Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Square Contactless Reader VS Stripe Elements

Compare Square Contactless Reader VS Stripe Elements and see what are their differences

Square Contactless Reader logo Square Contactless Reader

Accept Apple Pay + Chip cards, anywhere

Stripe Elements logo Stripe Elements

Beautiful, smart checkout flows 💳💸
  • Square Contactless Reader Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-06-24
  • Stripe Elements Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-05-03

Square Contactless Reader features and specs

  • Ease of Use
    The Square Contactless Reader is simple to set up and use, making it accessible for small business owners without extensive technical knowledge.
  • Versatility
    The device accepts a wide range of payment methods including contactless (NFC) payments, chip card payments, and mobile payments such as Apple Pay and Google Pay.
  • Portability
    Its compact and lightweight design allows business owners to easily carry it and accept payments on-the-go.
  • Security
    The Square Reader is designed with security in mind, featuring encryption to protect payment data and ensure safe transactions.
  • Affordable
    The price point of the Square Contactless Reader is relatively low, making it an economical option for small businesses looking to accept modern payment methods.

Possible disadvantages of Square Contactless Reader

  • Requires Internet Connection
    The device requires a stable internet connection to process payments, which might be a limitation in areas with poor connectivity.
  • Limited to Square Ecosystem
    The reader is integrated into the Square ecosystem, which might limit functionality for businesses that use multiple or different payment systems.
  • Transaction Fees
    As with many payment processors, Square charges a transaction fee on payments processed, which can add up for businesses with large sales volumes.
  • Battery Life
    While portable, the device relies on a battery which needs to be charged regularly, potentially causing interruptions if not managed properly.
  • Limited Offline Functionality
    Without internet, the Square Contactless Reader has limited functionality, potentially leading to service disruptions during power or connectivity outages.

Stripe Elements features and specs

  • Customizability
    Stripe Elements provides a highly customizable UI that allows developers to match the payment forms to the look and feel of their website, offering flexibility in design and user experience.
  • Security
    Sensitive card data is securely handled by Stripe, ensuring PCI compliance and reducing the security burden on developers while also minimizing risk.
  • Ease of Integration
    The library is easy to integrate with existing systems thanks to comprehensive documentation and easy-to-use APIs, reducing development time.
  • Cross-browser and Device Support
    Stripe Elements support a wide range of browsers and devices, ensuring a consistent user experience across platforms.
  • Pre-built UI Components
    It provides pre-built components that are tested and optimized, which can speed up development and maintain a high standard of user interaction.

Possible disadvantages of Stripe Elements

  • Learning Curve
    Despite its ease of use, developers may face an initial learning curve to fully leverage the potential of Stripe Elements and its customizability options.
  • Dependency on JavaScript
    Stripe Elements relies on JavaScript, which could be a limitation if the web project prefers or requires minimal JavaScript usage.
  • Limited Out-of-the-box Features
    While it offers pre-built components, some businesses may find that these elements need additional development work for more complex or unique use cases.
  • Ongoing Costs
    Using Stripe Elements involves transaction fees, which could sum up significantly for businesses with high transaction volumes.

Square Contactless Reader videos

No Square Contactless Reader videos yet. You could help us improve this page by suggesting one.

Add video

Stripe Elements videos

React Stripe Elements Package (NEW 2020) + Charging Stripe in Node: Full stack tutorial

More videos:

  • Review - Stripe Elements with Laravel (and Vue)

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Square Contactless Reader and Stripe Elements)
Online Payments
37 37%
63% 63
Payments
18 18%
82% 82
Fintech
47 47%
53% 53
Productivity
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

Share your experience with using Square Contactless Reader and Stripe Elements. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
Log in or Post with

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Square Contactless Reader should be more popular than Stripe Elements. It has been mentiond 10 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Square Contactless Reader mentions (10)

  • selling my book at summer festivals
    - if your phone lacks the capacity to process cards - Square's card reader - affordable, simple to use. Source: almost 2 years ago
  • Best alternatives to Square?
    I have this Square contactless/chip reader so if a customer doesn't have tap-to-pay they just insert their card. I do keep my old magstripe reader handy just in case. There have been a few times my contactless/chip reader didn't work for a few minutes (maybe related to unstable con wifi?) and I used the magstripe reader instead. Source: about 2 years ago
  • Square mag stripe reader
    I have this one - https://squareup.com/us/en/hardware/contactless-chip-reader. Source: almost 3 years ago
  • Hypothetically speaking, is there any way to use mobile wallets with online shopping with the USBAR?
    I thought you were “hypothetically” wanting to get something like a Square Reader/Terminal and use Google Pay, right? Source: about 3 years ago
  • What stops criminals from using Tap to Pay to just skim every passerby's card details?
    While this is a new feature for iPhones, it is not a new concept at all. Square has offered a pocket sized wireless reader since 2015. Source: over 3 years ago
View more

Stripe Elements mentions (4)

  • Building a Hybrid Sign-Up/Subscribe Form with Stripe Elements
    Stripe Elements is a set of prebuilt components that can be used during the payment processing flow of your application. - Source: dev.to / 11 months ago
  • Solutions for creating Keys and IAM when developing a SAAS product?
    I am trying to spin up a saas product where I would ideally sell the "checkout page" ( think of the product as a mini-Shopify ). Right now the front-end is done in react where I think the elements of that page is probably going to be some NPM package ( most like https://stripe.com/payments/elements ). And the back-end API is built in NestJS ( Swagger ) connected to an AWS database. Source: about 2 years ago
  • Show HN: Automations for Tasks – Height.app
    I see now. Do you see this image [0] on https://height.app/compare/asana? Now that's what I wanted to see, now I understand it's some sort of task manager for teams that presumably integrates with GitLab, GitHub etc. --- Ok on a further look, I think I understand what happened. You linked directly to https://height.app/product/automations, but I and probably others who see this post would have thought that it was... - Source: Hacker News / over 2 years ago
  • How to accept payments in a Remix application with Stripe
    Stripe Elements is the option we’ll discuss today. Elements are pre-built form components that you can embed directly into your web application (there’s mobile versions too!). There’s an official react-stripe-js library that exposes the new PaymentElement. The PaymentElement supports several payment methods and is the best default. You should only implement individual elements (like one for Card and one for SEPA)... - Source: dev.to / about 3 years ago

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Square Contactless Reader and Stripe Elements, you can also consider the following products

Stripe Terminal - The programmable point-of-sale solution 💳🛠️

Balance Checkout - The first B2B checkout

Square Register - A fully integrated point of sale (POS) system 💰

Paylike - A modern full-stack payment platform

Shopify Tap & Chip Reader - Mobile POS hardware that connects to the rest of Shopify

Stripe - Online payment processing for internet businesses. Stripe is a suite of payment APIs that powers commerce for online businesses of all sizes. Use Stripe’s payment platform to accept and process payments online for easy-to-use commerce solutions.