In today’s digital world paying for meals groceries, and other expenses with your smartphone is easier than ever. From mobile wallets to carrier billing, technology now allows you to leave your physical cards and cash at home. If you’ve wondered if you can pay for food using just your phone bill, read on to learn about the possibilities.
Mobile payments for food, also called phone bill payments, leverage your existing cell phone service. Rather than entering credit card details or linking a bank account charges get billed directly to your monthly wireless statement. It’s a convenient way to pay on-the-go when you don’t have your wallet or if you prefer not to use plastic.
In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explain how paying for food with your phone bill works, highlight the benefits and offer tips for getting started.
Overview of Paying for Food via Phone Bill
There are clear benefits to paying for food and groceries through your wireless carrier. Here’s a quick rundown of how it works:
- Enable phone bill payments with your carrier
- Add participating restaurants/stores to the program
- When checking out, select phone bill as payment option
- Charges get billed to your monthly cell phone statement
It functions similarly to a mobile wallet except the money comes out of your existing wireless service instead of a linked card. Most major carriers now offer some version of phone bill payments at approved merchants.
Top Benefits of Paying for Food This Way
Why would someone want to use their phone bill to pay for food? Here are some of the main reasons:
- Don’t need physical cards or cash on-hand
- Charges consolidated into single monthly wireless bill
- Simple way to track food expenses each month
- Works at selected restaurants/stores with no fees
- Leverages existing cell service you likely already have
- Safeguards payment details (no card number provided)
- Easy to manage payments through wireless account
For those who prefer not to use credit cards or don’t carry much cash, phone bill payment streamlines the process. It’s also useful for parents managing family cell phone plans.
How to Get Started with Carrier Billing
If you want to start paying for groceries and meals through your wireless carrier, follow these steps:
- Contact your cell provider to enroll in phone bill pay
- Make sure your account is in good standing
- Download carrier’s official app if required
- Find participating food merchants that accept this method
- When checking out, choose phone bill as payment type
- Charges appear on monthly statement
Depending on your provider, you may also be able to manage your purchases right from your phone account. Take advantage of any tools to monitor charges.
Tips for Paying for Food via Phone Bill
When using phone bill payment for food, keep these tips in mind:
- Review monthly statements closely to verify accuracy of charges
- Set spending limits if offered to avoid unexpected costs
- Ask about any fees associated with this payment method
- Enable purchase notifications and monitoring through carrier app
- Pay wireless bill on time each month to avoid service impacts
- Know that returned purchases may take 1-2 bills to credit back
As with any payment method, responsible management is key. But overall, paying for meals and groceries through your phone bill offers noteworthy conveniences.
Common Carrier Billing FAQs
Here are answers to some frequently asked questions about paying for food with your wireless carrier:
What are the spending limits?
Depends on carrier, but often $10-$25 per transaction with monthly caps around $100-$250.
What types of food places accept phone bill payment?
Fast food, cafes, some grocery delivery, and other participating merchants. Check with your provider.
Is there an extra fee to pay this way?
Most don’t charge added fees, but some may have small transaction costs around 0.5-2%.
How does phone bill payment impact my credit?
It generally doesn’t, unless you fail to pay your wireless statement on time each month.
Is carrier billing secure to pay for food?
Yes, it doesn’t share your actual payment card details when making purchases.
Paying for Food Easily with Your Phone
Phone bill payment solutions allow busy families and individuals to quickly pay for meals, snacks, groceries, and more without cards or cash on hand. If you’re looking for modern conveniences, explore your mobile provider’s offerings. Just make sure to manage the charges responsibly, like any payment method.
Hopefully this guide gave you a helpful introduction to paying for food with nothing more than your trusty smartphone and wireless service.
Let’s Take a Quick Break Here and Introduce Something Entirely New
Poynt. It’s not a mobile payment solution by itself. It’s a whole new take on the POS that supports swipe and no-swipe payments, including all NFC-based mobile payment solutions.
Poynt was designed to accept nearly every form of mobile and card-swipe payment technology. As they state on their website: “Apple Pay, chip-and-pin, mobile apps, and whatever else the future brings.”
Okay, back to our list
Special hardware required: NoCard swipe: Not technicallyBest fit: QSR & Fast Casual
LoopPay is also unlike any other solution here. LoopPay allows consumers to pay with their phone from anywhere, but the customer must have a proprietary device with them to avoid that card swipe. That device takes the form of either a special charging case (iPhone-only) that transmits payment details securely with a simple button tap, or a Android- or iPhone-compatible fob that a customer keeps on their keychain that transmits payment details securely with a button tap while the fob is next to the terminal.
Customers also must install the LoopPay wallet app, which stores all of their credit/debit cards. You really should read the LoopPay FAQs for Issuers & Merchants to get a complete picture of how this works and yet remains PCI compliant. While we say that special hardware is not required, we mean it’s not required by you, as the merchant — that’s a huge benefit. LoopPay devices transmit payment details to 90%+ of existing magstripe terminals. A downside? your staff at the counter may well be freaked out that a device can transmit payment data straight to your credit card terminal.
Given the unique approach at work here, I’d also encourage you to read this real-world LoopPay scenario.
Merchants do not pay. LoopPay charges consumers by selling the charging case and the fobs.
Special hardware required: NoCard swipe: NoBest fit: Casual Dining
Cover bursted on to the scene in New York City in early 2014 and has since expanded to the SF Bay Area. Think of it as Uber for restaurants. Customers download an app (Android or iOS), create an account, add their credit card details, and pay in-venue when ready to settle their bill. Once they arrive at your restaurant, they select your restaurant within the app, and only open the app again when they’re ready to pay and leave. A simple notification to your staff at the beginning of the dining experience is all that’s entailed. Everything else is handled in-app.
Cover allows consumers to split bills and add tips well, an interesting feature that makes this particular appealing to casual and fine dining establishments. What this means, also, is that there’s going to be some careful staff training involved. You don’t want people saying they’re paying with Cover, only to dine and dash.
Others operating similarly to Cover are Dash and TabbedOut.
Cover charges restaurants a monthly service fee.
Softcard (formerly ISIS)
Special hardware required: YesCard swipe: NoBest fit: QSR & Fast Casual
Softcard is the stealth mobile payment option that’s been talked about for two years now, but only tested here and there. It’s an app that’s Android-only for now. Consumers install the app and load their credit cards (and loyalty or membership cards) as they create an account. When they’re ready to pay at your counter, they open the Softcard app, type in their PIN, select the card they want to pay with, then hold the back of their phone over your NFC-enabled terminal.
Listen, if you’ve already decided you want to accept Apple Pay and/or Google Wallet, you’re going to have the necessary hardware to accept Softcard, so why not include that narrow user base?
Merchants do not pay transaction fees with Softcard. Advanced loyalty and offer features within the Softcard business platform will come with service fees.
Special hardware required: NoCard swipe: NoBest fit: Full Service
OpenTable you’ve known through the years for its reservation service. Now, they offer mobile payments. OpenTable works almost identically to Cover — customers preload your credit card details as part of their OpenTable account, check in with the host when they arrive at the restaurant, and then view and pay their bill from the OpenTable app when ready to leave.
A major benefit with OpenTable is the brand name. Consumers have been accustomed to using the OpenTable to find a casual or fine dining restaurant and to make reservations. Now, they can complete that experience. Servers are notified that they’ve paid and still must close out the check, and receipts are emailed. Apple Pay is supported as well. In fact, with Apple Pay, guests won’t need to add a card to their OpenTable account in order to pay at participating restaurants. Guests launch the OpenTable app to view the check and tap Apple Pay to complete the transaction.
While the OpenTable process isn’t inherently more efficient than Cover, and not necessarily more secure than Google Wallet or Apple Pay, what OpenTable brings to fight is that existing customer base — people who expect to find a place to eat with the app. If they found you via OpenTable, they’re one huge step towards paying you through OpenTable. And that dining experience was just made easier for you and for them.
We do not yet have details on how OpenTable is charging restaurants.
Special hardware required: YesCard swipe: NoBest fit: QSR (Cafe)
Downtown brings something entirely new to the table, literally: a beacon-based mobile payment solution. With Downtown, the customer must download the Downtown app, create an account, and load their credit card details. Then pay their bill at the moment they place an order — whether that happens at your counter or the customer’s table. Beacons can either be deployed to detect that a customer is in your location, or even more precisely — which table they’re at.
A downside of Downtown (you like how I did that?) is that you’ve got to manage your menu from within Downtown presently, as opposed to uploading it to a service that can distribute to Downtown. That’ll be a bit painful for anything other than small cafes.
Hold your horses if you’re super amped about this one. Downtown has just launched — as of October 2014 — so it’s only available in Palo Alto for now. But keep an eye on them.