Clover POS Review [2022]: Do Its Perks Justify the Price?

Flexible Tools for Small Businesses, With Some Hidden Drawbacks

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Regardless of industry, brick-and-mortar businesses need modern solutions for point-of-sale (POS) transactions to stay competitive. These days, a device with a sleek design, responsive interface, and high-quality security features is the bare minimum. Clover aims to go above and beyond.

Clover offers easy-to-use hardware and software for in-person and online transactions. Its intuitive systems and assortment of pricing options make it ideal for brick-and-mortar businesses with a modest online presence.

After reading hundreds of merchant reviews, taking an in-depth look at the competition, and evaluating critical features, I can say that Clover offers fantastic POS systems along with an impressive range of e-commerce features. If you’re willing to jump through some hoops, Clover POS could be the best way to give your new business a competitive edge.

That said, Clover itself is only half of the picture. To use a Clover service or device, you’ll need to set up your merchant payment services account with a verified Clover reseller. If you don’t want to deal with resellers, you can set up an account directly from Clover’s parent company Fiserv, which has a less-than-stellar reputation.

Clover is available in several countries, including US, Canada, and UK. Although its site is available in Dutch, English, French, German and Spanish, Clover’s hardware is only available in English.

Outstanding Tools That Adapt to Your Needs

Clover POS offers an array of attractive features that can benefit (almost) any business. Though the POS hardware is indeed impressive, don’t let the name mislead you – Clover POS also offers some excellent e-commerce tools.

Besides their wide functionality, Clover’s hardware and software are easy to use, offering a clean, well-designed UI. This makes Clover an ideal choice for new businesses or those looking for a solution that fits naturally into a trendy, tech-forward business.

An Impressive Hardware Range Covering All Your POS Needs $44.95

If Clover stands out for anything, it’s for its high-quality, sleek, and versatile PoS equipment. All of Clover’s terminal readers and POS systems sync to the cloud and can be powered by Clover’s software.

The available systems are:

• Go. The Clover Go is a pocket-sized credit card reader that connects to your phone via the headphone jack (for Android) or Bluetooth (for iOS). The Clover Go is the cheapest and simplest Clover system and, with offline mode enabled, it lets you take payments from literally anywhere.
• Flex. The Clover Flex is a handheld, wireless terminal with a 5″ high-definition screen. Besides being able to accept payments and run the full gamut of Clover’s apps, Flex can also print and scan receipts.
• Mini. The Clover Mini is a small, over-the-counter terminal with a 7″ touchscreen. It gives you all the functionality of Flex, allowing you to set up custom taxes and tipping options, track inventory, as well as integrate with peripherals like weight scales and kitchen printers.
• Station. The Clover Station is a full counter station with a 14″ touchscreen, receipt printer, and cash drawer. With Station, you can track employee schedules and customer contact information, create seating layouts for restaurants, and more.
• Station Duo. The Station Duo offers everything that Station offers, plus a small, Clover Mini-like customer-facing device to help you streamline payments and increase transparency with customers.

Although some resellers may have a leasing policy, your only option through Clover is to buy its devices outright – and Clover doesn’t accept returns under any circumstances.

Clover’s devices can be integrated with one another to expand your POS capabilities. Starting with the Clover Mini, your device can come pre-loaded with useful apps for your business, like table tracking for full-service restaurants and loyalty programs for retail stores.

Clover’s Software Gives You End-to-End Business Management

With Clover’s specialized software, you can extend the functionality of your POS devices even further. Clover offers custom reporting tools to help you boost your sales and identify performance weaknesses in your business. When integrated with your POS system, you can track your employees’ hours, assess inventory, and boost security by creating custom permissions.

Every POS plan comes with specialized software. And if you only need its e-commerce functionalities, there’s a software-only plan that gives you access to Clover’s virtual terminal, shopping cart, and reporting tools.

If you want to grow a loyal fanbase, Clover offers powerful tools for customer management. Your customers can earn rewards, pre-order items, and give precise feedback.

If you want to sell your products online, Clover offers virtual terminals for taking online payments. The backend is user-friendly, stored in the cloud, and secure. If your business is digital-only, you can take advantage of Clover’s partnership with BigCommerce to create a profitable online store1.

A Wide Variety of Payment Methods and Quick Payouts

All of Clover’s devices accept chipped and swiped payments from credit and debit cards. Customers can also pay using contactless payments, Google and Apple Pay, PayPal, and Venmo.

Though you can normally expect to receive a payout anywhere from 1-3 business days after a transaction is completed, you can take advantage of Clover’s rapid deposit feature. Rapid deposit gives you access to your funds in a manner of minutes in exchange for a 1% fee on each transaction.

Specialized Tools for Your Business

Clover offers a nice selection of specialized plans for different industries. The most popular of these include:

• Full-service restaurants. Create custom table layouts, open tabs, and set up bill splitting and tipping options. You can also create custom online menus and add options for pickup and delivery.
• Retail stores. Manage items and categories with custom variants, create options for item returns and exchanges, and design customer loyalty programs.
• Professional services. Create easy-to-pay online invoices, send notifications and receipts to your clients, and track the status of your invoices.

You can customize your account to accept physical and digital gift cards, offer subscription options, and integrate popular bookkeeping software like QuickBooks and Xero. Whether you’re a restaurant owner or a gym manager, the chances are Clover has the tools you need to run a successful business.

Clover Systems Are Very Intuitive, but Clover Could Offer More Assistance

When it comes to payment processing, Clover POS is an interesting case. Unlike other POS systems, all Clover POS hardware (or software) purchased directly from Clover comes with a merchant account from Fiserv, which offers credit card processing services.

That said, there’s a long list of merchant service providers that offer Clover services (we recommend Leaders Merchant Services). Though Clover equipment itself is incredibly easy to set up and use, things like setting up a merchant account, vetting, and onboarding will vary in difficulty depending on the provider you choose.

With that in mind, I’ll focus only on the systems and services offered by Clover for this section.

Getting Started With Clover POS

To start using Clover POS, all you have to do is go to clover.com and click on Get Started at the top of the page. A small pop-up window will ask you to input your ZIP code into a bar to check if you’re near a verified Clover consultant. If so, the consultant’s contact information will pop up.

Or, to contact sales directly, you can either call the phone number or click on the “Chat Now” button.

Easy and Intuitive Set-Up

Though Clover doesn’t offer personalized help for merchants like many other credit card processing companies do, it makes up for it with its user-friendly software. The virtual terminal, reporting tools, and payment gateway are all easy to set up, thanks in part to a straightforward user interface.

Even if this is your first time accepting payments, you shouldn’t have too much trouble setting up and using a Clover system. All Clover hardware comes with the necessary installation equipment (such as screwdrivers, screws, and receipt paper) and a booklet with simple and clear instructions.

A Full App Market for Your Clover Devices

You also get access to a large app market with native and third-party apps for your Clover systems. There are apps to help you screen potential employees, track working hours, offer fundraising and donation options, and more. You can install them directly from your Clover device or through your online dashboard, so you can get the apps you need as soon as you need them.

Clover Offers Great Plan Variety, but Fees Can Get Steep

One of the best things about Clover POS is its variety of plans. There are 18 available plans, divided by industry, as well as hardware and software options. Say what you will, but you can’t fault Clover for a lack of choices.

All plans are billed monthly, and you can cancel at any time, so long as you submit a notice 30 days before your cancellation date.

Except for one plan that has no fixed starting price, every plan includes a set price for hardware and software costs, a monthly fee, and processing fees for card-present and card-not-present transactions.

To give you an idea of the range of costs, here are some examples of the available plans:

• Professional Services Starter. If you’re solely interested in the virtual terminal and don’t need a POS device, the Starter plan comes without set-up, hardware, or software fees. You’ll only need to pay $14.95/month and 3.5% + 10¢ per (online) transaction.
• Professional Services Standard. If you like, you can add a Flex device to your Professional Services plan for $499 and a 2.6% + 10¢ fee per swiped or chipped transaction.
• Full Service Dining Standard. This plan includes a Station Solo and a Clover Flex pre-programmed with restaurant-specific software. The hardware costs $1,848, and the plan has a monthly cost of $89.90. You’ll pay 2.3% + 10¢ per transaction.
• Full Service Dining Advanced. At $3,497 for a Station Duo, a Solo, and a Clover Flex, plus a monthly fee of $94.85 for restaurant-specific software, this is Clover’s most expensive plan.

Though the hardware and monthly costs aren’t outrageous (on most plans), the processing fee of 3.5% + 10¢ or card-not-present transactions is a lot to pay if you do e-commerce. If you regularly process a high volume of transactions, a service like Stax that only charges a monthly fee might be your best bet.

For brick-and-mortar businesses, however, Clover POS offers attractive prices for top-of-the-line equipment. Even if it seems somewhat pricey at first, the investment is well worth it.

Plenty of Security Features, but No PCI Compliance Assistance

Clover POS’s hardware and software is fully PCI-compliant. However, Clover could offer more help for merchants trying to achieve PCI compliance. On the plus side, all Clover’s hardware/software pack some extra features to help keep your data secure.

PCI Compliance & More

On its own, Clover POS offers secure, fully PCI-compliant services, but that doesn’t mean you’ll automatically be PCI-compliant by using it. There are separate steps all merchants have to take to become PCI-compliant, and Clover doesn’t offer much help with this beyond the rather basic “PCI compliance” section on its website.

You do get the option to boost your security with Clover Security Plus, which gives you a range of additional security services, such as tokenization, a security audit, and extra help with becoming PCI-compliant. However, it’s hard to pin down the extra steps needed to implement these services, not to mention the added costs. It’s also worth noting that many merchant service providers give you these security features as standard.

Additional Security Features

Clover provides end-to-end encryption on all transactions. You can password-protect devices and, if your smartphone has the technology, you can use face and fingerprint identification to access the mobile app.

Clover’s Support Can Be as Helpful as It Can Be Frustrating

If you wish to obtain more information by reaching out to Clover, you have the option to utilize the live chat or make a phone call. These channels remain accessible between Monday and Friday, from 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m., as well as on Saturdays from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. EST.

Or at least they’re supposed to be. Whenever I tried to call support, I got a pre-recorded message that sent me to voicemail. It might have had something to do with my area code, but the fact of the matter is that as much as I tried, I never managed to talk to an actual human being.

Luckily, my experience with live chat was much better. I was quickly connected to a support representative that took full responsibility for my case. Though her responses weren’t exactly extensive, it was more than enough to address the doubts I’d expressed about signing up. Just to check, I repeated the process on another occasion and got very similar results.

One thing that annoyed me a little is that at the end of both conversations, the agents tried to make a hard sell for different Clover plans. The first time was understandable, as I had personally asked about the Clover Mini. But after sending me pricing information, the agent seemed disinterested in answering any further questions. This sales-oriented “support” was a lot more blatant the second time around, when I took care not to show special interest in any one plan.

To some extent, that was to be expected: I was contacting the sales department after all. But the fact that agents seemed keener on selling me a product than with helping allay my doubts did leave a somewhat sour taste in my mouth.