innerfence.org

What It Is

Inner Fence’s Credit Card Terminal is a credit card acceptance app for iPhone, iPad, Android, Mac, Windows, and Windows Phone. Used with a card reader, it supports in-person card swipes as well as manually keyed payments. It is closer to a lightweight mobile POS system than a simple online payment gateway, making it suitable for sole proprietors, small merchants, and mobile sales scenarios.

Core Features and Payment Coverage

The product supports transaction history, refunds, map records, signatures, tips, sales tax, email/PDF receipts, and chart-based analytics. Multiple devices can share a single account. In terms of card networks, the materials list Visa, MasterCard, Discover, American Express, Diners Club, and JCB; Stripe-related pages also mention EMV chip cards and contactless payments such as Apple Pay. Regional coverage is primarily focused on the United States and Canada. Canada has separate pricing/processing plans, and the free card reader promotion is limited to the U.S. and Canada.

Pricing, Settlement, and Integrations

The base price is $79/month billed annually, or $99 month to month. The Stripe plans are divided into Individual, Professional, and Business, each including a different number of terminals and adding a per-transaction fee of 1.9%, 0.9%, or none; the chargeback fee is $15. The official site states that there are no setup fees, minimum processing fees, annual fees, PCI compliance fees, and similar charges. Funds are deposited on a rolling 2-day basis, while initial payouts for new accounts can take up to 7 days. For integrations, it supports multiple gateways including Authorize.Net, Braintree, PayPal Payments Pro, and Stripe, and provides a Developer API plus GitHub sample code. This allows third-party apps to invoke the terminal to complete payments, reducing their own compliance exposure from handling card data directly.

Pros, Cons, and Who It’s For

Its strengths include broad multi-platform support, features tailored to offline card acceptance, compatibility with existing merchant accounts and gateways, and clearly available U.S.-based customer support. The drawbacks are that the monthly fee is not low for low-volume merchants, licensing/compliance and PCI details are not fully disclosed, and risk-control capabilities are described only in limited terms beyond encryption, chargebacks, and refunds. It is better suited to in-person payments in North America, trade shows, on-site services, mobile teams, and merchants that already have a payment gateway but need a mobile terminal.

Access from China and Alternatives

The source material does not provide information on access from mainland China, RMB settlement, local Chinese bank cards, or Alipay/WeChat Pay support, so its usability in China is unknown. For China-focused or cross-border scenarios, alternatives to compare include Stripe Terminal, Square, PayPal Zettle, Clover, and SumUp. For domestic offline use in China, merchants typically need to choose a provider that supports local acquiring and regulatory requirements.