Self Storage Kiosks and Payment Processing (ACH & CC Options)

[Weina Shi]

Hi fellow investors,

What are some of the best options for rental kiosks and payment processing systems (ACH & CC)? Can you pass on the credit and payment processing fees to tenants?

Thanks.

[John Lenhart]

We have kiosks at 2 locations. One is remote, the other is a busy location. At the busy location, it helps with payments of after hours customers who do not like to use the internet and prefer to pay in person. 

The other location is a remote location we installed a year ago. 

Neither of these are a magic bullet and they do not take the place of physical visits or having a site manager at a larger facility or weekly visits to the remote facility. It definitely takes a while for people to become accustomed to the kiosk. You will have low implementation at the beginning but it will grow over time. The kiosk will never become more popular than those who pay via autopay or over the phone so remember to always have those options. I do feel that the kiosk provides value but the ROI is not a ton more than the monthly cost.

When deciding on if the kiosk is right for you I would ask:
1) how big is the facility? Do you want to run it remotely or is there a site manager. The kiosk can help during busy days and also times where the manager is disposed from the office.

2) What are the demographics ? Does your facility take a lot of cash? is the clientele older? Do most pay in person? - We have a couple of facilities where they were a bit heavier in cash payments and also had a population that liked to pay in person at the facility. The kiosk made sense in these cases. If you have a facility that is in a more affluent area, has a clientele that is pretty internet savvy and pays online or autopay, and pays via cc or ACH; I think there are less expensive options than the kiosk. Many of the management systems offer Apps to the customer to allow the customer to pay online and even waive their phone in front of a gate sensor for access. These options can be more cost effective than the kiosk. The downside, they cannot take cash if you have a lot of cash payers or if you have a crowd that is not internet savvy.