Clover POS Review

Pros

• Easy to set up
• Large app store and lots of integrations
• Aesthetic appeal
• Loyalty program

Cons

• Potential for scams and bad contracts
• High upfront costs
• Poor customer support

Overview

Clover POS is point of sale software that allows small to midsize retail, restaurant, and service-based businesses to take in-person payments and make online sales. Clover POS software is compatible only with Clover POS hardware.

Clover POS software is simple, customizable, and easy to set up.

Don’t know quite what type of point of sale system you need? Check out our best POS systems to find out our recommendations.

Clover POS Pricing

Clover pricing is somewhat variable. That’s because you can purchase your Clover hardware, software, and payment processing services from Clover or a Clover reseller. This is entirely different from a POS provider such as Square, which allows you to use only Square for payment processing but any hardware you like.

We rated Clover above average in this category due to various factors, including its affordable monthly software options, reduced fees on multiple registers, and interest-free hardware financing options.

In general, it’s best to purchase a Clover POS system from Clover or use equipment financing to cover the cost of your hardware. Do not lease your hardware from a Clover reseller. The monthly costs will build up to more than the value of the devices, and you want to be able to own your hardware for the long run.

Note: The following Clover software plans apply to business owners who decide to purchase their Clover hardware/software from Clover itself.

Clover now offers two software plan structures: one if you want to buy your hardware upfront and just pay monthly for software, and one if want to pay month-to-month for your Clover hardware and software together. Both plan types are reasonably priced, though they each require a standard three-year service contract.

Let’s break down Clover’s two pricing plan structures.

Pay-In-Full Clover POS Pricing

If you pay for all the Clover POS hardware on a given software pricing plan upfront (you can find hardware pricing in the “extra costs” section), you’ll only need to pay a monthly fee to use Clover POS software.

Clover offers a variety of software plans that range from $0 - $84.95/month with the free plan covering processing only.

Monthly Clover Hardware & Software Pricing

Clover also offers a monthly payment option that includes a software plan and hardware for one monthly price. This payment option is not the same as a lease, as you will own your Clover hardware at the end of the 36-month term. The devices included in each plan vary depending on the business type.

Clover POS Extra Costs & Fees

Clover Hardware

You are required to use Clover hardware if you want to use Clover POS software. You also have to buy Clover hardware upfront and in full to get a lower monthly cost.

You can get your Clover hardware from a number of Clover resellers, but if you get your hardware directly from Clover, you can by multiple proprietary hardware products ranging from $199 - $1,799 .

Clover software plans only come with one POS device subscription. If you want to add more POS devices (e.g., add a Clover Flex to your restaurant that already has a Clover Station), you’ll pay an extra fee if your devices are all in one location.

If, for example, you want to put a Clover Mini in one location and a Clover Flex in another smaller location, you’ll pay the full software fee for both devices.

Payment Processing

You also can’t talk about Clover POS pricing without discussing payment processing rates and fees. Unlike POS providers such as Square, which restricts you to only using Square to take payments and gives you flat-rate payment processing, you can purchase proprietary Clover hardware from Clover or one of several Clover resellers and get a custom payment processing rate.

If you use Clover (and parent company Fiserv, a less-than-ideal merchant services provider) as your Clover hardware provider, Clover advertises the following payment processing fees:

• In-Person Transactions: 2.3% - 2.6% + $0.10% per transaction
  
• Card-Not-Present Transactions: 3.5% + $0.10 per transaction
  

If you decide not to use Fiserv as your merchant services provider, you will need to get a merchant account and sign a merchant agreement with a reputable Clover reseller.

Read our complete guide to Clover POS costs for a full breakdown of Clover software, hardware, and payment processing costs associated with this POS provider.

Clover Apps

The last major cost you may run into is monthly subscription fees for apps on Clover’s app market. While some third-party software apps on the app market are free, others require a paid subscription.

Most Clover users download at least a few apps to give their basic Clover setup more functionality. Keep this in mind when choosing your POS provider and deciding which apps to download.

Clover POS Features

Clover earned a great score from us in the Features category, as the software includes nearly all of the features one might want in a POS. And even in cases where Clover does not include a needed feature — like, say, layaway — there are affordable options in the Clover App Market to add additional functionality.

Clover POS software has some solid built-in features, such as:

• Payments: With Clover, you can accept credit/debit cards, mobile wallets such as Google Pay and Apple Pay, PayPal, Venmo, invoice/recurring payments, cash, and checks.
• Online Ordering: All Clover merchants can create an online ordering page hosted by Clover for free. Merchants can also list their page on their Google My Business profile. You also have the option to connect Clover to an existing website if you have one.
• Inventory Management: Clover’s web dashboard has a basic built-in inventory management system with modifiers, variants, and categories. You can also choose whether you’d like to hide certain items from different sales channels. Clover will track your inventory automatically and switch items to “out of stock” when you run out of the retail item or (if you’re managing restaurant inventory) a menu item ingredient.
• Restaurant Features: Clover’s quick service and full-service software offer restaurant-specific features, such as floor planning, QR code ordering, menu management, remote order firing, open tabs, third-party delivery integrations, online ordering for pickup/delivery, and order/item-level discounts.
• EBT Acceptance: With Clover’s EBT app, you can accept EBT payments. It’s important to note that only the Clover Mini can take EBT payments since only the Clover Mini can accept PINs.
• Employee Management: Employees can get their own POS login and permissions. You can also manage shifts using Clover.
• Customer Loyalty Program: Clover allows you to create a loyalty rewards program based on the purchase amount or qualified items. Customers can earn points automatically and redeem them when they choose to.
• Gift Cards: Sell digital and/or physical gift cards through Clover.
• App Market: Clover’s App Market has over 450 apps to help you improve your Clover POS system, with everything from accounting integrations to table reservation management and appointment schedulers.

Ease Of Use

Clover is an exceptionally easy-to-use POS system, so much so that you can practically start using it right out of the box. Employee training is also a breeze using the Clover system, thanks to its app-based interface — virtually anyone who has used a tablet or iPad before should be able to grasp all the major functions intuitively.

For these reasons, Clover earned a very high Merchant Maverick rating for its ease of use.

Customer Service & Support

Clover earned a higher-than-average score from us in this category because it offers multiple channels for support, as well as an in-depth knowledgebase and other self-help materials. However, your Clover customer service experience may vary depending on your Clover provider. In fact, support for your entire POS setup will come from three different areas: your merchant services provider, Clover itself, and any third-party app developers for apps you installed in the App Market.

Clover customer support is meant to assist mainly with hardware/software issues and offers the following support resources:

• Phone Support: Clover offers 24/7 phone support, but many merchants have reported long wait times.
• Email: You may email [email protected] for any issues before or during your time as a Clover merchant.
• Knowledgebase: Clover now offers tailored knowledgebases for each merchant in their merchant portal based on their plan and hardware. These articles are no longer available to the public, which makes it hard to get an in-depth sense of Clover’s features and setup.
• Blog: Clover has a blog that’s more about how to start and grow a small business than about the system’s usage or benefits.
• Social Media: Clover has active social media accounts on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter.

Customer service for payments and merchant account issues will likely come from whichever merchant services provider you use (unless you sign up directly with Fiserv, Clover’s parent company).

For this reason, it’s important to be careful about the bank/provider you choose to buy from. Many merchant service providers will attempt to dodge calls, confuse you, or delay sending you information just to keep you stuck in a contract.

You can find information about third-party app developers’ support options in the Clover App Market and within the apps themselves.

Payment Processing With Clover POS

Clover is always sold in conjunction with a Fiserv merchant account, but these merchant accounts are sold by numerous merchant services companies and banks. That’s why there are hundreds of places where you can purchase the Clover system and an accompanying credit card processing account.

However, since Fiserv and many other Clover providers are not highly rated, we strongly recommend using only one of these best Clover resellers rather than getting your Clover account directly through Fiserv or another low-quality provider.

If you do decide to purchase your Clover hardware and accompanying merchant account directly from Clover, the company advertises the following payment processing fees with its available software plans:

• In-Person Transactions: 2.3% - 2.6% + $0.10% per transaction
  
• Card-Not-Present Transactions: 3.5% + $0.10 per transaction
  

While the in-person transaction fees are competitive, the card-not-present fees, including sales from online ordering platforms, are pretty steep.

Contract & Commitment

Contract lengths and early termination fees for Clover accounts vary dramatically since many merchant service providers offer Clover hardware and merchant accounts.

Contract lengths can span months or years, renew automatically, and be very difficult to get out of, so you really need to know how to choose a merchant service provider.

If you purchase your system from Clover directly, the standard contract is 3 years . However, you may be able to find a Clover reseller with a shorter contract or a month-to-month contract.

Clover POS Reviews

Clover POS reviews are very mixed. The negative Clover reviews can be concerning since many of them allege a lack of transparency from the company and Clover merchant services (provided by parent company Fiserv) in particular. Nevertheless, Clover does have multiple genuine customer reviews offering positive feedback, as well as impressive aggregate scores from reputable review websites. For these reasons, Clover earned an above-average overall score from us in the area of user reviews.

Clover’s ratings on software review sites are largely positive. However, some of these positive reviews may be solicited/incentivized by Clover.

Clover is not listed on the Better Business Bureau, but its parent company Fiserv has a poor rating on BBB based on 120+ reviews, many of which pertain to Clover. Fiserv has had 164 complaints closed in the last 12 months and 376 complaints closed in the last three years.

Negative Clover POS Reviews & Complaints

Clover merchant reviews bring up a few major red flags, including:

• Poor Customer Service: Reviewers report Clover’s poor, non-transparent, and frankly rude customer service.
• Lack Of Transparency: Feedback about non-negotiable contracts, hidden fees, and other surprises is also extremely common. One reviewer even called the number of hidden fees “disturbing.” The pricing, in general, is also confusing, as you must pay monthly for Clover, a merchant service provider, and any paid third-party apps.
• Cost: The upfront costs and ongoing costs of maintaining a subscription are pretty steep for many businesses just starting out. The company has also steeply increased its subscription pricing twice in the past year, which users are not happy with.
• Proprietary Hardware: Since Clover software only works with Clover hardware, you can’t take that hardware with you if you decide to switch POS providers. You also can’t test the hardware/software setup out before buying. If you’re leaning toward Clover, it’s best not to be on the fence about your decision.
• Inventory Management: Many Clover reviewers note that the built-in inventory management system is too basic to meet their needs and doesn’t properly sync between the web dashboard and POS devices.

Positive Clover POS Reviews & Testimonials

We found several positive themes in Clover POS reviews, including:

• Ease Of Use: The interface is exceptionally intuitive and modern. Users appreciated that it doesn’t bog you down with too many buttons, and the back end is accessible and well laid out.
• Fast Setup: Along the same line, multiple users liked that they could get their system up and running in minutes, and the time it takes to train new employees is minimal.
• Wide Variety Of Apps: While a few users complained about having to download apps to get certain functions, the majority appreciated how many options there were and how easily they synced to the POS software.
• All-In-One Design: Many users were happy that they could purchase all of the necessary hardware in one place and liked that Clover included everything they needed for their business.

How Clover Compares To Other POS Systems

Clover offers similar functionality, pricing, and ease of use compared to other popular cloud-based POS systems for restaurants and retail, such as Square, Lightspeed, Toast, and Shopify POS. The main difference is that any Clover hardware you purchase cannot be reused with another POS system or even with a different merchant services provider. Also, Clover does not offer month-to-month contracts like Square or Shopify POS.

Final Verdict Of Clover POS System

The Clover POS system is an easy-to-use POS system with a lot of potential in terms of customization. While the system is mostly geared toward retail shops and restaurant owners, grocery store owners may appreciate the easy EBT payment functions, home service business owners may appreciate the invoicing features, and all business owners can appreciate the variety of hardware choices Clover offers.

However, there are quite a few complaints about the Clover system, including high costs, shady contracts, awful customer service, and lots of hidden fees. These are red flags, but you just have to be careful about which merchant service provider you sign a merchant agreement with. There are also a number of reputable Clover service providers out there that will give you a fair deal and good service — Dharma Merchant Services and National Processing are examples of high-quality Clover vendors.

If you want to risk the biscuit and get a Clover POS system, here’s how to avoid Clover POS scams. If you decide that Clover is not for you, read our post on the best Clover POS alternatives.

Retail POS Review Methodology

We evaluate and test each software system that we review at Merchant Maverick, placing special emphasis on certain key software characteristics in order to generate our granular product ratings.

For retail POS software in particular, we have a 62-point rubric we use to evaluate the system in terms of its pricing, ease of use, features, and user reviews. These points are based on attributes relevant to the retail POS niche—such as the availability of features like purchase ordering, customer-facing displays, BOPIS (buy online, pick up in-store), and others.

Our rating system also takes into account attributes that are desirable for POS systems and cloud-based software in general, such as the availability of monthly pricing plans, free trials, and transparent software contracts.

The Merchant Maverick Seal of Approval 🏆

Clover POS	Visit Site

After hours of in-depth research and evaluation, we can confidently recommend this brand to our readers. Get started today and see Clover POS for yourself.

The Merchant Maverick Seal of Approval 🏆

Clover POS	Visit Site

After hours of in-depth research and evaluation, we can confidently recommend this brand to our readers. Get started today and see Clover POS for yourself.

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