New Possibility with Square for the VERY Aggressive
 

Square has introduced a new pricing option for accepting credit card charges: a flat fee of $275/month for users charging less than $250,000/year.

https://squareup.com/pricing/per-month

That represents 1.32% if you are able to push $250K through the system in one year. You can also make it work on a monthly basis on the same terms.

I, for one, would love to buy SPG points at 1.32 cents each, and also have no problem meeting sign-up bonuses via spending.

But I won't be doing it - here are the very large obstacles I see.

-The terms of Square. This is the single biggest issue, and enough to scuttle the deal for me.

-$400 maximum charge per transaction.

-Potential tax reporting issues.

-Potential scrutiny from American Express (or any card issuer involved).

-Potential time delay to get access to your money if you immediately start charging large volumes on a new Square account.

For some, though, this could be a possibility. And if you have a business that accepts credit cards in person and gets close to $250k/year and your charges are all under $400 each, then it's a slam dunk - you should ditch your merchant account and move to this.

This is one for the super-aggressive. We've got some around here.

If not for the $400/charge limit, I'd definitely be interested for legit business purposes.

That said, for someone super aggressive with a 2% cash back card (in someone else's name obviously), it could get fun. It's an interesting business model not to price premium cards higher because the right business could cause them to lose money here. Through BoA right now, I pay 1.8 or so on regular cards, but premium cards like AX, Visa Signature, etc are 2 point something. I guess they're counting on a mix of debit and other non-premium cards...

Counting on a mix of cards, for one, and preparing to potentially lose money to gain market share also, I'm sure.

I'm a merchant also, but I'm online, and some cards can get above the 3.5% range. I can't swipe, so this could never work for me.

But another legitimate angle for a business could be to selectively use this for a portion of their charges. Anything under $400, up to $250K/year, when it's clearly not a debit card - or even debit cards if they may not hit the $250K.

Like all good shiny new internet companies, they don't mind losing money to get customers. It'll make their numbers look better when they go public and cash out.

For the uber-aggressive: Why not push the whole $250k in one month? All it would take is an aggressive cash recycle back to the card(s) - after all that would only be 625 swipes :D The only interruption I see here is the frequent discussions with the Fraud folks at both the CC issuer(s) and Square.

My Square reader is now burning a hole in my sock drawer. But first I'll need to talk to somebody who speaks fluent tax code . . .

Here is a business opportunity for the bloggers, would increase seminar attendance for sure.

+1 ^^^

Yes! Finally! An idea on FT that we all hope bloggers will devote copious resources to!

Glad I could help them out.

If you want to help them out they will need a bigger SPOON! :)

I'm confused. Isn't square just a shape like a circle? Can someone make me a step-by-step with large colorful screenshots? Do you have a referral link?

Here ya go....pretty pictures and all ^

https://squareup.com/

LOL. You forgot the big arrows and red circles. The guys who read his blog must be real idiots - it's so hard to find and click the "redeem award" link and follow the instructions without MMS' arrows and diagrams.

Out of curiosity, can one of you guys who have businesses and accept cards list the costs for some common cards (Sapphire, SPG, Amex Gold, etc.)?

this is interesting... I saw a similar discussion on fatwallet, and was going to post here,,,, but what are the odds.... someone already posted this one ;)

http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/finance/1213231/

Surprised it took 2 days for the subject to be discussed on FT.

The nice thing about FWF is bloggers don’t hang out there. The deals they post you have to be able to understand basic math. :)

It's amazingly not easy to do that. I think the card acceptance industry likes to keep vendors in the dark. They all tell you their rates for basic cards, but there's no way to plug in a six digit prefix and pull back a rate, at least no way I know of.

I can dig through old statements and look up cards and calculate it out to some extent, although that level of detail is hard to get to.

If they made it easy, then merchants, armed with information (scary word to this industry) could be preferential about giving discounts for certain cards. Show up with your Sapphire or Amex Plat, no discount. Bring me a plain-vanilla BofA Visa, fine.