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Apple Pay is a popular option for accepting alternative and contactless payments.
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If you’re a small business owner who has not started accepting Apple Pay for your business, you might be wondering how to go about it.
The good news is — other than the fact that you might have to upgrade your card terminal or reader — there’s nothing extra you have to pay to process the payment.
Now, let’s take a closer look at how to accept Apple Pay as a business.
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Dharma Merchant Services
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Helcim
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Square
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Stripe Payments
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Host Merchant Services
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Read more below to learn why we chose these options.
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Apple Pay is a secure, convenient payment method that can allow your customers to buy your services without having cash or even a credit card on their person. Customers can use any payment method stored in their mobile wallet to pay.
While Apple doesn’t seem to separately disclose the number of users for Apple Pay, however, it is estimated by other sources that Apple Pay might have at least 507 million users worldwide. Why not make it easy for them to pay at your business?
Aside from acquiring an NFC-compatible reader or terminal, there are no additional costs for accepting Apple Pay as a business. For credit card purchases made in person, your card-present rate will apply, and for purchases made online, the card-not-present rate will be used.
If you do not own an NFC-capable reader or terminal, you’ll have to invest some money to upgrade. We have several articles that can help you select your next terminal. If you like to use Apple products as much as your customers who use Apple Pay, we even have an article on the best credit card readers for an iPhone or iPad. There are also articles to help you finance your new purchases if necessary. We hope these articles will help you make a decision.
To accept Apple Pay, you’ll need an NFC-reader that can process Apple Pay transactions. This means you’ll need a payment processor compatible with NFC-readers and, for eCommerce, a payment gateway that can process Apple Pay transactions.
We’ve gathered a small collection of Apple Pay-friendly payment processors to help you get started.
Pros
Cons
Dharma is a five-star-rated processor at Merchant Maverick. This means they provide transparent pricing, great products and services, excellent customer and technical support, and various terminals, readers, and POS hardware for you to pick from. Merchants are happy with their services, and there are little to no customer complaints on the internet. The only types of businesses we would steer away from Dharma would be merchants in high-risk industries and startup/micro-businesses that process less than $10,000 per month.
On its website, Dharma prominently discloses that its hardware can accept Apple Pay, so you can rest easy that you'll have no problems if you switch to Dharma. They offer the following NFC-capable hardware:
Get Started With Dharma Merchant Services
Pros
Cons
Small businesses looking for a simple, transparent, and cost-effective way to accept credit cards will find a lot to like in Helcim. In addition to basic credit and debit card processing, it offers an integrated payment platform. Also notable is that Helcim offers interchange-plus pricing to all customers with no monthly fee.
Helcim offers a single, versatile proprietary reader:
Get a free card swiper from Square at no cost when you create a free account. Claim your card reader.
Pros
Cons
Square is yet another one of our favorites here at Merchant Maverick. We like Square for many reasons, but among the top are its variety of services and its easy-to-understand pricing structure. Square is good for low-volume/startup merchants who need to start processing credit cards immediately.
Square's credit card machines are proprietary. The ones that will take contactless payments are:
Pros
Cons
Popular eCommerce payment processor Stripe can easily accommodate Apple Pay payments online. While in-person transactions aren't its forte, Stripe can still support Apple Pay NFC payments through Stripe Terminal. Overall, Stripe is a great platform for tech-savvy companies that want to stay on the cutting edge of payment innovation or to reach an international audience.
Stripe Terminal offers some Apple Pay-compatible readers:
Get Started With Stripe Payments
Pros
Cons
Host Merchant Services is a transparent merchant account provider particularly well-suited to the restaurant industry. The company even offers local, on-site troubleshooting for malfunctioning terminals within 150 miles of its offices in Newark, DE and Naples, FL.
Host Merchant Services offers a number of terminals compatible with Apple Pay. Host Merchant Services does not disclose the cost of its terminals upfront, so you'll want to inquire about any model you're interested in:
Get Started With Host Merchant Services
Merchant Maverick has been researching the payment processing industry since 2009. Our writers have reviewed hundreds of credit card processors, merchant account services, and mobile payment apps, evaluating each provider carefully on several different metrics.
When comparing different payment processing companies and applications to one another, we consider numerous data points. Our experts start by comparing credit card processing rates, the presence of additional fees, contract length, sales practices, and the presence or absence of additional features and services, like point of sale software. Each provider is judged on its own merits and how well it stacks up to industry standards; then it is weighed against the other providers on the list.
We spend an average of 10-15 hours researching and updating each one of our lists, making sure every company or application included meets our internal standards for quality and reputation. Any list of recommended payment processors on our site might contain a mix of standard merchant accounts, third-party payment processors, mobile payment devices, and high-risk payment processors, depending on what our expert feels is the best fit for certain scenarios or business types.
For additional details about Merchant Maverick’s review and rating processes, please refer to any or all of the following methodology pages:
15
Years reviewing payment processors
100+
Providers evaluated
25
Attributes and features assessed per vendor
40+
Years combined experience
From a merchant’s standpoint, accepting Apple Pay is fairly easy if you operate a physical store, but might require some coding if you run a website.
To accept Apple Pay in stores, you must have a terminal or reader that can read NFC signals (sometimes the term contactless payments is used). If you do not have one, upgrading and buying one through your existing processor is relatively easy. You should have plenty to choose from. In case you’d like a little help, we have articles on terminals, readers, and point of sale systems to help you decide.
Assuming you already have the necessary equipment, all you have to do to initiate Apple Pay (and Google Pay and Samsung Pay) is to contact your payment card processor. They may have to install or activate some software on your machines, but, after that, you should be good to go taking the payments. Note that Apple Pay includes a cash service called Apple Cash. If you can already accept Discover debit contactless transactions, then you should be able to take Apple Cash without issues. If you’re not set up for Discover debit contactless payments, then speak to your processor so they can set everything up for you, including installing firmware if necessary.
To accept Apple Pay on the Web (or in an app), you might be able to use some ready-made eCommerce plugins, or you might have to do some coding or hire someone who can. Note, though, that when we say “accept Apple Pay,” we mean have an Apple Pay button displayed on your website so a customer can pay by just hitting the button. If you do not wish to invest in the coding, your customers can still conveniently use the Safari browser’s auto-fill feature to insert a lot of the payment information into the payment card fields at the checkout screen, but this feature is not a part of Apple Pay.
On its website, Apple offers a list of payment platforms that offer easy plugins and a list of processors they have confirmed can integrate with Apple Pay.
If you ask a hacker, nothing is ever secure. Having said this, however, Apple seems to have done everything reasonable to make the Apple Pay service secure. What follows is a detailed and somewhat technical description of how the security features of Apple Pay work.
According to Apple, Apple Pay has the following security components:
If you’re interested in learning the details, Apple’s recent article explains its security process for Apple Pay. Note they use the term Device Account Number instead of token.
Sure, accepting Apple Pay is low risk, but why worry about upgrading your terminals when you already have a perfectly serviceable point of sale setup? Here are some reasons:
You never want to lose out on a sale because it was too inconvenient for the customer to pay you with their preferred payment method. Apple Pay lets customers pay even if they left their wallets at home.
Apple Pay terminals encrypt and change a customer’s card data during a transaction, making it much harder for cybercriminals to intercept bank and card info. Merchants and customers can enjoy even greater peace of mind when making payments with Apple Pay in light of a new data security standard issued by the PCI Security Standards Council, which allows vendors to give merchants tap-and-go payment solutions developed and vetted in the lab for the sake of payment data protection.
Apple Pay transactions are slightly faster than magstripe and EMV credit card transactions, which can keep your checkout lines moving along quickly.
While it may not be at the top of their priority list, customers who prefer to pay with their phones may be more positively inclined toward businesses that allow them to use Apple Pay.
Good providers of compatible Apple Pay terminals are essential to accepting Apple Pay payments from your customers, and there are a few things to keep in mind as you search for a provider that’s right for you.
First things first: avoid equipment leasing at all costs. Equipment leasing has been around for a long time, but it’s simply not practical or cost-effective for small businesses navigating a post-COVID business landscape. Look instead for providers of Apple Pay-compatible terminals that provide plans for either paying out of pocket or that allow 0% financing. Long-term agreements such as contracts almost always include hard-to-spot clauses that punish businesses with heavy fees and penalties in the event of premature agreement termination.
Your current provider may not currently offer a reasonable way to accept Apple Pay. Still, with contactless terminals and readers becoming more and more common, there’s a good chance you can stick with your current service. Suppose you’re seriously considering switching to a provider that makes it easy to get started with NFC payment methods such as Apple Pay. In that case, it’s worth getting to know the best credit card processors that already offer Apple Pay-compatible hardware. Cover the ballpark costs of each provider’s options to narrow your decision on the best piece of hardware.
The world is constantly changing, along with the way people do everyday things. We are increasingly moving away from cash or even physical credit cards to pay with our phones instead.
This is why Apple Pay and other digital wallets are becoming widely adopted. Apple users are notoriously brand loyal, so once they use Apple Pay, they tend to stick to this particular digital wallet. If you don’t yet take digital wallet payments, is it time to provide that convenience to your customers and start taking them?
If you already have the proper equipment–an NFC-capable reader or terminal–then, yes, you should start taking Apple Pay. Contact your current processor, see if they can process NFC payments, and have them turn this feature on for your terminal if it’s not on already. It costs you nothing extra to process NFC payments, and you can start taking Apple Pay right away.
If you don’t have the proper equipment or your processor can’t process Apple Pay, then don’t panic. While digital payments are becoming more and more popular, it’s unlikely that your inability to accept Apple Pay will be a purchasing deal-breaker for your customers. Wait until the next cycle to replace equipment or until you have other reasons to switch processors. Then, get the right equipment and connect up. This way, you’ll be able to take Apple Pay with minimum disruption to your business.
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The vendors that appear on this list were chosen by subject matter experts on the basis of product quality, wide usage and availability, and positive reputation.
Merchant Maverick’s ratings are editorial in nature, and are not aggregated from user reviews. Each staff reviewer at Merchant Maverick is a subject matter expert with experience researching, testing, and evaluating small business software and services. The rating of this company or service is based on the author’s expert opinion and analysis of the product, and assessed and seconded by another subject matter expert on staff before publication. Merchant Maverick’s ratings are not influenced by affiliate partnerships.
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