In recent months, a few new mobile payment solutions have been introduced to allow mobiel payments from Ecommerce Web Designs.

In fact, when using one of the available services, retailers of any size — even a farmer’s market vendor, babysitter or upstart vegan donut maker operating out of a kiosk — can start selling their products to anyone with a credit card.

The three services profiled here — Square, Intuit GoPayment and PAYware Mobile — hail from experienced entrepreneurs and seasoned payment veterans, and each offers a slight variation on the same idea that you can accept payments from anyone, everywhere.

These variations, however, are significant depending on the type of business you run and the amount of transactions you plan to process. You can use the information below to help in the decision-making and merchant setup processes. Make sure to pay special attention to transaction fees, hardware costs and merchant restrictions or requirements.

Choosing the Right Service

Square: Square is a startup from Jack Dorsey of Twitter fame, which means you can expect the product to be attractive, and the service to be slick, consumer-friendly and receive regular improvements on an iterative basis. As a startup, Square lacks the powerhouse financial names attached to the other options, though it does purport to exceed industry security standards.

The actual Square card reader that you’ll be using to process credit card payments is quite small, which makes it a bit trickier to use and more fragile than the bulkier solutions that are built-in to iPhone cases.

Squares, however, are device-independent, which means they can be plugged in to any device so long as it has an audio jack — a huge advantage over the competition. The startup has already released software for iPhone and Andriod devices. Plus, right now, you can already use Square on the the iPad and process payments on a larger screen — an experience that is quite elegant in practice.

With Square, both service setup and the card reader are free, and there are no contracts or monthly minimums required. The service costs are on a per transaction basis — 2.75% plus $0.15 per swiped card and 2.5% plus $0.15 per keyed-in transaction. One downside to Square is that the service will only deposit up to $1,000 per week into your bank account, the rest is deposited in 30 days.

Intuit GoPayment: GoPayment is the result of a partnership between popular iPhone accessory maker Mophie and Intuit.

You can buy the all-in-one package, which is essentially an iPhone case with a card reader at the bottom, at Apple Stores and online for $179.99. The Mophie hardware is compatible with iPhone 3G and 3GS only, but the Intuit GoPayment software is available on a large selection of phones.

You’ll also need to pay for Intuit’s GoPayment service and set up a merchant account in order to process payments. The service is $12.95 per month (which is waived for the first two months), and you’ll also pay 1.7% and $0.30 per swiped transaction. The keyed rate is 2.7% and $0.30 per transaction. There are no setup or cancellation fees, or monthly minimums.

GoPayment also reportedly processes and authorizes payments in seconds, and funds are then immediately deposited into your business bank account.

Verifone’s PAYware Mobile: PAYware Mobile is similar in style and function to GoPayment, and you’ll need the PAYware Mobile hardware — a thick sleeve-like case for your iPhone — and accompanying iPhone application in order to begin accepting payments via credit card entry or swipe. The sleeve works with iPhone 3G and 3GS only, supports end-to-end card data encryption and comes with a stylus for signatures.

The hardware can be found at select VeriFone distributors, including Apple, which retails the PAYware Mobile Card Encryption Sleeve for $149.95. The service has per transactions similar to other providers, but rates are less concrete and vary based on criteria like type of business and risk.

Let us know what you think of this new technology?

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