Top 3 Payment Software For Musicians

Cash is dead, and users worry about making large online payments via bank transfer. This is why you need a secure, reliable payment solution to help. It also helps you receive payment quickly and easily and can link into your online accounting software to help you easily record your transaction - everyone has a credit card right? 

Every band or musician should be using some sort of payment solution, but which one do you choose? We've put together this short guide to help you choose the right one, but of course please do your own research and pick the product best suited to you and your needs.

Before we get into our top three, please note POS stands for point of sale. This is the device you use to make a payment with your debit or credit card.

 

1. Square

Cost: Starting from 1.75% per transaction + £16 for POS device

We're putting Square as our number one payment gateway as it is the most popular for small businesses and used by bands and musicians using Band Pencil.

Square, is a payments system developed by Block, Inc. Square is a payments platform aimed at small businesses and allows them to accept credit card payments and use tablet computers as payment registers for a point-of-sale system.

They also offer Square Virtual Terminal so you can request online payments right from your computer.

Square Pay Pros:

• Excellent customer support
• Easy to use online software and simple to use POS that links with your phone or tablet 
• Used by thousands of small to medium size businesses so there's a lot of helpful tutorials online if you ever get stuck

Square Pay Cons:

• Some users report that it can be tricky to get up and running for the first time
• The reader can have connection issues to your phone or tablet especially if you have poor, or weak signal
• High online payment transaction fees compared to physical device (this is due to fraud prevention checks)

2. Stripe Payments

Cost: Starting from 1.4% + 20p per transaction

Stripe primarily offers a payment processing software and application programming interfaces for e-commerce websites and mobile applications. If you've made a payment on the internet, there's a strong change this was done through Stripe and you probably won't even know.

Stripe offers an amazing tool called Instant Payment Links where you can input an amount and send it to your client, they click the link and pay through Stripe's secure Checkout page.

Stripe is so secure and user friendly, we (Band Pencil) have built an integration to their payment API so you can accept payments automatically through the Client Portal. We'll even send you and the client a receipt when the payment has been processed.

Stripe Pros:

• Low processing fees - their processing fees are very competitive and are some of the lowest on the market
• Support - their support is 24/7 and will respond to your query in minutes via chat, phone or email

Stripe Cons:

• Stripe is built for developers - it can be a little confusing as they offer so may products, but there's loads of helpful online tutoriatals online to help!
• Currently, there is no natively integrated POS device

3. Sumup

Cost: 1.69% per transaction + £29 for the card reader

Sumup makes it easy to getting paid quickly and hassle free. You can even add your services to easily invoice the client. Sumup is one of the original no frills payment processor which has been around since 2011. It attracts businesses due to its low processing fees and free point of sale software. 

Sumup Pros:

• Small and portable POS device
• Affordable transaction fees
• Easy to use

Sumup Cons

• Provided accounting system is a little too basic to help submit tax returns
• No evening helpline and users report issues with customer support 
• Limited integrations unlike Square and Stripe

 

How can Band Pencil help? Band Pencil allows you to manage your gigs online and connect your musicians and clients together. We have a system to manage your finances and create and request online payments through Stripe. Although we will not replace your POS device, we help musicians and band leaders accept payment online. Check out our online invoicing and online payment solutions.