By Marc Lapointe, Director, Sales & Partnerships, Peloton Technologies
I talk to Canadian merchants about their payments every day. After years of these conversations, the same good questions come up again and again.
Whether we are having an equipment discussion (you need a terminal to take cards) or a Point-of-Sale (POS) discussion (you need a full system to run your business), here are the top three questions I get most and the straight answers you should expect from your payments partner.
If we’re talking standalone payments terminals…
Question 1: “Where do I actually lose money in my current payment setup?”
This is the most important question you can ask and most merchants don’t ask it until something already feels off.
The honest answer: payment costs are often buried. The actual all-in cost varies widely depending on your provider, your card mix, and how your fees are structured. Are you on a flat rate? Interchange plus? A tiered pricing model that lumps your transactions into buckets?
Hidden costs to watch for include PCI non-compliance fees, monthly minimums, equipment rental markups, and batch fees. Taken together, these can add hundreds — sometimes thousands — of dollars a year in costs that have nothing to do with what you actually process.
In fact, at Peloton, when we look at what a business is currently paying for payments, we find savings in 90% of cases, and those savings average at least 20% across the board.
A good payments partner should be able to walk you through your current effective rate and show you exactly where you can do better.
Question 2: “Walk me through how this fits into my day-to-day. What changes for my staff and for me?”
This matters as much as the cost conversation. A payment terminal that saves you 0.3% but creates daily friction for your team isn’t a win.
What should you expect from a modern terminal setup? Fast, reliable transactions, simple end-of-day settlement, clear reporting you can access anywhere (and actually read!) and minimal training time for staff. A well-implemented terminal should feel like an extension of a highly efficient team.
To get there, I always ask merchants: What does your current checkout experience look like? Where do the slowdowns happen? That tells me a lot about what a good fit actually is for that business.
Question 3: “When something breaks what actually happens?”
A system outage can cost a small business in lost sales and productivity. For a busy retail day or a restaurant during the dinner rush, that number adds up fast.
The answer you need to hear before you sign anything: Who do I call? What are your support hours? How quickly can you get me back up and running and do you have hardware replacement protocols?
Push for specifics: Is there a local support team or a call centre? What’s the SLA for hardware replacement? Is there an offline mode if your internet goes down? Are there other ways to process payments if my terminal is down?
At Peloton, merchants get a dedicated support team. If hardware fails, we move fast. You should expect nothing less from any provider.
If we’re talking full POS…
Question 1: “What is my actual total cost of ownership?”
This is where the numbers get more complex and where merchants often get surprised after-the-fact.
A POS system involves more than a processing rate. You’re looking at software subscription fees, hardware costs (or rentals), setup and installation, staff training, and potentially integration costs if you want the system to talk to your accounting software, inventory, or online store.
Ask your provider for a written breakdown of every fee, recurring or otherwise. If they’re not comfortable giving you that in writing, that tells you something.
Question 2: “How much time will this actually save me?”
A POS system should do more than take payments. It should reduce administrative work. Inventory tracking, sales reporting, employee management, end-of-day reconciliation: when these are integrated into one system, you’re reclaiming real time every single week.
According to the Government of Canada, there are over 1 million small business employers in Canada. In many of these businesses, the owner remains the bookkeeper, the scheduler, and the floor manager. Time savings in that context are not abstract – they’re hours you get back.
A good POS conversation should include a clear picture of what your workflow looks like today versus what it could look like after implementation. If a provider can’t walk you through that, push harder.
Question 3: “How can this help me grow?”
This is the question I love most because it shifts the conversation from cost to opportunity.
The right POS system should give you better data about your customers, your busiest hours, your most profitable products, and where you’re leaving money on the table. It should integrate with your online store if you have one, support loyalty programs, and scale with you as your volume grows.
Merchants who grow are the ones who use their data and a modern POS makes that data accessible and actionable.
The Bottom Line
Whether you need a terminal or a full POS, the conversation should start with your real costs, your actual workflow, and what happens when things go wrong. Any provider worth working with will answer those questions directly.
If you’re not sure which type of solution you need or you want a straight answer on what your current setup is actually costing you, I’m always happy to talk.
Use our savings calculator to get a quick picture of where you stand, or get in touch and let’s have the conversation.
About the author
Marc Lapointe is Director of Sales & Partnerships at Peloton Technologies. A seasoned payments and Point‑of‑Sale (POS) expert, Marc has become a trusted advisor for his clear, practical advice. Based in Canada, Marc speaks regularly on trends shaping the POS landscape, including hardware evolution, terminal & software integration, payment security, and the practical challenges that merchants face in running and growing their businesses.