Small Business News

PayPal Officially Launches Small Business Zettle Terminal in U.S.

Domestic small businesses looking for a point-of-sale (POS) solution will now have another option. After initially debuting in Europe last year, PayPal has announced it’s bringing the Zettle Terminal to the United States. The portable touchscreen device is now available to small businesses and comes with a number of features.

As PayPal notes, the Zettle Terminal includes a pre-loaded SIM card, enabling small business owners to utilize a WiFi or cellular connection. Additionally, the Terminal has Zettle’s POS software pre-installed, which not only features payment tools but also includes inventory and reporting tools. With the Terminal, businesses will be able to accept credit cards, contactless digital payments, and PayPal or Venmo QR codes. PayPal says that, starting soon, merchants using Zettle will be able to access funds from sales in their PayPal accounts “within minutes.”

Pricing for the Zettle Terminal starts at $199, while a model with a built-in barcode scanner is $239 and one bundled with a printer and dock is $269 (or $299 with the barcode scanner as well). Alternatively, the Zettle iOS app is free to download. In terms of processing, Zettle charges 2.29% + 0.9¢ per in-person transaction. For comparison, Square’s POS currently charges 2.6% + 10¢ per transaction for in-person payments.

Announcing the stateside launch of the Zettle terminal, PayPal’s senior director of SMB Solutions Ed Hallett said in a statement, “We’re excited to roll out Terminal – our all-in-one, mobile point-of-sale solution – to small businesses in the U.S. so they can meet their customers wherever they are, more effectively compete, and grow. With Terminal, we will help SMBs sell seamlessly in person, bring flexibility to the checkout process, and enable businesses to offer their customers choice when it comes to how they want to pay.”

Elsewhere, Jilian’s Produce owner Jilian Heldt said of using the device, “Terminal is much more convenient than our previous setup… The design is beautiful, I don’t have to worry about renewing prepaid phones or charging more than one device, and I love not having a lot of cords all over the counter.”

While the Zettle Terminal itself is new to the U.S., the company does offer other POS register opinions as well. For example, Zettle’s Store Kit Mini starts at $249 for the reader, dock, and stand or $578 with a 64 GB iPad included. This option is most comparable to Square’s Square Stand, which starts at $149 sans iPad.

For those small businesses that are already in the Zettle ecosystem, the addition of this new Terminal could certainly be welcome. As for whether this option is enough to get small businesses already using a different POS solution to switch over, that remains to be seen. Nevertheless, small businesses seeking a payment platform may want to take a look at what Zettle has to offer.