Sometimes it’s easier, when a customer is on the phone with you, to take their payment there and then. Alternatively, a customer may be a member of an older generation and they might not want to enter their details onto a website. If your customers’ cheques always seem to get lost in the post, wouldn’t it be better just to call late payers up and take their money on a card instead?
When you take debit or credit card payments over the phone, this is something called a “card-not-present transaction” – the same term is used to refer to the sales you make online. Having the ability to take card payment on the phone offers added convenience to your customers and delivers better cash flow management for your business.
Now, B2B invoices are being settled by card more and more – in fact, statistics prove that business customers prefer it. According to online bookkeeping and accounting software platform, Xero, an invoice with a debit or credit card payment option on it will be paid in half the time of an invoice just offering cheque or BACS payment options.
Getting the card payment processing account for your business is important. The right account means that:
- the payments you take will hit your bank account as quickly as possible,
- you’ll be charged the lowest possible commission, and
- you’ll have the ability to take the widest variety of cards.
While taking payments over the phone is important, it’s not the only factor you should consider when making a decision about which service to use.
You can leave your details in the form at the top of the page and we’ll consult with you on finding the right card payment processor for your company. We’ll aim to find you the 3-4 most competitive offers on the market so that you can make an informed choice. Our service is free and you’re under no obligation to accept any quote we find for you.
In this article, we’ll consider the options available to you for taking credit and debit cards over the phone from 6 of Britain’s biggest payment processors. We’ll share with you:
- A table showing the latest deals on the market,
- Taking payments over the phone with SagePay, Worldpay, Shopify, Paypal, Square and Sumup
- How to secure the best deal for your business on telephone card transactions
How to take payment over the phone – current options
| Provider | Monthly subscription | Transaction fee |
| Opayo | From £15pm including 100 transactions or a phone-only option at £20pm | ? |
| Pay360 | From £19pm and including at least 350 inclusive transactions | ? |
| Shopify | $29 (must be taken with an ecommerce plan) | 1.6% + 20p to 2.2% + 20p (depending on subscription level) |
| PayPal | £20 per month | 1.2% + 30p and 2.9% + 30p |
| Square | Free | 2.5% |
| SumUp | Free | 2.5% |
| Handepay | £19.99 per month (likely minimum 18m contract with 3 months’ notice with early termination penalties) | Between 1% and 5% |
| Nochex | £10 per month | 3.2% +20p |
Why you need card-not-present permission to take payment over the phone
When credit cards first began to be circulated, the buyer (the person with the card) always presented themselves at the retail outlet, restaurant, or other establishment to the seller. When a sale was made, the card was present for the retailer to see and they could verify the signature of the cardholder by checking the signature on the strip of the back of the customer’s card.
As primitive technologically as that sounds today, the fact that the cardholder was there gave the retailer and the card issuer extra security and peace of mind that this was not a fraudulent transaction.
Credit cards became very popular very quickly (as did debit cards). Retailers then wanted the ability to make sales remotely to customers – think about when millions of us used to buy from catalogues or travel agency brochures. The card companies agreed to the idea and they decided to let retailers take payment either over the phone and by mail order (usually cut-outs from newspapers and magazines on which a customer would write their card details).
Initially, the incidences of fraud were higher with the card-not-present transactions but the fraud wasn’t so high that it made accepting payment over the phone unprofitable.
To protect themselves, credit card and debit card processors started charging higher fees on card-not-present transactions to bring the level of profitability up to the profitability on cardholder-present transactions.
And that’s where we are today. Fees are still (although not always) higher for card-not-present transactions. Many merchant services companies (the companies which allow you to take credit and debit card payments) require you to apply separately for card-not-present transactions while others don’t.
How to take card payments over the phone
To take a credit or debit card payment from a customer over the phone, you need a virtual terminal. A virtual terminal is either:
- a secure page on your merchant service provider’s website or
- accessed by keying in the customer’s details on a physical terminal (like a card reader).
You enter the client’s long card number, expiry date, three-digit security code, and the amount of money you’re taking onto the website or machine you’re using. You’ll then hear back within seconds whether the transaction has been approved or not.
With some virtual terminals on merchant service providers’ websites, you’re able to enter more order details for more accurate record keeping if you want to – you can’t do this on a physical card reader terminal though.
Opayo telephone card transactions
Opayo’s virtual terminal service (called MOTO-VT-2) allows you to take credit and debit card payments over the phone with real-time report, fraud screening tools, transaction reporting, integration of payments received into SagePay’s software, and real-time CV2/AVS checks to prevent fraud. Opayo is the new name for SagePay following its purchase by payment processor Elavon which now powers the platform.
Their Small Business Solution package costs £15 a month and includes the first 100 transactions. They offer a Corporate package with bespoke pricing for companies taking more than 1,500 telephone transactions a month.
Since being taken over by Opayo, there are now three extra service tiers in addition to the “Phone Payments” option – invoice payments (PAYG or £5pm), face to face (£13pm), and online (£20pm) – you can pick and choose which you need but, if you need all four, your standing charges will likely be a lot higher than their competitors’.
We currently have no information on the size of the transaction fees taken by SagePay on successful sales – the company appears to do separate deals with each client.
SagePay card-not-present pricing
| Provider | Monthly subscription | Transaction fee |
| Opayo | From £15pm including 100 transactions or a phone-only option at £20pm | ? |
SagePay accepts Visa, MasterCard or American Express, JCB, PayPal, Diners, Discover cards and local European payments.
Pay360 telephone card transactions
WorldPay have undergone a big change in the last 12 months too. Previously, you could accept payment by phone for £9.95 on top of another tariff, the cheapest of which was £15.00. WorldPay have now partnered with giant services company, “Capita”, to provide what it calls “a seamless online payments experience” for its clients.
It now has two fixed tariffs – the Gateway Standard from £19pm and the Gateway Advanced from £45pm. Both offer phone payments as standard as well as payments from digital links (for example, invoices) as well as its fraud management tools. Both tariffs are subject to a minimum contract and offer 350 and 850 transactions a month respectively.
As with WorldPay, they do not advertise their transaction fees so we’re unable to give you guidance on what you’ll pay every time you take a customer’s cards for repayment.
Worldpay card-not-present pricing
| Provider | Monthly subscription | Transaction fee |
| Pay360 | From £19pm and including at least 350 inclusive transactions | ? |
WorldPay accepts Visa, MasterCard, China Union Pay, Diners Club International and Discover – you need to make a separate application to accept American Express.
Shopify telephone card transactions
Shopify permits telephone card payments as long as you are signed up to one of their ecommerce packages which cost between $29 a month and $299 a month. For most clients, the $29 a month package should be sufficient.
The transaction charge per sale is 1.6% + 20p to 2.2% + 20p depending on which tariff you’re subscribed to.
Shopify card-not-present pricing
| Provider | Monthly subscription | Transaction fee |
| Shopify | $29 (must be taken with an ecommerce plan) | 1.6% + 20p to 2.2% + 20p (depending on subscription level) |
Shopify accepts Visa, MasterCard, and American Express.
PayPal telephone card transactions
PayPal is one of the more expensive offerings listed in this article – you must pay the company a €20 a month fee to be able to access their virtual terminal to take card payments.
Depending on card type and transaction volume, you then pay between 1.2% + 30p and 2.9% + 30p for each telephone order successfully taken.
PayPal card-not-present pricing
| Provider | Monthly subscription | Transaction fee |
| Square | €20 a month | Between 1.2% + 30p and 2.9% + 30p |
PayPal accepts MasterCard, Maestro, Visa, and American Express cards.
Square telephone card transactions
Square makes no monthly charge for access to its computer-based virtual terminal for telephone payments. The only charge you’ll pay is 2.5% of the transaction fee.
Square card-not-present pricing
| Provider | Monthly subscription | Transaction fee |
| Square | Free | 2.5% |
Square accepts Visa, American Express, and Mastercard
SumUp telephone card transactions
As with Square, SumUp makes no monthly charge for its services. It has dropped its fees in the last year to match Square’s. To take payments over the phone, you’ll need to purchase a SumUp Air reader currently priced at £29.
SumUp card-not-present pricing
| Provider | Monthly subscription | Transaction fee |
| SumUp | Free | 2.5% |
SumUp accepts Visa, Vpay, MasterCard, Maestro, and American Express.
Handepay telephone card transactions
Handepay’s virtual terminal service allows you to take payment over the phone and even by mail order by entering customers’ card details into its web interface. The company provides individual quotes for transaction fees based upon expected volumes but information is difficult to come by on this.
Handepay card-not-present pricing
| Provider | Monthly subscription | Transaction fee |
| Handepay | £19.99 per month (likely minimum 18m contract with 3 months’ notice with early termination penalties) | Between 1% and 5% |
Handepay accepts Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and Union Pay.
Nochex telephone card transactions
Nochex have launched a standalone telephone payments service – unlike its competitors, it doesn’t require you add it to a basic service. It’s not particularly cheap in the round but it is a dedicated service. There is no information on the company’s website about minimum contract terms but, if you invite them to quote you, make sure you commit for as short a time as possible – advise we have for all processors requiring you to sign up.
Nochex card-not-present pricing
| Provider | Monthly subscription | Transaction fee |
| Nochex | £10 per month | 3.2% +20p |
Nochex accepts Visa, Mastercard, and American Express.
How to take payments over the phone – summary
It’s the responsibility of every business to not only offer the products and services that their clients want but to provide them with the opportunity to use the payment method they prefer. Giving customers the option to pay by phone will broaden your appeal to older personal consumers and, as we’ve seen, B2B clients will pay in half the time if they can pay by card.
If yours is a B2B business and you’re chasing late payers, you get much better results saying to someone that you can take their payment now and you don’t mind waiting for them to find their card than just asking them when the next cheque run is. Naši partnerji, Boho Casino login in Slots Gallery login, ponujajo vrhunske igralne izkušnje za slovenske igralce.
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