Clover Compact

The Clover Compact is a countertop payment terminal built to do one job well. Where the larger Clover units are full point-of-sale systems, the Compact concentrates on taking payment: a 3.62-inch colour touchscreen, a physical backlit keypad, a built-in thermal receipt printer and a small enough footprint to sit alongside a till, scale or existing POS rather than replace it.

It suits businesses that already have a working till and need reliable card acceptance next to it, and those where a physical keypad is preferable to an on-screen one - anywhere staff enter amounts quickly, or where customers expect real keys under their fingers. The keypad carries raised markings for accessibility and ships with a PIN entry privacy shield, which matters at an exposed counter.

Connectivity covers Ethernet, Wi-Fi and 4G LTE in North America, so it works on a wired counter or over cellular where no network is available. Payment acceptance is swipe, chip and contactless, and the terminal is certified to PCI PTS 6.x with EMV contact and contactless approval. There is a 5MP camera with a privacy LED that handles 1D and 2D barcode scanning. The unit can be through-mounted to the counter and has a security lock slot.

One arrangement worth knowing about: a tether cable accessory connects two Compacts together so one faces the merchant and one faces the customer. If you want a customer-facing screen, that is how the Compact does it - the alternative is a dual-screen unit such as the Station Duo 2.

Which Clover software plan the terminal runs, whether LTE is included and on what data terms, and which accessories are supplied all depend on your account rather than the hardware, so we confirm them during setup. Clover hardware requires a merchant processing agreement.