Clover Go App & Card Reader Review

Pros

• Inexpensive hardware
• Free mobile processing app
• Good web dashboard
• Numerous features

Cons

• Limited pricing disclosed online
• Expensive for low-volume merchants

Clover Go Overview

At first glance, especially nowadays, it might be tempting to assume that Clover Go is pretty much like every other mobile POS (mPOS) app out there. It’s even got integrations with a full-fledged POS system (Clover Station), making it sound, at least on paper, like a pretty viable competitor to Square. Bring your smartphone or tablet, install the free app, then connect a card reader. Pretty simple stuff, right?

Scratch the surface, though, and you’ll discover there’s a lot more to Clover Go. Not all of it is good, such as the limited pricing disclosures online and the total inconsistency from one processor to the next. Plus, you may have to pay a small premium to access features that even bad mPOS apps provide for free. A kind way to put it is that Clover Go wants to be like all the other mPOS apps out there, and First Data (now Fiserv), which ultimately sells all of the Clover software, hardware, and payment processing services, wants you to think that Clover Go is like Square or any other mPOS app. Unfortunately, it’s not.

Tackling this review was challenging because, with most mPOS products, the software and the processing come bundled together. It’s easy to treat them as one product. Most are also third-party processors, which often leads to concerns about account stability. Clover Go is different:

• First, because Fiserv backs the entire Clover line, you are getting a proper merchant account. That will give you more account stability. However, it may come with a different assortment of headaches, depending on whom you sign up with.
• Second, because Clover Go is available through Fiserv’s (somewhat extensive) network of resellers, meaning payments and software aren’t neatly bundled. Prices and contract terms can and do vary from one seller to the next.

So how do you effectively evaluate an offering such as Clover Go, knowing that there’s so much variance? Assessing the software alone ignores a major component in the merchant experience, and I feel that would be misleading.

I’ve opted to look at the software objectively and evaluate its quality. But I will also discuss the onboarding process for merchants through Fiserv and a handful of other resellers (where the data is available) because you need to understand how to avoid the pitfalls.

As with many mobile processing options, Clover Go isn’t for everyone. If you’re already using Clover products and need a mobile extension, it’s the obvious choice. However, if you’re a micro-merchant who only processes infrequently and in low volumes, I strongly encourage you to look elsewhere. Clover Go is not a good product for you.

If you process credit cards consistently and have at least a moderate monthly volume (above $3K/month but preferably above $5K/month up to about $10K), Clover Go might be more up your alley, but you should be wary of whom you sign up with.  

Read on for my full review, or go check out our top-rated mobile payments providers! And if you’ve ever used Clover Go, please leave us a comment telling us about your experience with it!

Products & Services

You get a full merchant account with Clover Go, which should deliver greater account stability than third-party processors (such as 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.

The Clover Go feature-set is limited but functional, with some features tucked behind a paywall. Even with the higher-level features, such as the ability to add tips and item categories, it is not exactly appropriate as a standalone register for a retail or foodservice business. However, if you only need a card reader that works with your phone or tablet, Clover Go will get the job done.

Features include:

• 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, either by selecting them from your inventory list or entering a custom item and price and have 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 for some reason, 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 do such things as update your business details, add employees, and view weekly sales data.
• Inventory: What does set 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. Clover Go, on the other hand, has a separate, searchable inventory mode that lets you view and edit items as well as add new items. What I dislike most about this feature is that the fine print is hidden — it’s only available with the “Register” plan, which may cost you more, depending on your processor.
• 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 if you want, 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: Enable tipping within the web dashboard, and you can set 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.
• Refunds: You can issue full and partial refunds from within the app.
• Email/SMS Receipts: When a transaction is complete, send a text message or email receipts to customers. Extremely standard stuff here.
• 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 “Register” level plans (vs. the cheaper “Register Lite” 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: Unavailable on previous versions, 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 to create new percentage- and value-based discounts on the fly. However, you can only add discounts to the entire order and not to 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.

Many features need to be enabled from within the browser setup and cannot be modified in the Clover Go app, which will undoubtedly be a source of frustration for some users — especially those who work primarily with mobile devices. Even more frustrating, tax rates on items need to be set when you create the item in the system; you can’t override them with another tax option later. I do not like this one bit. It’s inefficient, for starters.

Clover claims that the web dashboard is mobile-optimized, but you still have to leave the app, log into the site, make changes, log out of the site, log out of the app, then log back into the app. If you or an employee are already in an area with a poor signal (it happens a lot more often than you’d think), that could mean a very long process to make a change. To me, this is a pretty serious shortcoming. A standalone mobile app should be standalone — you shouldn’t be reliant on the web dashboard for something as simple as setting tax rates.

That also means you’re going to have to do a lot of prep work to get the Go app functioning according to your preferences before you can use it. And even then, you won’t get the same kind of flexibility you can get from almost any other mobile app out there.

I think that, for the most part, this is a solid feature-set. There are some surprising features, such as the searchable interface and open orders, but the overall feature-set accessible from the app is somewhat basic. And some aspects of the interface and controls are just completely counter-intuitive.

Clover Go System Requirements & Compatibility

The Clover Go app and reader work with most iOS devices. Android compatibility is spotty, and I’ve seen some complaints that even newer, high-spec phones (such as Galaxy 9) aren’t compatible or don’t function well. I guess it’s no surprise, then, that the Clover card reader is being sold in Apple Stores and not somewhere like Walgreens or Staples.

Here is the list of Clover Go compatible devices:

• Your iOS version is 10.3 or higher (iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch)
• Your device is Bluetooth 4.0 (BTLE) enabled
• You have Android version 5.0 or higher
• You are not using Windows Phones or Amazon devices
• Your device is not a jailbroken or rooted device

Clover Go Hardware

The EMV-compliant Clover Go chip card reader is similar to Square’s model, albeit larger and clunkier. Clover Go connects via Bluetooth and handles both swiped and dipped transactions as well as contactless NFC transactions.

A micro USB port allows for charging of the reader’s battery, which lasts 100+ chip card dips, or 200+ magstripe swipes, or seven days in standby mode, according to Clover’s estimates.

It’s not the slickest design out there, but the Clover chip reader does have contactless and Bluetooth, which are big marks in its favor. Unlike Square, it also supports swipe transactions in the same device, so you won’t have to pull out the headphone jack reader. There’s even an optional tabletop charging dock available for it, which is good. However, the dock is just as clunky as the readers and, really, the rest of the Clover hardware. There’s something that’s very 80’s-ish about Clover’s hardware designs, and it’s hard not to notice when you look at as much hardware as my coworkers and I do. But at least the equipment mostly seems to work, so I will complain about the dated designs but not mark Clover Go down for it.

Clover Go doesn’t support a receipt printer or cash drawer connectivity, 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 PayPal Here or Square. You can connect an Air Print- or Google Print-enabled printer, but those will need your standard computer printer paper.

The cost of the Clover credit card reader depends on the reseller. I’ll talk a little more about that in the Clover Go Fees & Rates section.

The app is also compatible with an older, uglier Clover Go card reader (for magstripe and chip card payments only) that connects via something you may remember from a few years ago called a headphone jack. I kid, but yeah, you don’t have one of these unless you have an older phone. However, these older Clover Go models aren’t widely available anymore.

Integrations

One of the major selling points for Clover’s systems is the app marketplace, which can extend the functionality of your POS in all sorts of ways, from adding customer loyalty to CRM and engagement.

There you’ll find dozens of special-feature apps from Clover and third-party developers. Unfortunately, very few apps currently work with Clover Go aside from those that function only on the web. In theory, you could use some of them because Clover Go syncs to the web dashboard. But it leads me back to the idea that Clover doesn’t stand well on its own. You are very reliant on that web dashboard because of how limited the app itself is.

And if you want a QuickBooks integration (or Xero), that’ll cost you a minimum of $19.95/month. I’ve seen this come up several times in complaints about the Clover suite on the whole.

Clover Go Fees & Rates

Both Clover Go fees and pricing varies, depending on the reseller that sets up your account. Shop around, do your homework. Make certain you are getting the best rate and fairest terms. That means flat-rate or interchange-plus pricing and a month-to-month agreement with no monthly fees.

Generally, we recommend getting your Clover Go from Clover directly. Or, if you’re interested in Clover Go as an add-on to your existing Clover POS system, you should be able to get it from your Clover provider. In addition to Clover, our recommended Clover resellers also provide fairly reasonable rates and fees.

As follows are the Clover Go rates, prices, and features you’ll get if you buy it with either of Clover’s pricing plans.

Register Lite Plan

• $9.95/month
• 2.7% + $0.10 for in-person transactions
• 3.5% + $0.10 for keyed-in transactions
• Includes:
  • Credit card (including chip card) acceptance
  • NFC acceptance
  • Cash tracking
  • 24/7 phone support
  • Offline mode
  • Paperless receipts
  • Onscreen signatures and tips
  • Discounts
  • Refunds
  • Employee permissions and management (payroll, shifts)
  • Charge tax at the item level
  • Export basic reports (sales, tax, payroll)
  • Liability protection up to $100,000 in the event of a data breach
  • Track sales with item-level reporting

Register Plan

• $39.95/month
• 2.3% + $0.10 for in-person transactions
• 3.5% + $0.10 for keyed-in transactions
• Includes all features of Register Lite plan, plus:
  • Exchanges
  • Pre-authorize credit cards (for bar tabs, reservations)
  • Send orders to kitchen printer or other stations
  • Add gratuity to checks
  • Table management
  • Robust inventory management (items, categories, modifiers, and variants)
  • Integrate with a weight scale
  • Build your mailing list automatically
  • Create a simple, custom loyalty program

Clover recommends the Register Lite plan to businesses processing less than $50K/year in credit card sales while recommending the Register plan to businesses processing more than $50K/year.

As you can see from our plan comparison, the Register plan has more restaurant-centric features than the Lite plan does. The Register plan also has a lot of other features that are only available for the Clover Flex, Mini, and Station. Some of these include robust inventory management, loyalty, a customer feedback portal, and others. Even the Lite plan has some features that aren’t accessible from the Clover Go app, including item-level reporting and access to many apps on the Clover app store. So it only makes sense to get a Clover as an add-on to an existing Clover system, particularly when it comes to the more expensive Register plan.

Additionally, some vendors sell Clover Go with a flat rate and no monthly fee, though it’s not clear which features are included. As a notable departure from Fiserv’s typical way of doing business, you can also buy Clover Go’s all-in-one Bluetooth reader at Apple Stores and sign up for an account online. When you do this, the Apple site advertises the flat-rate pricing of 2.75%.

Similarly, Bank of America advertises a flat rate of 2.7% for Clover Go (though we generally don’t recommend BofA).

These flat-rate pricing schemes are comparable to those of Square, PayPal Here, and most other mPOS providers. However, there’s no mention of monthly fees, monthly minimums, contract length, or early termination fees — or a lack thereof. This is a fairly recent development, so I think it’ll be a while before we get any clear data on how well this works for Fiserv or merchants. There’s also no mention of which features the flat fee includes.

Many banks have partnered with Fiserv to offer merchant solutions, so you’ll find institutions such as PNC and, as mentioned, BofA, hawking the system and often promising next-day deposits into accounts you open with the bank.

However, beware of these offers because banks usually have very little value to add as resellers. You’d be better off going to Clover directly. Keep in mind that if your business grows and you need additional hardware or services, you could wind up with an expensive contract and a terrible deal on hardware leases, depending on where you buy your Clover system. You’ll also want to check on what any Clover reseller you’re considering charges for the “Register” plan if you plan to use the inventory features.

Clover Go Hardware Pricing

Clover Go costs for hardware varies based on where you get it from. Some merchant account providers, such as National Processing, will even give you a free Clover Go reader if you sign up with one of their merchant accounts to use with Clover. Of course, a free reader worth $70 isn’t, by itself, a good reason to sign up with a merchant services contract. (If you’re interested in learning about free credit card reader options, check out our article, The Best Free Credit Card Readers For Small Businesses.)

Here are some prices the Clover Go reader is offered at (for the all-in-one Bluetooth reader and a charging cable; the optional charging dock is extra):

• From Clover.com: $69.00
• From Apple Store: $39.95
• Bank Of America: $89.99
• National Processing: Free with account
• Dharma Merchant Services: $139.00 (Dharma also sells the old basic reader for $99.00)

Clover Go isn’t compatible with any external hardware except AirPrint- or Google Print-enabled printers. When they’re in range, you can print receipts with them.

Clover Go pricing is all rather confusing, isn’t it? That’s one of the things I’m not too crazy about regarding this system: the lack of pricing consistency or transparency.

The Best Clover Service Providers

Sales & Advertising Transparency

Signing up with Clover is not unlike navigating a minefield, and I’m only being slightly overdramatic.

Transparency varies according to your reseller. Some do better than others. (I’m going to say that a few more times still. I apologize now.) Let’s first start by talking about Fiserv and Clover.com since those are the direct channels for signing merchants up.

The First Data/Fiserv site has zero information about pricing on it. This is likely because resellers offer different terms, and even Fiserv customizes pricing based on the business. Still, I think Fiserv could do much better in this department, especially since it can disclose pricing for its readers sold in the Apple Store, Clover.com, and elsewhere. On the positive side, Clover.com has become more transparent about its pricing in recent years and has moved away from long-term contracts in place of more transparent, month-to-month pricing.

However, I do not like that Clover doesn’t offer a publicly accessible demo. With mobile POS systems, I believe that you should be able to try before you buy, which is one of the reasons that pay-as-you-go processors have thrived — there’s no commitment and no investment before you can use the service. I know that’s not how most big processors work, but you should tailor the product to the market. Even more video tutorials about how to use Clover Go features would go a long way. But you really won’t know if you’ll like Clover Go until you’re already signed up and using the service. Depending on your processor, you may not be able to back out if it doesn’t work for you.

As far as social media goes, Clover has a Facebook page that’s fairly active and filled with actual useful information, which is always nice to see. I’m also happy to see that there seem to be very few complaints about the service on the Facebook page, and when they do come up, Clover responds with helpful information. (I just wish that were true of other channels.) Clover’s Twitter account is also active, though it does not have a dedicated Twitter support feed. This is at odds with most other companies — but it makes sense given that there’s an extensive network of resellers that are the first line of support for their clients.

I will say that Clover is turning out some interesting educational and promotional tools on its blog and seems to have a solid grasp of what is required to market to small businesses. And that is important — a company that doesn’t understand how to reach small businesses has no business providing services to them. Clover gets a point for understanding digital marketing and the importance of informative resources. It’s just not enough to overcome the complete lack of pricing or information about contract terms.

Unfortunately, you need to be on your guard as you look for a merchant account provider with Clover Go. You do not want to end up paying an early termination fee. And you don’t want to overpay for mobile processing with expensive per-transaction fees and monthly service plans. You should read every piece of communication, every document, every web page, and every statement with care because odds are there is going to be some fine print somewhere.

Contract Length & Early Termination Fee

Your terms depend on your reseller. If you use Clover Go as a standalone, some providers will include a multi-year contract with an early termination fee, while others will allow you to go month-to-month. 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 and hardware lease.

For this reason, it is imperative that you review your contract and pricing terms carefully when setting up a Clover Go account. You may even be able to negotiate a waiver for the ETF — just make sure you get everything in writing and signed. Verbal agreements aren’t enforceable. We’ve read far too many complaints from merchants who were told by a sales rep (from many different companies) that their contract had no ETF, only to find out that’s not the case.

That kind of nonsense is a major reason why I don’t think Clover Go is a good starter option, and I don’t think it’s a good option if you plan to scale up your business, either. Even if, like Clover.com, more and more resellers offer Clover Go with minimal contract terms, those resellers assume that when you’re ready for more services and tools, you’ll stick around and sign more agreements with them. Fiserv and its resellers have a problematic history of charging early termination fees and hidden fees in their processing contracts. And that’s not even getting into the problems with First Data Global Leasing’s program for Clover products. (Short summation: Don’t do it. Just don’t. Buy outright instead.)

So signing a new contract with a reseller — or even with Fiserv itself — could lock you into a processing agreement that is both expensive and difficult to escape from. And there are many reports of dubious customer service.

It’d be very nice to see a bit more consistency here, both in the experience across resellers and across the Clover platform.

Some processors do offer favorable terms for merchants who need Clover Go so long as you’re willing to put in the effort to track them down. Don’t settle for the first quote you get. But be aware that signing up for Clover Go isn’t a good way to judge what signing up for the full Clover suite will be like.

Customer Service & Technical Support

Clover offers 24/7 phone support, which is a beneficial thing that not all payment processors provide.

You won’t find customer support for Clover Go on the First Data/Fiserv site, however. Instead, you need to head over to the Clover.com site. While the support number for most Clover products depends on “your merchant account,” as Clover puts it, there is one dedicated 24/7 line for Clover Go support.

You can also email with queries, but there’s no information about response times.

You can also typically reach out to your processor for merchant account questions. However, for technical questions, you’re certainly going to get referred back to Clover’s support line.

The good news is that Clover has a pretty comprehensive self-service online knowledgebase for basic tech support. This will serve you well for the vast majority of questions about features and standard uses. You won’t have to contact anyone to get help with setting up your Clover account and get the app running, in theory.

Clover Go Reviews, Complaints & Testimonials

Negative Reviews & Complaints

There is no separate BBB complaint page for the Clover software, and the First Data/Fiserv complaint page has too many entries to sort through effectively. It’s not clear how many of these complaints relate to the Clover software. After looking over a sampling of recent BBB complaints, I found that few of them mention Clover in general, and almost none mention Clover Go.

However, we know that Clover has about 500,000 merchants (it announced at the end of 2016 that it had shipped its 500,000th Clover device), a respectable number of clients for a company that only launched in 2014.

A better source of information is mobile app reviews. The Clover Go app has over 1,700 ratings on the Google Play app store, with 4.2 stars out of 5.  Clover Go has a more impressive 4.7 stars out of 5 on 3,400 reviews in the iTunes app store.

I also want to point out that Bank of America has its own version of the Clover Go app, with a 4.4-star rating on about 597 reviews in Google Play and a 4.6-star rating on about 1,100 reviews in iTunes.

Clover has had seven complaints filed against it with the BBB over the past 12 months. This represents an uptick in complaints against Clover, as the prior two years did not see any complaints filed against Clover with the BBB.

You’ll also find a smattering of complaints about Clover and Clover Go across the web. Here’s what I’ve seen overall as far as frequency of complaints in Clover Go reviews:

• Card Reader Troubles: This is an especially common complaint among Android users. Specifically, users seem to have trouble with the standard headphone jack reader connecting 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 a lot of tablet display stands.
• Glitchy Software: App crashes and login problems are common and not surprising for 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 with more frequency 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 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, and that 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.

Clover seems to want to treat the Go app as an extension of its other products and therefore tends to treat testimonials for one of its more popular products as representative of the whole. Finding other, genuine testimonials apart from app store reviews is hard. And most of the 5-star reviews don’t explain why they like the app. There’s a lot you could speculate about here, but nothing I can say with any sort of confidence.

Final Verdict

I have some pretty strong opinions about Clover Go. The software is well-rounded overall, and it has everything merchants need. The account stability you get with a merchant account is a big draw. But some aspects of it — such as needing to modify settings in the web dashboard, not the app — drive me bonkers! And you can certainly get better feature-sets from other providers.

That would be fine if Clover Go could compete in other regards, such as pricing or transparency. But pricing for both processing and the hardware is inconsistent and rarely disclosed upfront. Your experience will vary quite a bit, depending on with whom you sign up.

There are hints that Fiserv wants to treat Clover Go as a standalone product like other mPOS options out there. Selling the readers in the Apple Store is a big step toward that. However, the lack of standardization in pricing and contract terms makes it hard to compete.

It’s also pretty clear that Clover Go is meant to be an extension of the Clover system, despite its limitations. And that’s why I can’t say that Clover Go is a solution that will grow with your business. Merchants who upgrade from Clover Go to another Clover product will be dealing with some major transparency issues, problematic and expensive leases, and expensive processing contracts.

Very small and just-starting-out businesses really shouldn’t be considering Clover Go. I think you will be better served by Square (read our comparison of how Square stacks up against Clover Go) or even PayPal. They’re both very friendly to new businesses, especially ones that process inconsistently. They’re not perfect, but the benefits far outweigh the drawbacks. Plus, they will grow with your business.

If you’re sure your business will grow and you might need a full-fledged POS or online processing in addition to your mobile capabilities, please don’t pick Clover Go. At best, it’s a stopgap until it’s time to shop for something better. There are much more reliable, consistent, and transparent options for both POS systems and online payments, and many of them will work with other mPOS options.

So that leaves me with the two major categories that Clover Go might be good for, one being mid-sized businesses that only need mobile capabilities and are mostly concerned with stability, and second, businesses that are already using Clover. In both cases, I can say that, yes, Clover Go might be a good solution for you. But at the same time, you can do better. I promise.

All things considered, I can’t give Clover more than 3.5 stars. If it would do some major work in the transparency category, that could change. Some more improvements to the user experience, such as more in-app controls, would also help. If you have your heart set on Clover Go and you’re aware of the pitfalls, I think you’ll be okay. But that’s no reason not to demand more from any processor. You have lots of options, and I encourage you to explore them!

You can start by checking out our top-rated mPOS options, including the budget-friendly, feature-rich Square. Plenty of our top-rated merchant account providers offer mobile capabilities as part of their packages, too. Payment Depot Mobile (SwipeSimple) is another merchant account alternative that provides good stability.

If you are determined to use Clover Go, we recommend you get it through Clover.com directly or from another of our recommended Clover resellers.

Do you have experience with Clover Go? Leave us a comment and let us know what you think!

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