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Start QuizClover 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.
Total Rating | 4.3 |
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Pricing4.1 | |
Ease Of Use4.4 | |
Features4.7 | |
Customer Service4.4 | |
User Reviews3.9 |
Table of Contents
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.
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.
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.
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 |
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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 |
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.
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 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.
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:
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 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.
Here are the main negatives found in Clover Go reviews:
Amid the lackluster reviews and complaints, you’ll still find some positive reviews of Clover Go. Here is what happy users praise the most:
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.
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.
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.
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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.
Our unbiased reviews and content are supported in part by affiliate partnerships, and we adhere to strict guidelines to preserve editorial integrity. The editorial content on this page is not provided by any of the companies mentioned and has not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities. Opinions expressed here are author’s alone.
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