If you have an Android phone in your pocket, you are probably already carrying everything you need to take a card payment. The NFC antenna that lets you pay with your phone can also work in the other direction, and read somebody else’s card.
Here is what that actually requires, and where it genuinely replaces a reader.
What you need
An Android phone with NFC
Almost every Android phone sold in the last several years has NFC, which is the same chip that powers Google Pay. If your phone can pay contactlessly, the hardware side is already answered. Providers generally ask for a reasonably current version of Android, because the security requirements for accepting a card are stricter than for presenting one.
An app from a payment provider
You cannot take a card with the phone alone. You need an app from a provider that supports contactless acceptance on Android, connected to a merchant account in your business name.
An approved merchant account
This is the part people underestimate. Taking card payments means being underwritten, which is a real approval process rather than a signup form. It is also why "instant" signups sometimes freeze funds later: the underwriting happened after the money started moving rather than before.
Your Android phone is the card reader.
No hardware, no contract, and $0 a month. Book a short demo or get set up today.
How a payment actually works
You enter the amount in the app. The customer holds their contactless card, phone or watch against the back of your phone, near the NFC antenna, which on most Android handsets sits in the upper middle of the back. It reads, it approves, it is done. For larger amounts the customer may be asked for a PIN, which the app handles on screen.
The whole thing takes about as long as a contactless payment in a shop, because it is the same transaction over the same networks.
Android versus iPhone
Functionally they are the same to a customer: a tap on a screen. The practical differences are on your side.
Android hardware varies far more than iPhone hardware does, so NFC antenna placement differs between handsets and it is worth finding where yours is before you are standing in front of a customer. Against that, Android is the larger install base, and if you are equipping a team of volunteers or staff with whatever phones they already own, most of those phones will be Android.
Where it replaces a reader, and where it does not
It replaces a reader for
Market stalls, pop ups, mobile services, trades visiting a job, concession stands, event doors, deliveries, and anywhere a team collects in several places at once. That last case is the strongest argument: one reader is one queue, but five phones are five queues and cost nothing extra.
It does not replace
An unattended kiosk, which has to stand on its own with nobody holding it. A high volume fixed counter, where a dedicated terminal with a cash drawer and a receipt printer is still the better tool. And customers paying with a card that has no contactless chip at all, who still need a reader with a slot.
What it costs
Every provider pays the same interchange and card brand fees to the networks. What differs is the monthly fee, the hardware cost and the margin on top.
CoreMobile is $0 a month with no hardware to buy, charging interchange and card brand fees at cost plus 0.50% and $0.10 per transaction. When you compare providers, add the monthly fee and any hardware to the rate and divide by what you actually process, because a lower headline rate with a monthly fee attached is often the more expensive option at low volume.
Getting started
Check your phone has NFC and is running a current version of Android. Apply for a merchant account and get underwritten properly before you need to take money. Install the app, run one small payment to yourself to find where your antenna sits, and you are ready.