Zettle API
Zettle documents an OAuth2 REST API at developer.zettle.com covering purchases, payouts, inventory, product catalog, and gift cards, with real-time updates via its Pusher API. Developer signup is free; multi-merchant apps and the Reader Connect hardware surface require partner approval.
Frequently asked questions
Zettle scores A on the API Report Card. Zettle documents an OAuth2 REST API at developer.zettle.com covering purchases, payouts, inventory, product catalog, and gift cards, with real-time updates via its Pusher API. Developer signup is free; multi-merchant apps and the Reader Connect hardware surface require partner approval.
Zettle has a workable official integration path. Most engineering teams can build against it directly. Open API: self-serve, documented, with SDKs
Zettle is a mobile point-of-sale and card-acceptance platform originally founded as iZettle in Stockholm in 2010 and acquired by PayPal in 2018 for $2.2B. In the US it has been rebranded as 'PayPal Point of Sale' (formerly 'PayPal Zettle'); in Europe and the UK it still trades as Zettle by PayPal.
Financial Services (Mobile POS & Card Reader, PayPal-owned), Micro and small face-to-face merchants in retail, food & beverage, market stalls, hair & beauty, mobile trades, pop-ups, and event vendors who want a sub-$30 card reader, a free POS app, and same/next-day payouts into a linked bank or PayPal balance. A cafe, market stall, or hairdresser signs up via zettle.com (now paypal.com/us/business/pos), gets KYC'd via PayPal, buys a Zettle Reader 2 (£59 / $29 standard), and pairs it via Bluetooth to the free Zettle Go / PayPal POS app on iOS or Android to take chip, contactless, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and PayPal/Venmo QR payments at the headline rate (1.75% UK in-person, 2.29% + $0.09 US card-present).
Pre-acquisition, iZettle reported ~500K active merchants across Europe and Latin America at the 2018 $2.2B PayPal deal.
Yes, Zettle is the system of record for in-person sales, item catalog, variants, modifiers, inventory levels, staff/PIN activity, daily Z-reports, customer receipts and email/SMS contact data, refund history, chargeback exposure, payout schedule, gift-card liability, and (via PayPal Working Capital) loan and repayment history for the merchant.
~16 years old, founded 2010 in Stockholm as iZettle by Jacob de Geer and Magnus Nilsson; acquired by PayPal in 2018 for $2.2B; rebranded to Zettle by PayPal in 2020; further rebranded to PayPal Point of Sale in the US in 2024–2025 with zettle.com 301-redirecting to paypal.com/us/business/pos.
The Reader Connect / payment-integrations surface is partner-gated and not openly self-serve like Stripe Terminal or Square Reader SDK. The Finance API only reaches v2 and historical ledger pagination/date-range guarantees are thinly documented compared to Stripe Reporting. Full sourced list under Sources below.
Common alternatives include Square (Block), SumUp, Stripe Terminal, Clover (Fiserv), myPOS, Toast. Graded alternatives appear under "More from the report card" below.
Grades measure one thing: can a customer's engineering team get their own data out programmatically? We check six things (whether a real API exists, how access is gated, data coverage, auth quality, docs and developer experience, and stability) and roll them into a letter grade. Grades get re-verified, and they only move on evidence.