🟡 EARLY ACCESS!
Tap to Pay is in early access and is not yet enabled on all Method Pay accounts.
Availability, requirements, and pricing may change while the program is running.
Interested in taking in-person payments? Contact our team and we'll confirm whether your devices are compatible, walk you through setup, and let you know about availability for your account.
📌 Note: Customization is required to leverage this functionality at this time.
Accept in-person card payments without a card terminal
Tap to Pay turns an ordinary phone into your card reader. Your customer taps their card, phone, or watch against the device, and the payment is processed and recorded in Method automatically, the same as any other Method Pay payment.
There is no terminal to buy, no reader to plug in, no hardware lease, and no second system to reconcile at the end of the day. The device you already carry is the device that takes the payment.
Tap to Pay works at a counter, at a job site, at the door on delivery, or anywhere else you need to collect payment face to face.
How it works: the two-device model
Tap to Pay is not an app you run a sale from. It's a tap surface. The payment is still created in Method, on whatever you normally work from — your office computer, your laptop in the truck, a tablet at the counter.
Method then sends that payment to a registered phone, the customer taps, and the result comes straight back into Method.
The two devices do different jobs. The computer holds the invoice, the customer record, and the accounting. The phone does one thing: read the tap. That split removes the need for a terminal. The terminal's only real job was reading the card, and a modern phone already has the hardware to do it.
What this replaces
What you used to need | With Tap to Pay |
A countertop card terminal or mobile card reader | A phone or tablet your team already owns |
Hardware purchase or monthly lease | No hardware cost |
A separate merchant account for in-person volume | The same Method Pay account you already use |
Keying the transaction into a terminal, then again into Method | The payment starts in Method and stays in Method |
End-of-day settlement reconciled between two systems | One deposit stream, one reconciliation, one QuickBooks sync |
What Tap to Pay is not
Tap to Pay replaces the card terminal. It does not replace a full point-of-sale system. There is no cash drawer, no receipt printer, no barcode scanning, no inventory or register function. If you run a retail floor that needs those things, Tap to Pay handles the card acceptance piece, however, you would still need your POS for the rest.
For most Method customers — service businesses, trades, wholesale and distribution, counter and will-call sales — the terminal was the only piece of that stack they were actually using, which is why this replaces it cleanly.
Before you begin
Tap to Pay is available to Method Pay customers in the United States only.
Your device must have:
NFC enabled
Location permissions enabled
Bluetooth permissions enabled
Identity security enabled — face recognition, fingerprint, or passcode
iPhone and iPad
The device must support Tap to Pay
The device must be running iOS 17.4 or newer
Android
The device must be running Android 11.0 (API level 30) or higher
If your device does not meet these requirements, Tap to Pay will not be able to process payments. Check with your Method Pay support contact before purchasing devices for your team.
Setting up Tap to Pay
If you have any propblems at any point in this process, please contact us.
Download the Mobile Pay app
Confirm your devices meet the requirements above.
Download and install the Mobile Pay app on the single phone or tablet that you’d like to use for Tap to Pay.
iPhone/iPad: Download using this direct App Store link.
Android: Download the Mobile Pay app from the Google Play Store.
Register the Mobile Pay app to your Method Pay account
Navigate to your Payment Gateway settings via:
Profile Icon > Integrations > Payment Gateways.Under Tap to Pay devices, click Manage Devices.
Click Add a device.
A three-step wizard pops up which mostly covers installing the Mobile Pay app.
The third step asks to put in
your Registration code
a name for the device
Click Register to add the device.
Run a test payment end to end, so you know it works before you use it on a real customer.
Remove a device
If a device is lost, replaced, or reassigned to a different staff member, click Remove to delete it when Managing your devices as shown above.
Taking a payment
On the phone or tablet:
You must open up Mobile Pay before sending the request from Method.
In Method:
Open the payment you want to collect.
Ensure Process with Payment Gateway when saving is checked.
When you save the payment, a pop up will prompt you with options to use Tap to Pay or use a new card or bank account. Select Tap to Pay.
You will be prompted on which device to send to. If you have registered multiple devices, select the one the customer is at and then click Send to this phone.
❗️Remember: The Mobile Pay app must be open on the device before sending the payment request.
On the phone or tablet:
The Mobile Pay app wakes and displays the amount. The payment shows as Presenting in Method while it waits.
Hand the device to the customer, or hold it out to them.
The customer taps their card, phone, or watch.
Back in Method:
The result posts against the invoice automatically — no re-keying, no manual matching.
The payment flows into your normal deposit and QuickBooks sync, the same as an online payment.
You do not need to key in card details, and you do not need to collect a CVC for in-person payments taken this way.
A note on the two devices: they do not need to be in the same place, but in practice they should be — the customer taps within a second or two of you sending the payment. If the tap doesn't happen, cancel from Method before the customer taps and no tap fee is charged.
Payment statuses
Payments taken through Tap to Pay use the same statuses as every other Method Pay payment:
Status | What it means |
Created | Created, awaiting approval |
Presenting | Sent to the device, waiting for the customer to tap |
Processing | Captured and processing; funds are moving |
Succeeded | Complete; funds available for deposit |
Failed | The payment did not process |
Canceled | Voided; no funds moved |
In Review | Flagged for fraud review by Method Pay |
What Tap to Pay does not support
Saving a card without taking a payment. To store a customer's payment method for later use, you must process a payment. You cannot tap a card purely to save it on file.
Separate authorization and capture. You cannot authorize an amount now and capture it later. The payment is authorized and captured in a single step.
On iPhone and iPad specifically:
Tap to Pay cannot be used while a phone call is active.
Tap to Pay cannot be used while the device is connected to Apple CarPlay.
All standard Method Pay limits and rules still apply.
Fees
Tap to Pay is billed per tap, in addition to your standard Method Pay processing rate.
The per-tap fee applies whether or not the payment succeeds:
What happened | Is the per-tap fee charged? |
The tap succeeds and the payment processes | Yes |
The tap is read but the payment fails | Yes |
The payment is canceled before the customer taps | No |
This means a declined card still incurs a per-tap fee, because the tap itself was processed. If a customer's card is declined and they present a second card, that is two taps.