Anna Lynn Dizon

Learn about key payment statistics around consumer preferences for speed and convenience, including a decline in cash use and an increase in mobile and contactless payments. Payment trends and technologies like buy now, pay later (BNPL) and innovations across traditional payment channels like live chat and messaging platforms have also mushroomed into the mainstream. Below,…

Point-of-sale (POS) systems that operate on iPads give small businesses robust touch-screen POS tools on affordable, user-friendly hardware. In addition to inventory tracking, vendor management, employee scheduling, and ecommerce operations, many of our top-rated iPad POS systems offer a free baseline software subscription without long-term user contracts. Based on evaluations by myself and my colleagues…

A cannabis point-of-sale (POS) system is specifically designed to seamlessly handle inventory and sales of cannabis retailers and dispensaries while staying compliant. In the cannabis sales industry, merchants are required to report their sales on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis (depending on the state), which is why compliance and automation are at the core…

The best cannabis payment processing companies have the expertise in working with cannabis state regulations. However, securing a payment processor that is compliant and also customer-friendly is one of the most challenging aspects of operating a cannabis or dispensary business. So, while most cannabis point-of-sale (POS) systems have their own payment processors, we rounded up…

As the name suggests, startups are businesses that are in their initial stages. A startup begins with one or more individuals forming a business idea to fulfill a market demand with a single, unique product or service. The goal of a startup is to develop and grow into a revenue-generating business with the help of…

Level 2 and 3 credit card processing are transaction types reserved for businesses that accept payments from other organizations (typically high-volume B2B transactions) instead of individual customers. These processing levels can save your company money—but they come with additional requirements, so you need a card processing service that can handle that additional data. We’ll explore…

A franchise is a business model in which a parent company, or licensor, grants permission to a licensee to share its business concept. The resulting business, a franchise, helps the licensor expand while retaining control over products, delivery methods, marketing, and concepts. In return, the licensee receives an established product with permission from the franchise…

Every aspiring entrepreneur should have a roadmap—a strategy for growing their business from a core idea to a profitable venture. A business model defines an entrepreneur’s overall plan for making a profit, identifying its core product (or service), target market, value proposition, and strategy for sustainability. This guide will introduce you to the basics of…

Stripe is a popular payment processor with numerous tools for selling products, services, and subscriptions online and integrating with hundreds of sales, ecommerce, and business software. Chargebee is a powerful software for managing subscription services and works with payment processors—including Stripe. Stripe is more versatile and more technical, while Chargebee does one thing—subscriptions—with easy-to-use tools…

Authorize.net is a Visa-owned company that offers one of the oldest and most trusted ecommerce payment solutions. It is a payment gateway that can facilitate virtual terminal, recurring, and virtual point-of-sale (POS) payments. Authorize.net is popular among merchants primarily for its compatibility with most payment processors and a wide variety of software. We compared Authorize.net…

Recurly is a powerful subscription management software that works with multiple payment processors. Stripe, meanwhile, is a powerful payment processor that works with subscriptions. Stripe integrates with hundreds of third-party apps—including Recurly. Both offer strong tools for invoicing, billing, and preventing the loss of subscribers because of expired cards and other involuntary reasons. Stripe does…

SumUp is an affordable mobile-first payment processor for small businesses. The payment software is free to use and there are no long-term contracts. Its range of card readers is among the cheapest, particularly the basic 3-in-1 card reader with a PIN pad that costs only $54. SumUp transaction fees start at 2.75% for in-person payments…