Top 3 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Lease Your Credit Card Processing Equipment. 1) Paying more in the long run. Most lease options run for a total of 48 months (4 years) so if you are paying $39.95/month then you end up paying a total of $1917.60 over that 4 year period. You could have saved yourself a lot of trouble by just paying for the credit card processing equipment outright at a price of $300 - $700. 2) Commission checks are nice and fat. Not for you but for the person that leased that equipment to you. Why do you think they push the lease option on you? The sales rep makes a bigger commission for having you to lease the equipment than to purchase it outright. In defense of “some†(I hope the majority) sales reps, sometimes they don’t have a choice because the merchant account provider has the price of the equipment so high that the only option is for the business owner to lease the equipment. I’ve been in a similar situation. The company that I was selling for sold what they called, “state of the art†equipment, which ran for $1k and up. If I wanted to eat I had no choice but to offer the leasing option. That’s exactly why I’m not with the company now; I was hurting my clients and probably ruining my reputation. 3) They own you. When you don’t own your equipment, your merchant account provider or leasing company owns you. There are so many leasing terms in place that if you don’t pay close attention to them you could be penalized heavily. Some leasing agreements aren’t “lease to ownâ€. Imagine paying almost $2k after 4 years only to find out that you still don’t own the equipment. Penalties will occur due to early termination and hefty buyout fees can occur at the end of the lease. Some start over at the end of their term, and the business is given only a small period of time to opt out of the lease. In closing, I truly don’t condone leasing but there are times when a business owner is not in a position to pay for the credit card terminal up front. This may be due to the business being a start-up or other financial factors may be involved. Things do happen, and I understand that, but… At the end of the day, buying your credit card equipment is absolutely the best option. You don’t need brand new equipment to process credit cards. All you need is the terminal and pin pad and you’re in business.
Leasing might have been a good solution back in 1979, when simple credit card swiping equipment was outrageously expensive. In the present however, it doesn't make sense to lease a simple credit card reader when you can just buy one for $300, or even get one for free with service from a legitimate bank. Read more about this at: http://www.merchantpointofsale.com