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I'm building an app that registers people for an event and charges them a registration fee. I've got most of it built but I'm having trouble actually charging them. I've read the guidelines and don't want to use apple's in-app purchase method because they charge a big fee and the goods being purchased aren't digital or for in-app use.

I've looked at doing paypal and I think that should work fine for me, I've already started playing around with their sdk and sandbox. However, I would also like the ability to charge a credit card. I found card.io that looks like it works really well but that just gets me the card information, it doesn't give me a way to actually process a transaction. Also, I know there are card readers like Square out there but I'd like to do everything in my app, not need the user to switch out to a processing service. Any ideas on how I can make this work? Thanks!

Ian
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  • Bear in mind that unless you have a "preexisting financial relationship" with your customers, Apple will probably reject your app. – James Webster Feb 15 '13 at 13:05
  • Though reading through the guidelines, you might fall into this one: `Apps using IAP to purchase physical goods or goods and services used outside of the application will be rejected` implying that you won't be rejected as you offer an outside service – James Webster Feb 15 '13 at 13:08
  • I will have a pre-existing financial relationship. I think the idea is all above board and should get through the apple store fine. I'm just looking for a way to do it. – Ian Feb 15 '13 at 13:49
  • You need a service like eWay in Australia (not sure what country you're in). Or a payment gateway agreement with a bank. – Rog Feb 22 '13 at 21:01

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If you use a service like Balanced or Stripe you can tokenize your card info straight from the phone, this will save you having to process it via your server which keeps the PCI hassle low. These services are only for tokenizing and charging cards, if you're looking for a way to capture card info e.g. scanning or swiping the card, then a service like card.io or Square is what you want.

mjallday
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If you don't want to get the assle of the PCI-DSS certification you could use Braintree in combination with card.io. Braintree offer an ios sdk so it won't even hit your server. (See https://www.braintreepayments.com/mobile-payment-processing.) Card.io just let youscan the card, but when youget the card info back youcould push it to the braintree api. Since what you are selling is a "service" you don't need to use the Apple in-app service.

M to the K
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You might look at the newly released PayPal iOS SDK.

Josh Bleecher Snyder
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Looks like you're looking for a Square solution but in your own app. You might want to check out CardFlight (https://getcardflight.com), as they provide the hardware and an SDK so that you can process payments within your own app. They work with your processor so you can still use Braintree to process the payments.

Full disclosure: I am currently working on this. We realized that there was a huge opportunity to provide the software and hardware so that people can accept physical card payments within their own app.

tsaunders
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