More than 95% of small business owners are put off by contracts and monthly fees

A new survey has revealed that an overwhelming 97% of small business owners are put off by using card payment machines due to contracts and monthly fees.

Commissioned by the card payment app, tapeeno, the survey questioned more than 550 small business owners across a variety of sectors who cited that contracts and monthly fees were their main headache when it came to using the majority of card payment devices.

However, many felt that having card payment technology and investing in costly hardware was necessary to remain competitive with customers.

Jaime Lowe, sales director of UTP Group – the developer of tapeeno, said: “It’s true that traditional card payment technology has been extremely prohibitive for small business owners who turnover less than much larger companies and have to keep a close eye on cashflow. This is the reason we developed tapeeno – an app that can turn smartphones into a card reader without needing additional hardware and has no fixed term contracts or monthly fees.”

Small businesses of 1 to 9 employees account for more than 1.18 million of the 1.47 million operating in the UK, according to the Office for National Statistics. Figures from 2022 showed that these same businesses were also responsible for more than 34% of the UK’s turnover.

“Small businesses are an extremely important part of the UK economy, yet card payment technology hasn’t always been structured to support their unique requirements. We wanted to change this with tapeeno so that businesses turning over less than £2500 per month had a better and more flexible card payment option. There’s no upfront costs, or costs to pay while the system is not being used. Instead, customers are only charged for what they use (1.50% per transaction) and can cancel anytime.”