Quoted from tjbeyer:Late to the party here -- I'll spew some info from an operator's viewpoint -- I've got 52 payrange units on my games & vending machines. I bought 24 initially, and then kept expanding. You don't have to buy them in 12-packs, you can buy smaller quantities if you contact payrange directly.
I was originally going to put them on my highest earning machines, but the sales guy suggested trying to outfit one location completely, even if it's just the pins (and not the video games) -- Because people are more likely to use the app if they can use it on everything (including a 1962 Electro-mechanical pin!). I went with this route, knowing that I could move the underperforming units after a couple month trial if I wanted to. 5 months in, the slow video games have paid for their units. Everything else paid for itself quickly. At the 5 month point, revenue is consistently up 25% at my largest location (11 pins, 6 video games), and I have it on a few other pin-heavy locations.
The payrange units are the same for vending ($49 MDB interface) and amusement ($69 pulse interface) -- The difference being the required relay board, 12v power adapter (plugs into the service outlet), and 9-pin DBA pass-through harness, which are included in the $20 amusement kit. The kit is required, but if you operate vending also, you can move units around between the different interfaces (you need to let payrange know, so they can assign the correct parameters to it).
They connect to the user's phone using bluetooth, and then use the user's cell phone data connection to talk to the servers. This gets around the $10-$15/month fee that credit card swipe readers have. The card readers ($350+) also typically charge $0.10 per transaction + 2.5%-3%. Payrange doesn't charge a per-transaction fee, and on a $0.50 pinball, the transaction fee is $0.02. Split with the location, it's a penny. Multiply that by 100 games in a week that have been played BECAUSE payrange was available, and the operator is paying $0.50 in fees (after split) for the increase in revenue -- I'd happily pay $0.50 in fees for a $50 increase in revenue. There's also no activation fee for payrange, and free shipping on the units.
Games still take coins & bills. A bill acceptor is ~$100 - If you'd put a bill acceptor on a game, why wouldn't you put a PR unit on a game at $69? If your game has a bill acceptor, the payrange unit installs in minutes (literally, 4 minutes or less!) with no cutting, drilling, or soldering. No running network cables or fussing with a location changing the wifi password monthly.
You can adjust the # of pulses per swipe, $ amount, pulse length, and pulse spacing. They've also recently added multi-tiered pricing for the $0.75, 3/$2 situation (requires the latest version of the app to see the choices). Their android app is continually improving, with a new version every 10-14 days. They're receptive to feedback from players and operators.
To further adoption of PR by players, I'm using Tony's pricing structure of $1 cash or $0.89 PR. The 3/$2 bonus works out to be $1.78PR (I kept the bonus after talking with players). I've also enabled the rewards program on any game that's $0.75+. Creating coupon codes as prizes for league/tournament is a nice touch that costs the operator minimal machine wear & tear. In addition, I created a $0.25 off your first 4 games of pinball discount that's active without a coupon. Bartender/fellow player mentions that to the customer, customer becomes hooked.
Feedback from players is wonderful/positive. Also, now when the change machine runs out of quarters, the games can still make money. One player commented that he's now aware of how much his pinball habit costs, in addition to spending more because he doesn't see the quarters going in the machine.
It's not for every location, and not for every player. I wouldn't go payrange only either, since some users don't have smartphones or a credit card.
Another note -- While the app defaults to a $10 choice when you go to load funds, you can select $5 (or a higher amount - One of my customers has her reload amount at $100 to not have to bother with it as much). The $5 minimum helps offset the per-transaction fee on their end from the card processing house for the $5 wallet reload fee.
Payment to the operator is made by direct-deposit into a bank account once a week (Mondays, or Tuesday if Monday was a holiday), complete with emailed statement and analytics. Average spend per user, # of unique users this week/all time, lifetime average per device, etc. You can also see how many unique users you had on a particular machine. You can't, however, track specific users.
Also -- I'm not a pinside regular, so if there are specific questions, PM me to bring me back to this thread. Hopefully some of this info helps.
