Citizen CMP-20 Mobile POS Receipt Printer: Specs and Buying Guide
Mobile receipt printers get bought for one of two reasons, and they lead to very different specifications. Either the queue is too long and you want to take payment away from the till, or the transaction happens somewhere there is no till at all.
The Citizen CMP-20 is a 2-inch direct thermal mobile receipt printer that pairs over Bluetooth and also connects by USB, weighing 1.4 lbs. It is supplied here as part CMP-20BTU in new, function-tested condition, for bars, cafes, kiosks, market stalls, delivery rounds and field service.
What mobile receipt printing actually saves
The economics are simple enough to work out on your own numbers, and worth doing before you buy a fleet.
Queue busting. A busy bar or cafe loses sales at the point where the queue becomes long enough that people leave. Taking payment in the queue with a handheld and a belt printer removes that ceiling without adding a till position, a counter or the floor space both need.
Transactions with no counter. Market stalls, pop-ups, event bars, table service, delivery rounds and field service all need a receipt where there is no fixed infrastructure. Here a mobile printer is not an optimisation; it is the only way to do it.
Field paperwork. An engineer or driver producing a receipt or job sheet on the spot removes a round trip and a data entry step later.
Where mobile printing does not pay is a steady single-lane counter. There the customer is already at the till, the printer should be on the counter, and a mains-powered unit with no battery to charge is simpler and cheaper. Our POS receipt printer buying guide covers the fixed-counter options.
Citizen CMP-20 specifications
| Part Number | CMP-20BTU |
| Manufacturer | Citizen |
| Product Family | CMP-20 |
| Product Type | Mobile Thermal POS Receipt Printer |
| Print Method | Direct Thermal |
| Paper Width | 2 inches |
| Media Types | Standard thermal receipt paper roll |
| Connectivity | Bluetooth, USB |
| Weight | 1.4 lbs |
| Condition | New, function-tested |
| Warranty | 30-day Tech Seller USA warranty |
2-inch or 3-inch: decide this before anything else
This is the specification that most often gets chosen by accident and then causes a year of irritation.
2-inch is the mobile standard, and it is a mobile standard because of weight and bulk rather than cost. A 2-inch printer and its paper rolls are small enough to hang off a belt all shift. It fits a line item, a price, a total and a payment reference comfortably.
3-inch is the counter standard because it fits wider layouts: multi-column itemisation, longer descriptions, promotional footers and larger logos. It is also noticeably bigger and heavier to carry.
The failure mode is designing a receipt on a 3-inch counter printer, then rolling out 2-inch mobile units and discovering the layout wraps badly, the logo is unreadable, and item descriptions truncate mid-word. That is a template job, not a printer job, and it is much easier to do before the fleet arrives.
So: print a sample of your actual receipt at 2 inches and look at it. If it reads fine, this is the right printer. If it does not, either simplify the layout or specify 3 inches.
SKU: CMP-20BTU | New condition | Bluetooth & USB | 30-day warranty
View Details & Request a Quote →Bluetooth: the question to settle before you order
Bluetooth pairing is where mobile printer deployments go wrong, and almost always for reasons that could have been checked in advance.
Confirm your POS app actually supports the printer. A Bluetooth printer is not a generic device the way a USB keyboard is. Most mobile POS applications carry a list of supported printer models, and a model outside that list will pair at the operating system level and then print nothing useful from the app. Check the list before you buy, not after.
If you are pairing to iPhones or iPads, confirm iOS support explicitly. Classic Bluetooth accessories need Apple's MFi certification to talk to iOS applications, and an uncertified printer that works fine with Android will not work with an iPhone. This is the single most common surprise in mobile POS rollouts. Tell us which devices you are pairing to and we will confirm before quoting.
Plan the pairing process for shared devices. In an operation where staff pick a handheld and a printer from a rack at shift start, the pairing has to be either pre-configured or trivially quick. Twenty identical printers in Bluetooth range is a genuine source of confusion, and operators regularly pair to a colleague's unit.
USB is fitted as well, which is useful for configuration, firmware and for running the printer from a fixed terminal when it is docked rather than carried.
Battery: the specification that decides whether staff like it
The printer can be technically perfect and still fail in practice if it does not last a shift. Two things matter more than the headline capacity.
First, how many receipts per charge in your actual use, which depends on receipt length and how often the printer sits idle. A bar printing short receipts continuously and a field engineer printing four long job sheets a day place completely different demands on the same battery.
Second, the charging arrangement. A single charger per printer means someone has to remember to plug each one in. A multi-bay charger or a dock at the till is what actually gets fleets charged reliably, because it becomes part of putting the device away rather than an extra task.
For fleets, budget a spare battery per few units. Batteries age, and a printer with a tired battery gets quietly abandoned by staff rather than reported. Our guide on device battery safety, storage and shipping covers handling and storage, and mobile device fleet management covers running a shared-device operation.
Direct thermal media and running costs
The CMP-20 is direct thermal, so the only consumable is the paper roll. No ribbon, no ink, nothing to thread on the move, which is exactly right for a printer that lives on a belt.
The print fades over time with heat and light. For a customer receipt that is irrelevant. For a signed job sheet or a delivery confirmation that has to be kept, capture it digitally as well and treat the paper as the customer's copy.
Two practical media notes. Roll diameter is limited by the printer's compartment, so confirm the roll size before ordering in bulk; a roll that fits a counter printer will often not fit a mobile one. And cheap thermal paper is the most common cause of faint print and premature printhead wear, so the saving on stock is usually false economy. Our guides on receipt paper rolls: sizes and types and thermal printer maintenance cover both.
Where the CMP-20 fits
Bar and cafe queue busting, table service, event and pop-up trading, market stalls, delivery rounds and proof of delivery, field service invoicing, and kiosks where the counter is too small for a fixed printer.
It is the wrong printer for a fixed high-volume checkout lane, where a mains-powered 3-inch counter unit is faster, cheaper and never needs charging. It is also wrong if you need to print adhesive labels rather than receipts, which needs a mobile label printer instead; see our guide on direct thermal versus thermal transfer printing for why the media differ.
Ordering
We supply the CMP-20BTU new and function-tested with a 30-day warranty, as single units or in fleet quantities. Tell us which POS application and which handheld devices you are pairing to, your receipt layout, and how many receipts a shift, and we will confirm compatibility before you order. Browse our Citizen range or the full printers and scanners catalogue.
Common questions
What is the Citizen CMP-20 used for?
It is a 2-inch Bluetooth mobile thermal receipt printer for taking payment away from a fixed till: bar and cafe queue busting, table service, market stalls and events, delivery rounds, and field service invoicing.
Will it work with my POS app on an iPad?
Confirm two things before ordering. Your POS application must list the printer as supported, since Bluetooth printers are not generic devices to an app. And for iPhone or iPad, classic Bluetooth accessories need Apple MFi certification to talk to iOS apps. Tell us your app and devices and we will check first.
Should I choose 2-inch or 3-inch receipts?
2-inch is the mobile standard because the printer and its rolls are light enough to carry all shift. 3-inch suits fixed counters and wider layouts. Print your actual receipt at 2 inches and check it reads properly before committing, since layouts designed for 3-inch often wrap and truncate.
How long does the battery last?
It depends on receipt length and idle time, so work it out on your own shift rather than a headline figure. What matters more in practice is the charging arrangement: multi-bay chargers or docks get fleets charged reliably, individual chargers do not. Budget a spare battery per few units.
Can it print adhesive labels?
No, it is a receipt printer and runs plain thermal receipt rolls. Adhesive label work needs a mobile label printer designed for liner or linerless label stock, which handles media and cutting differently.
Send us your POS application, the devices you are pairing to and your receipt layout, and we will confirm compatibility before quoting.
