For most businesses, the ability to accept credit card payments is nonnegotiable. While some make it work with only cash or checks, processing credit card payments is a crucial step for any business that wants to scale up, increase their customer base, and drive more sales. It may seem as if processing credit card payments requires a business to have a card reader to swipe, insert, or tap a customer’s card. Fortunately, there are other ways businesses can accept credit card payments without a card reader, including online and manual processing.

Below, we’ll cover alternative methods for accepting credit payments without a card reader that are fast, simple, and secure.

What’s in this article?

• What is a card reader?
  
• Accepting credit card payments without a card reader
  
• Accepting credit card payments online
  
• Manual credit card processing
  
• Keeping manual credit card transactions secure
  
• How Stripe Payments can help
  

What is a card reader?

A card reader is a device that accepts credit and debit cards as a payment method. Some card readers are attached to point-of-sale (POS) terminals for in-person transactions, while others are used with smartphones and tablets for mobile transactions. Most card readers today are equipped to accept a range of payment methods:

• Contactless payments using near-field technology (NFC)
  
• EMV chips
  
• Magnetic stripe (magstripe) swiped payments
  

For more detail about how card readers work and how they fit into a business’s overall payment setup, read our article on the differences between card readers and POS terminals.

Card readers are the standard hardware for processing customer credit card payments. They’re convenient for consumers and businesses, and they’re also more secure than inputting card transactions manually.

Accepting credit card payments without a card reader

Accepting credit card payments without a machine means processing transactions using manual entry, mobile apps, or online payment links. Although each method operates differently, they all allow businesses to accept payments beyond traditional POS systems or ecommerce checkout flows.

Here are several ways to accept credit card payments when a card reader isn’t available:

• Virtual terminals
  A web-based application that allows you to manually enter credit card details directly into your browser. This is the “digital version” of a traditional card machine, ideal for phone orders or back-office billing.

• Mobile Tap to Pay
  This technology allows you to accept contactless payments directly on a compatible smartphone. By using a Tap to Pay app, your phone’s built-in NFC chip acts as the terminal, allowing customers to tap their card or digital wallet against your device.

• Payment links
  You can generate a secure, unique URL and send it to your customer via email, text, or social media. This pay-by-link method directs the customer to a secure checkout page where they enter their own details.

• Online invoices
  For service-based businesses, sending a digital invoice with a “pay” button is often the most efficient route. These invoices integrate directly with your payment processor to automate reconciliation once the client pays.

• QR code payments
  By displaying or sending a QR code, you allow customers to scan the code with their smartphone camera, which immediately opens a secure payment form on their own device.

Accepting credit card payments online

In order to accept credit card payments online, businesses need:

• Payment processor
  If you’re accepting credit card payments in person, then you already have a payment processor, which facilitates the transfer of funds between a customer and merchant, as well as their respective banks. Full-service payment processing providers like Stripe can support you in expanding your payments setup to include online credit card transactions.

• Digital storefront
  If you don’t plan to operate your business online, you can create a simple digital storefront—a website used to showcase, sell, or manage products—for processing payments.

• Payment gateway
  A payment gateway is a digital tool that allows businesses to process and authorize customer payments online. Essentially, this is the interface where you and your customers can input credit card information to complete a transaction.

Once you’re set up to accept online payments, you can process customer transactions this way anytime you’re unable to use your card reader. For example, if your card reader acts up when trying to complete an in-person purchase, you can easily switch to an online payment with your customer. Additionally, businesses that don’t have a dedicated card reader can also use these methods to accept credit or debit card payments. While not a seamless checkout experience, it’s good to have online payments options as a back-up plan.

Manual credit card processing

Manual credit card processing involves entering card details into a payment gateway or POS terminal manually. Because of higher fees and potential security risks, it should never be a business’s go-to payment method. However, it can be a good fallback option if your card reader or website malfunctions.

Ideally, credit card transactions should be processed using a card reader or secure online payment gateway, since these methods provide more security. Sometimes, however, that might not be possible. Maybe someone spilled coffee on your payment terminal just when you were about to process a customer’s payment. Or your website is down and there’s an important credit card transaction that you need to process right away. No matter the situation, learning how to charge a credit card manually can help you deal with the unexpected.

It’s important to know that manual credit card transactions are subject to higher, card-not-present processing rates. Use them only as a back-up for when other credit card processing methods are unavailable.

Accepting credit card payments over the phone

To accept credit card payments over the phone, businesses typically use a virtual terminal, which is a secure, web-based form that allows you to manually enter a customer's card details into your payment system. If you use the Stripe Dashboard, this process is straightforward and involves creating a payment and toggling manual entry.

Historically, phone-based credit card transactions processed without a card reader are most common for restaurants that accept a high volume of takeout and call-ahead orders, but businesses of all sorts might occasionally need to complete a sale this way.

Since these credit card transactions need to be manually entered into your Stripe Dashboard and will incur higher card-not-present processing fees, it’s worthwhile for most businesses to establish a more secure, cost-effective, and efficient way to accept orders. This might mean setting up online ordering through your website and directing customers there, joining a platform like GrubHub or Instacart, or both.

Keeping manual credit card transactions secure

Security is a major factor to consider when processing manual credit card transactions. Since these purchases aren’t encrypted by a card reader, there’s a higher risk of security breaches. Unlike payments made using Stripe Terminal, Reader, and our online payments solutions, Stripe merchants are liable for fraudulent transactions processed manually.

PCI compliance is another important consideration when it comes to manual card transactions. The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) is a set of requirements ensuring that any business that processes, stores, or transmits credit card information operates as securely as possible. Businesses must be PCI compliant. This compliance is baked into the Stripe payments ecosystem. With manually keyed-in credit card transactions, a business’s ability to validate PCI compliance is diminished, which is another reason not to rely on manually processed card transactions as your primary payment method.

How Stripe Payments can help

Stripe Payments provides a unified, global payments solution that helps any business—from scaling startups to global enterprises—accept payments online, in person, and around the world.

Stripe Payments can help you:

• Optimize your checkout experience: Create a frictionless customer experience and save thousands of engineering hours with prebuilt payment UIs, access to 125+ payment methods, and Link, a wallet built by Stripe.
  
• Expand to new markets faster: Reach customers worldwide and reduce the complexity and cost of multicurrency management with cross-border payment options, available in 195 countries across 135+ currencies.
  
• Unify payments in person and online: Build a unified commerce experience across online and in-person channels to personalize interactions, reward loyalty, and grow revenue.
  
• Improve payments performance: Increase revenue with a range of customizable, easy-to-configure payment tools, including no-code fraud protection and advanced capabilities to improve authorization rates.
  
• Move faster with a flexible, reliable platform for growth: Build on a platform designed to scale with you, with 99.999% historical uptime and industry-leading reliability.
  

Learn more about how Stripe Payments can power your online and in-person payments, or get started today.