fairly basic) reports: Sales Overview, Sales Report, Tender Types, Card Types, Item Sales, Removed Items, Requested Reports, Order Types, Employees, Discounts, and Taxes. Recently, Clover improved the Export feature for the Sales Report and the Item Sales Reports, allowing you to be more flexible about the data you export.
Customer Service & Support
Customer Service4.4 |
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Personal Support 3.8 |
Self-Service 5.0 |
Customer service is an area where some businesses find Clover Go somewhat lacking. Still, Clover Go earns a good overall score in this area, as your account comes with round-the-clock phone support and many useful self-help resources and videos.
In addition to contacting Clover directly, you can also typically reach out to your processor for merchant account questions. However, you will be referred back to Clover’s support representatives for technical questions.
There is one dedicated 24/7 phone line for Clover Go support, but there aren’t really any other ways to contact Clover. Many Clover users report poor phone experiences, so keep this in mind when calling.
Clover also has tailored self-service online knowledge bases for Clover users based on their Clover hardware and software plan. This will serve you well for the vast majority of questions about features and standard uses. Clover also maintains videos and tutorials for Clover Go on YouTube. Clover has a social media presence and a blog, but these are not specific to Clover Go.
User Reviews
User Reviews3.9 |
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Customer Feedback 4.0 |
Review Site Aggregate 3.8 |
Our User Reviews score for Clover Go reflects its mix of positive and negative online reviews. For example, Clover Go reviews are very positive on the iTunes store but only mediocre on Google Play—iPhone users seem to generally have a better experience with Clover Go than Android users. You will also likely have a better experience with Clover Go if you buy from Clover.com directly instead of a Clover reseller.
Negative Clover Go Reviews & Complaints
Here are the main negatives found in Clover Go reviews:
- Card Reader Troubles: This is an especially common complaint among Android users. Specifically, users seem to have trouble connecting the standard headphone jack reader to their phones, forcing people to get new readers and manually key in transactions. You can get around this by opting for the all-in-one Bluetooth reader, which seems to solve most merchants’ issues. If you have a new iPhone, this is your only option.
- Lack Of Features: The Clover Go app is functional but very basic compared to a full-featured POS or even a system such as Square, which blurs the line between mobile and full-fledged POS. You can’t manage a lot of settings from within the app, and the tablet versions of the app don’t support a landscape view mode, which is at odds with many tablet display stands.
- Glitchy Software: App crashes and login problems are common and not surprising complaints. It looks like a recent upgrade accidentally removed the entire custom tip feature from the app, which is the opposite of what you want to happen when you roll out an update. It took about a week to fix, judging from the dates on app reviews and Fiserv’s responses. Generally, Android users complain about how the hardware glitches and crashes more frequently than iPhone and iPad users.
- Poor Customer Service: Users report long hold times and unresolved issues upon contacting customer support. This echoes the reports we’ve heard regarding other Clover products and Fiserv in general. However, your experience will vary depending on who does your onboarding.
Positive Clover Go Reviews & Testimonials
Amid the lackluster reviews and complaints, you’ll still find some positive reviews of Clover Go. Here is what happy users praise the most:
- Compatible With Other Clover Systems: For merchants already using other Clover products, using Clover Go as a simple mobile solution makes a lot of sense. Information syncs up with an existing Clover account, which is a big selling point.
- Good Customer Service: I saw praise of Clover’s customer service come up often enough to mention it here, even though there are far more merchants claiming the opposite. Again, your experience will vary. Some resellers do better than others at providing support, especially in the onboarding process. Once you’re up and running, you’ll deal with Clover directly, which may not go as well.
- Pricing: Again, this doesn’t exactly come up a lot, but a handful of merchants say the pricing is comparable to other options. Your experience may vary, but I’m inclined to think the merchants that get the best deals are larger businesses or are using Clover Go as an extension of their existing Clover system.
Final Verdict Of Clover Go
Clover Go generally works best for mid-volume Clover merchants using a countertop Clover Station or Mini as their main POS and want Clover Go for mobile sales. However, in the past few years, Clover has tried to rebrand Clover Go as a standalone mobile POS for casual and low-volume businesses.
While I would still recommend Square for this type of user, Clover Go does offer the benefit of your own merchant account and can thus be a good alternative for businesses that have been burned by a payment service provider, such as Square, Shopify, or PayPal.
When it comes to pricing and transparency, your Clover experience will vary quite a bit, depending on which reseller you sign up with. However, your terms and pricing should be pretty upfront as long as you sign up through Clover.com directly.
If you decide to go with Clover Go, make sure you purchase your system from Clover.com or one of these best Clover resellers.
POS Hardware & Mobile Credit Card Reader Rating Methodology
We spend hours researching and evaluating each POS hardware and mobile payments device that we review at Merchant Maverick, placing special emphasis on key characteristics to generate our product ratings.
When rating POS hardware (which might include registers, mobile card readers, and other similar devices), we use a 38-point rubric that looks at pricing, ease of use, features, customer service, and user reviews. We weigh each section differently to calculate the total star rating.
- Pricing: 40% of the total star rating
- Ease of Use: 20% of the total star rating
- Features: 25% of the total star rating
- Customer Service: 10% of the total star rating
- User Reviews: 5% of the total star rating
Each section is further broken down into granular, weighted subsections, in which we look at specific attributes, like whether reduced fees are available for multiple terminals, which payment processing options are available, and how well the hardware integrates with POS or payment processing software apps. We’re also paying careful attention to hardware’s relative cost, any associated fees, and whether financing is available, among other things.
Learn more about how we rate POS hardware.
The Merchant Maverick Seal of Approval 🏆
Clover Go |
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After hours of in-depth research and evaluation, we can confidently recommend this brand to our readers. Get started today and see Clover Go for yourself.
The Merchant Maverick Seal of Approval 🏆
Clover Go |
---|
After hours of in-depth research and evaluation, we can confidently recommend this brand to our readers. Get started today and see Clover Go for yourself.