Which card machine is right for my business?
Pick the right UK card terminal in five questions: business type, ticket size, monthly card volume, priority axis (cost, speed, reliability, integration), and integration constraints. Below is the same decision tree we use to surface 2 to 3 recommended terminals from our 14-terminal review set.
How this tool works
We are not running JavaScript here. This is editorial: read the section that matches your business type, then narrow by ticket size and priority. Each leaf names 2 to 3 recommended terminals with a one-line rationale. If you would rather not work it out yourself, the matcher form at the bottom of the page covers the same logic and surfaces personalised quotes.
Five inputs, in order:
- Business type: retail, hospitality, mobile or visiting trade, B2B or professional services, e-commerce hybrid.
- Ticket size band: small (£4-£15), mid (£15-£80), high (£80-£500), very-high (£500+).
- Monthly card volume: <£3k, £3k-£8k, £8k-£25k, £25k-£80k, £80k+.
- Priority axis: cost, speed, reliability, integration.
- Integration constraints: booking system, PoS till, billing engine, accounting stack.
Branch 1: Retail (fixed-location, customer-facing)
Independent shops, boutiques, butchers, florists, off-licences, convenience stores, pet shops. Typical pattern: fixed counter, consistent footfall, mid-ticket sizes, contactless dominates.
Small ticket (£4 to £15): cafés, bakeries, takeaways, newsagents
| Monthly volume | Priority: cost | Priority: integration |
|---|---|---|
| <£8k | SumUp Solo at 1.69% no contract | Square Terminal for the POS app |
| £8k-£25k | Dojo Go at 1.4% to 1.6% blended | Square with Square Online for click-and-collect |
| £25k+ | Negotiate interchange-plus with Adyen or Stripe | Stripe Reader S700 with custom POS |
Why: small-ticket businesses feel every basis point of rate gap because the percentages add up over thousands of transactions. Settlement speed less material when cash cycles are tight only seasonally.
Mid ticket (£15 to £80): boutiques, butchers, florists, pet shops
For mid-ticket retail, reliability and POS integration matter as much as rate. Stock-management hooks (Square POS, Vend integrations on Stripe, Dojo's PoS partner network) drive the choice more than the headline rate.
- Cost-led: Dojo Go above £8k monthly. SumUp Solo or Zettle Reader 2 below.
- Reliability-led: Dojo Go (multi-network 4G plus WiFi failover; same-next-day settlement).
- Integration-led: Square Terminal for the POS, gift cards and online store.
High ticket (£80 to £500): jewellers, premium boutiques, designer retail
Higher-value transactions need the strongest fraud and chargeback handling. Card-not-present (phone orders, deposits) raises chargeback exposure.
- Cost-led: Dojo Go for the dispute support that no-contract acquirers do not match.
- Reliability-led: Adyen or tier-one acquirer (Worldpay, Barclaycard) above £30k monthly.
- Integration-led: Stripe Reader S700 if you sell online too.
Branch 2: Hospitality (sit-down, table-side, bar)
Restaurants, pubs, cafés, hotels, soft-play, event venues. Pattern: peak-hour throughput, table-side flow, tip handling, settlement speed matters for weekly payroll.
Small ticket (£4 to £15): cafés, coffee shops
See Branch 1 small-ticket retail. Café-style menus with modifiers favour Square's POS app.
Mid ticket (£15 to £80): pubs, bars, casual restaurants
| Monthly volume | Pick | Why |
|---|---|---|
| <£8k | Square Terminal | No contract; POS app strong; tip handling solid. |
| £8k-£40k | Dojo Go | Hospitality is Dojo's dominant book. Same-next-day settlement, multi-network connectivity, table-side and bar-tab flow. |
| £40k+ | Adyen or Worldpay | Interchange-plus pricing plus PoS integration with Lightspeed, Toast, ICR Touch. |
High ticket (£80 to £500): full-service restaurants, hotels, event catering
- Restaurants: Dojo Go for the table-side and split-bill flow. Adyen above £40k monthly.
- Hotels and B&Bs: Card-on-file plus booking-engine integration overrides rate. Worldpay or Stripe with the booking engine that powers your PMS (Mews, Cloudbeds).
- Event catering: Mobile, lumpy. SumUp Solo or Tap to Pay for variable-volume operators; Stripe Reader S700 for those with a website.
Branch 3: Mobile or visiting trade
Mechanics, gardeners, electricians, plumbers, dog groomers, mobile beauty, market stalls, food trucks. Pattern: no fixed location, intermittent connectivity, job-by-job payment, lumpy seasonal flow.
Tap to Pay vs hardware terminal
Tap to Pay on iPhone removes hardware cost entirely. The trade-off: contactless only (£100 cap removed 19 March 2026, banks holding the limit voluntarily; see our explainer), needs the merchant's iPhone, no chip-and-PIN fallback. Tap to Pay on Android (Google Wallet path) launched 2025; coverage uneven.
| Use case | Pick |
|---|---|
| iPhone-native sole trader, all-contactless | Tap to Pay on iPhone via SumUp or Square |
| Mixed contactless and chip-and-PIN, no fixed counter | SumUp Solo with built-in 4G |
| Light mobile use plus existing PayPal | Zettle Reader 2 |
| Higher-volume mobile (£15k+ monthly), van-based trades | Dojo Go portable variant; check 4G coverage at typical job sites first |
Branch 4: B2B and professional services
Accountants, solicitors, consultants, agencies, B2B trade counters (cash-and-carry, builders' merchants, import-export). Pattern: invoice-led billing, larger transaction sizes, commercial-card surcharge applies (B2B exempt from the consumer-card surcharging ban; see our surcharging guide).
Invoice-led businesses
Most B2B revenue clears via bank transfer or invoice-pay-by-card link, not in-person card. The terminal is a fallback, not the main rail.
- Stripe: best invoice-pay-by-card flow plus optional Stripe Reader S700 for the office card terminal.
- GoCardless (not a card terminal but worth knowing): bank-transfer-by-direct-debit; lowest cost for recurring B2B billing.
- Tap to Pay: visiting consultant, no fixed office, occasional in-person payment.
B2B trade counters (cash-and-carry, builders' merchants, import-export)
- Volume below £40k monthly: Dojo Go counter terminal.
- Volume above £40k monthly: Adyen or Worldpay with interchange-plus, especially if commercial-card mix is high (commercial-card interchange runs higher than consumer-card; the gap matters at scale).
- Surcharging: commercial-card surcharging is allowed in the UK; consumer-card surcharging is banned. If your customer mix is mostly commercial cards, surcharging recovers the higher interchange directly. If consumer mix is meaningful, surcharging gets messy fast.
Branch 5: E-commerce hybrid
Online-led businesses with an in-person element: showrooms, click-and-collect retail, pop-up event sales, online florists with a shop. Pattern: most volume is card-not-present (CNP) online, but in-person matters for higher-value, fitting, or local pickup.
- Stripe Reader S700: same Stripe stack covers the website and the in-person terminal. One reconciliation flow. Strongest fit for tech-led e-commerce hybrids.
- Square Terminal: same Square stack covers Square Online plus the terminal. Strongest fit for non-technical retailers running their site on Square.
- Adyen at £30k+ monthly: unified online plus in-person plus international, single platform. Worth the integration cost above ~£40k monthly.
Priority axis: when does each pick break?
The decision tree above assumes a balanced priority. If one axis dominates, the answer changes:
Cost-only priority (every basis point matters)
Above £25k monthly, drop blended pricing entirely. Push for interchange-plus from Stripe (1.4% + 20p starting), Adyen (negotiated below 1.0% all-in for high-volume e-commerce), or a tier-one acquirer (Worldpay, Barclaycard, Lloyds Cardnet). Use our Total Cost of Acquiring calculator to test claims.
Speed-only priority (cashflow tight)
Dojo Go for same-next-day settlement (the fastest in mainstream UK acquiring). Stripe Instant Payouts at 1.5% extra fee for same-day payout. Adyen and Worldpay are next-day standard. Avoid 7-day rolling settlements if cashflow is the constraint.
Reliability-only priority (downtime is unacceptable)
Multi-network connectivity (4G plus WiFi failover) plus published status pages. Dojo Go and Adyen lead. Avoid Bluetooth-only readers (Zettle Reader 2) if reliability is the constraint, because the paired phone is the single point of failure.
Integration-only priority (POS, booking, billing)
Acquirer is downstream of the integration. List the must-have integrations first, then pick from the acquirers each integration supports.
- Treatwell, Fresha, Phorest: Square is the broadest fit.
- Cliniko, Pabau, Semble (clinics): Square plus partner plugins; Stripe with custom integration above £40k monthly.
- Stripe Billing (subscriptions): Stripe Reader S700.
- Mews, Cloudbeds, Little Hotelier (hotels): Worldpay or Stripe.
- ICR Touch, Lightspeed, Toast (hospitality POS): Dojo Go's PoS partner network or Adyen direct.
Three traps to avoid
- The blended-rate trap: a 1.4% blended rate is not the same as a 1.4% interchange-plus rate. Blended hides the gap between consumer-debit interchange (regulated at 0.2%) and commercial-credit interchange (1.5%+). Above £25k monthly with any commercial-card mix, the blended-rate trap costs real money.
- The free hardware trap: "free" terminals usually carry a 12-month minimum contract and a £15-£25 monthly fee. Run the maths on a 12-month total cost; the £99 SumUp Solo is often cheaper for low-volume operators.
- The integration lock trap: picking an acquirer that "integrates" with your booking system can mean you can never leave that acquirer without rebuilding the booking flow. Confirm whether the integration is acquirer-locked or acquirer-agnostic before signing.
Frequently asked questions
What is the single biggest factor in picking the right UK card machine in 2026?
Monthly card volume. Below £8k a month, no-contract acquirers (SumUp, Square, Zettle) are almost always cheapest. Between £8k and £25k, Dojo Go usually wins on rate and settlement speed. Above £25k a month, interchange-plus pricing from Adyen, Stripe or a tier-one acquirer beats blended every time.
Should I just pick the cheapest rate?
No. The headline rate is one of five line items: monthly fee, per-transaction percentage, per-transaction pence flat, chargeback fee, scheme fee. A 1.4% blended rate with a £20 monthly fee can be more expensive than a 1.69% no-contract rate at £4k a month. Use our Total Cost of Acquiring calculator to compare.
I run a mobile business with no fixed location. What changes?
Connectivity becomes the primary spec, not the rate. Tap to Pay on iPhone removes hardware entirely. SumUp Solo and Square Terminal carry built-in 4G SIMs that take over when WiFi drops. A countertop terminal that needs a fixed router is the wrong choice.
How does ticket size affect the choice?
Small-ticket businesses (cafés, takeaways at £4 to £12 per transaction) feel rate impact acutely; a 0.5% rate gap is huge over a year. Mid-ticket retail (£25 to £80) is dominated by reliability and settlement speed. High-ticket trades (jewellers, dentists, hotels at £200+) need the strongest fraud and chargeback handling, which usually means a tier-one acquirer or Dojo.
My business is in a high-risk vertical. Does this tool apply?
Partly. The decision tree below covers mainstream UK trades. For high-risk verticals (vape, CBD, adult, gambling-adjacent, debt-collection, supplements with health claims), mainstream acquirers will decline or terminate post-onboarding. See our high-risk verticals guide for the specialist UK acquirer panel.
Should I prioritise speed of settlement?
Yes if cashflow is tight or seasonal. Dojo Go pays same-next-day across most of its book; SumUp and Square pay next business day; Stripe pays on a 2-day or 7-day rolling cycle by default. For a hospitality operator paying staff weekly, Dojo settlement materially helps. For a salaried-staff retailer, the speed gap is less material.
Does the tool factor in PoS / booking-system integration?
Yes. Each leaf surfaces the integration spec where it matters. Salons (Treatwell, Fresha, Phorest), gyms (Stripe Billing), hotels (booking-engine), dentists (Cliniko, Pabau), pubs (PoS-bundled tills) all have integration constraints that override rate-led picks.
Can I switch later if I get the choice wrong?
Yes. No-contract acquirers (SumUp, Square, Zettle) let you leave any time. Dojo and tier-one acquirers run 12-month minimums; you can leave but the contract may end-of-term out. See our switch guides for the practical exit routes by current provider.
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Oliver leads AcceptCard's editorial and comparison research. With a background in UK commercial finance, he oversees provider analysis, rate verification, and industry reporting across all verticals.
Last reviewed: 10 May 2026