Line out the door. Reader keeps up. Every tip, counted correctly.
Payment processing for independent coffee shops, roasters and cafés — contactless tap-to-pay that clears fast at the register, tip prompts your baristas will actually defend, and funding in your account the next business day.
Accept every way your regulars pay
Where cafés lose money
On a $5 ticket, the wrong pricing model eats the margin
Coffee is a small-ticket, high-count business. A flat per-transaction fee that looks harmless on a $60 sale is a completely different story four hundred times a day.
Per-transaction fees hurt most
Small tickets are the worst case for flat-rate pricing. Interchange-plus puts the fixed portion where you can see it and keeps it from swallowing a $3.25 coffee.
Speed at the register
Every extra second at the reader is a second of queue. Contactless and mobile wallets settle in a tap, with no signature prompt on small amounts.
Tips need to be provable
If you pool tips, you need reporting by shift and by employee that your staff trusts. Guessing from a batch total is how morale problems start.
The internet goes down
A dead connection should not mean a cash-only morning. Offline mode keeps taking cards and settles the batch when you are back online.
What we set up
A counter setup that survives the morning rush
One account across every register, the mobile cart and online pickup orders — with the reporting to match.
Contactless & mobile wallets
Tap to pay, Apple Pay and Google Pay on every reader, because most of your morning customers are paying with a phone or watch.
Tip prompts that work
Configurable tip screens with sensible defaults for your price points, plus reporting broken out by employee and shift for pooling.
Second and third registers
Add a lane for the rush or a mobile reader for the patio without opening a separate merchant account for each one.
Gift cards & stored value
Branded gift cards and reloadable store credit, tracked on the same system as everything else.
Offline mode
Keep accepting cards when the connection drops, then settle automatically once it returns.
Next-business-day funding
Yesterday's sales in the account today, so payroll and the roaster invoice are not waiting on a three-day hold.
Online & pickup orders
Take payment for ahead-of-time orders through the same account, so online and counter sales land on one deposit.
Wholesale & bean accounts
If you sell beans to offices or restaurants, invoice those accounts on terms and collect by card or ACH on the same statement.
Why cafés switch
A payments partner, not a help-desk ticket
Approvals in hours
A short application with minimal paperwork. Most accounts are reviewed and approved the same day, so a new shop can open on schedule.
Transparent pricing
Interchange-plus with a fixed markup you can actually check against your statement — which matters more, not less, when the average ticket is small.
A dedicated rep
A named account manager and around-the-clock technical support, because a reader that dies at 6am is not a business-hours problem.
Common questions
What café owners ask us first
Is interchange-plus really better for small tickets?
Usually, because it separates the percentage from the fixed per-transaction cost instead of blending them into one rate. On small tickets the fixed portion dominates, so seeing it plainly is how you actually compare offers. We will not claim it wins in every case — send a statement and we will show you the math on your own volume.
Can my staff see tips broken out by shift?
Yes. Tip totals report by employee and by shift, which is what you need if you pool. The prompts themselves are configurable, so you can set defaults that suit a $4 drink rather than a $40 dinner.
What happens if our internet drops mid-rush?
Offline mode keeps accepting cards and stores the transactions locally, then submits them once the connection is back. There are limits on how much you can run offline and some risk of a later decline, so we set the thresholds with you rather than leaving it on blind.
How fast do we get our money?
Next business day funding on standard accounts, with the cutoff time set when we onboard you. If you need earlier access we can talk through the options, but we will be straight about what each one costs.
Other industries
We set up payments for these too
Talk to sales
See what your shop could save
Tell us a little about the business and a payments specialist will follow up with a free, no-obligation statement review.
Prefer email? Reach us at sales@thewholesalemerchant.com.