Challenge

Founded in 2014, Podium began by enabling small- and medium-sized businesses to communicate with customers and collect positive reviews via text. The company focussed on verticals such as retail, healthcare, home services, auto repair, property and professional services that prioritise building trust and loyalty through customer communication.

Early on, Podium often saw new businesses using risky payment practices – for example, credit card numbers being taken over the phone or written down. With the help of Stripe, Podium began offering these companies tools to get paid quickly, easily and securely. Its Podium Payments platform runs on Stripe Connect and supports a range of payment options, including Payment Links and Stripe Terminal, which allows businesses to accept in-person payments.

Over time, Podium partnered with Stripe to enhance the tools it offered to drive local businesses' success. The platform adopted local payment methods and Affirm, which lets shoppers pay in instalments. Podium also began offering financing through Stripe Capital, allowing its businesses to access funds quickly, with a simple repayment process.

Podium then sought to enhance its line-up of inexpensive, convenient and reliable payment collection tools for the thousands of businesses taking payments in the field, which led to its partnership with Stripe to implement Tap to Pay on iPhone.

Solution

In 2023, Podium partnered with Stripe to adopt Tap to Pay on iPhone, a contactless payment acceptance solution that's easy to integrate using Stripe Terminal. Tap to Pay on iPhone fulfilled Podium's mandate: businesses would be able to accept in-person payments – from physical debit and credit cards to Apple Pay and other digital wallets – right on their iPhones, with no extra hardware support needed. Tap to Pay on iPhone uses the iPhone's built-in features to help keep business and customer data private and secure. When a payment is processed, Apple doesn't store card numbers on Apple servers.*

To alert its businesses about the availability of Tap to Pay on iPhone, Podium communicated through in-app notifications, banners on its platform, email and other forms of direct outreach. The platform also decided to discontinue the "buy one, get one free” promotions it had been offering for card readers as a way to underscore the cost effectiveness of Tap to Pay on iPhone and encourage adoption. For Podium's businesses, the cost benefits of Tap to Pay on iPhone were appealing. For example, they'd see substantial savings from not having to invest in extra hardware – including future expenses to repair broken units or replace lost ones. Additionally, enabling employees to collect in-person payments on their iPhones would improve cash flow and eliminate time spent on invoicing and chasing down money owed.

"The ability to just pull out your iPhone is huge for our customers,” said Tyler Roberts, senior payments manager for Podium. "Not having to maintain other hardware makes it a lot easier for the business and their employees, and a lot more efficient.”

Results

Tap to Pay on iPhone usage on Podium grew by 4,400% in seven months

Tap to Pay on iPhone usage grew by more than 4,400% in the first seven months after its introduction. Additionally, since the rollout of Tap to Pay on iPhone, overall mobile payment usage (including Tap to Pay on iPhone, Stripe Reader M2 and BBPOS Chipper 2X card readers) has increased by over 260%.

It's proving popular not just with service-oriented businesses – the top three verticals using Tap to Pay on iPhone are HVAC/plumbing; blinds, shutters and window treatments; and medical spa.

"We see Tap to Pay on iPhone use not only in the field, but also in retail, and especially in relationship-based retail settings like jewellery, where you might want to work with one person,” said Thomas Mancuso, senior director of partnerships at Podium. "That retail employees can now just pull out their iPhone and make the transaction less complicated.”

Podium implemented Tap to Pay on iPhone quickly, with just one engineer

As an early adopter of Tap to Pay on iPhone, Podium wondered whether implementation would require substantial resources. The team was relieved when just one engineer was able to build it on the back end in less than a month by adding a few lines of code.

Tap to Pay on iPhone reduces business onboarding from hours to minutes

A major factor driving the popularity of Tap to Pay on iPhone is its ease of implementation and use, especially in comparison to card readers. "When my team has gone on-site to get businesses enabled on card readers, it can take several hours to get 20 to 30 technicians all individually set up,” said Roberts. "With Tap to Pay on iPhone, we can get that many people set up in about 20 minutes, with no extra hardware required. Even better, once Tap to Pay on iPhone is live, support issues are rare.”

Using Tap to Pay on iPhone increased payments by US$40K in one month for Podium Business Icon Golf Carts

Golf cart maker Icon Golf Carts previously relied on manual entry of payment details, resulting in slow transactions, high processing fees (at card-not-present rates) and excessive fraud risk. Switching 18 employees to Tap to Pay on iPhone lowered costs, sped up transactions and improved reliability. In just one month, Icon Golf Carts processed US$40K more in payments than it did with manual entry.

Ability to collect payments in person improves cash flow for Podium customers

Invoicing customers after providing a service or delivering a product and then waiting for payment – for weeks or even months – can be challenging for many local businesses. Using Tap to Pay on iPhone has helped businesses served by Podium to close those payment gaps.

High-end home furnishings seller Woodbridge Furniture found that Tap to Pay on iPhone vastly improved its success rate for collecting payment. "Woodbridge's delivery team formerly relied on manual entry or sending invoices later, resulting in delays, unpaid invoices and customer friction,” said Roberts. "Since switching to Tap to Pay on iPhone, Woodbridge has seen a huge increase in payments at delivery, which has improved cash flow and reduced the need for manual follow-ups.”

Tap to Pay on iPhone drives new business for Podium

According to Podium's sales team, offering Tap to Pay on iPhone improves the company's chances of scoring appointments and draws attention at trade shows, resulting in opportunities to introduce the full Podium platform to prospects.

"Tap to Pay on iPhone is one of my favourite features to pitch at Podium because people don't believe you when you tell them about it,” said Roberts. "They'll say, ‘I think I heard that wrong – did you say I can take payment on my iPhone? How does that work?' It's fun to experience that ‘aha' moment.”

*Encrypted card numbers are temporarily stored on iPhone only for transactions made in Store and Forward modes.