February 2021 Review
Best Payment Processor Provider
Starting a business doesn’t need to be hard, or take a long time. We review a couple of market leaders and call out their strengths and weaknesses are called out below.
#1: Clover – hardware fees slightly more than Square, but lower transaction costs*
#2 Square – Higher payment costs, 2.6 (+10c) to 3.5% (+15c)
Let’s take each in turn, their functionality, costs & hardware:
Our Conclusion
They all have pros and cons. Clover is our top choice as it is the better option when it comes to setting up a POS for online or an actual business. Clover offers more flexibility, particularly when it comes to payment processing and app integrations. Clover also comes with more features,
Square, is geared towards new businesses who want to take advantage of technology, but who don’t need the all the extra capabilities and features they won’t use. It’s also slightlycheaper than Clover.
However, there are steps that Clover users can take to level the playing field when it comes to price. When you need to scale, Clovers actually end up being more affordable.
Clover offers more flexiblity because it allows you to work with other payment processors, while Square requires you to use its merchant services. Clover seems to offer more out-of-the-box features at no extra costs, which is why we liked it over Square.
Why Did We Go With Sendinblue?
Sendinblue (free monthly plan up to 300 emails per month, unlimited contacts, and Lite plan starts at $25 per month 10,000 to 100,000 emails)
We love that Sendinblue is an ll-in-one platform that will help you grow your business through building stronger customer relationships.
They can be up to 5 times cheaper for bulk emails versus Mailchimp! If you’re a high volume sender, moving from Mailchimp to Sendinblue will generate serious savings. When it comes to sending bulk email campaigns, Sendinblue is the cheaper option.
You can get more features for $0 with Sendinblue. If you’re on a budget or just starting out, you’ll be glad to know that both Sendinblue and Mailchimp offer free plans. However, the majority of Sendinblue’s email marketing features are available for free.
We found that Sendinblue is the smartest and most intuitive platform for growing businesses.
2. Mailchimp
MailChimp (Free plan up to 2,000 contacts 1 audience included and Essential plan starts at $9.99 ip to 50,000 contacts 3 audiences included)
Mailchimp’s all-in-one Marketing Platform helps you market smarter.
Whether you’re starting from scratch with CRM or bringing an existing audience into Mailchimp, connecting your favorite tools and keeping all your contact data in Mailchimp helps you stay organized and improve your marketing. Best of all, their audience dashboard will help you get to know your audience at a glance, visually showing you segments within your audience data that you can send targeted campaigns to with just a few clicks.
Create beautiful, branded emails that make you look like a pro. Engage your audience with email marketing. Whether you’re just starting out or you’re already a pro, Mailchimp’s easy‑to‑use email builder has the tools you need to grow your business.
Our Conclusion
They all have pros and cons. Sendinblue is our top choice as it is the cheaper option when it comes to sending bulk email campaigns compared to Mailchimp, also Sendinblue can work out up to 5 times cheaper per month in certain cases. MailChimp is a good second choice being an all-in-one Marketing Platform for small business with a smaller feature set, and Marketo is on our last spot due to their higher plan pricing although they have grown into a leader in marketing automation.
All of them monetise users and marketing automation, and in that regard you could start at the beginning of the list and work down to see which one suits you best.