What Is a Virtual Terminal?
A virtual terminal is a secure web page, hosted by your payment processor, where you key in a customer’s card number, expiry date, and CVV by hand to take a payment. The customer is not present. They have given you the details by phone, email, or post. The payment is classed as MOTO, or card-not-present, and it attracts a higher rate than an in-person tap because the risk sits with you: the customer can later dispute the charge by claiming they never authorised it, and there is no chip-and-PIN record to prove otherwise.
The distinction that trips people up is virtual terminal versus payment link. A payment link sends the customer a URL where they enter their own card details in a hosted checkout. A virtual terminal is the opposite: you are entering the card on the customer’s behalf, usually because they are on the phone with you and waiting for a link to arrive would be slower than just taking the number there and then.
Virtual Terminal Providers
Stripe Virtual Terminal
We rate Stripe the cheapest way to take a card over the phone in the UK, on one condition: you already run your card payments through it. The virtual terminal lives in the Stripe Dashboard under “Create payment,” where you enter the card details, amount, and an optional description. The charge processes at Stripe’s standard UK rate of 1.5% + 20p. What stands out here is that Stripe does not bolt a separate, higher MOTO surcharge onto virtual terminal charges the way Square and SumUp do, although the payment still carries the different PCI obligations that come with card-not-present transactions. If you are already on Stripe, there is no extra setup and nothing new to sign. Settlement lands two business days later. For overseas phone orders, Stripe charges 2.5% + 20p on EEA cards and 3.25% + 20p on other international cards, and converting the proceeds to GBP adds a currency-conversion fee that starts at 2%.
Square Virtual Terminal
For a florist or a tradesperson taking the odd order by phone, we would start here. Square’s virtual terminal sits under “Take a payment” in the Square Dashboard, with no monthly fee and no contract. The MOTO rate is 2.5%, noticeably higher than Square’s 1.75% card-present rate, which is the trade-off for paying nothing to keep the option open. The practical advantage is the card-on-file feature: you can save a regular customer’s card and charge it again later, so a repeat buyer does not have to read their number down the phone every single time. Two costs to watch: cards issued outside the UK add a 1.5% international fee on top of the 2.5% rate, and an optional instant transfer — rather than waiting for the standard payout — costs an extra 1.5%.
SumUp Virtual Terminal
SumUp runs its virtual terminal at the same 2.5% MOTO rate as Square, with no monthly fee or contract, accessible from both the SumUp app and the web dashboard. Its real pull is for businesses already tapping cards on a SumUp Air in person. The virtual terminal extends that same account to phone orders, so you are not opening a second merchant account or buying extra hardware just to handle the occasional call. One fee to budget for: SumUp adds a non-refundable £10 admin charge for every chargeback.
Dojo Virtual Terminal
Dojo’s virtual terminal comes as part of its standard terminal package, at negotiated MOTO rates that typically land between 1.3% and 1.8% depending on volume. The catch is the monthly fee of £20 to £25 and a minimum 12-month contract. The maths only works one way: once your phone-order volume is high enough that the lower transaction rate saves you more than the subscription costs, Dojo is competitive. Below that, paying a monthly fee for a terminal you rarely use makes no sense, and the pay-as-you-go options are cheaper.
TakePayments Virtual Terminal
TakePayments wraps its virtual terminal in a managed service, with volume-based MOTO rates quoted by an account manager rather than published on a price page. A named UK account manager handles your setup, ongoing support, and any disputes. We would only point you here if phone orders are a core part of how you trade: call centres, catalogue retailers, and booking services processing a high daily volume, where a human on the end of a phone and a rate negotiated against that volume genuinely earns its keep. Contracts run 12 to 36 months, so it is a commitment, not a casual sign-up.
PCI Compliance for Virtual Terminals
Keying card details into a virtual terminal puts you in scope for PCI DSS compliance under SAQ C-VT (Self-Assessment Questionnaire C-VT). This is the lighter end of PCI: it covers the controls around access to the terminal, specifically who is allowed to use it, whether the machine is protected against malware, and whether any cardholder data is stored after the payment clears. Most providers walk you through the SAQ C-VT questionnaire and supply the compliance documentation, so you are not filling it in cold.
The one rule that matters more than the rest: never write down or store a full card number. PCI DSS prohibits holding an unprotected card number after authorisation, and that includes the sticky note you are tempted to scribble while you finish the call. If a customer reads their details to you, process the payment there and then. If they cannot be processed immediately, send them a payment link instead of parking the number in an unencrypted spreadsheet.
Virtual Terminal vs Payment Link
Our view: if the customer is not in a hurry, a payment link is often the better choice. You generate a secure link through Square Invoices, Stripe, or SumUp and send it by text or email, and the customer types their own card details into a hosted checkout. That shifts the data entry, and a chunk of your PCI obligation, onto them, and it removes the risk of you fat-fingering a digit. The trade-off is that it asks the customer to complete a step on their own, which does not suit everyone: the elderly customer who is not comfortable online, or the buyer who simply wants the payment done while you are both still on the call. For those, the virtual terminal wins.
Our Verdict
For occasional phone orders, start with Square. It is free to open, has no contract, and runs MOTO payments at a flat 2.5% from a dashboard you can be using the same day. For the florist, tradesperson, or small shop taking the odd order by phone, paying nothing per month to keep the option open is the right default — and card-on-file means repeat customers do not re-read their number every time.
If you already process on Stripe, its virtual terminal is the cheapest rate, full stop: 1.5% + 20p on UK cards, no separate MOTO surcharge, and nothing new to sign. SumUp is the natural pick if you already tap cards on a SumUp Air and just want to extend that account to phone orders.
Dojo and TakePayments only earn their monthly fee at sustained, high call volume — call centres, catalogue retailers, and booking services. Below roughly £5,000 a month in phone orders, a pay-as-you-go provider is cheaper. Run your actual monthly phone-order volume against the negotiated rate versus the subscription before you sign a 12-to-36-month contract.
Frequently Asked Questions
MOTO stands for Mail Order / Telephone Order. A MOTO payment is any card payment where the cardholder is not physically present. The most common case is taking card details over the phone and entering them into a virtual terminal. MOTO transactions are classified as card-not-present (CNP) and attract higher processing rates than card-present transactions because the merchant cannot verify the physical card or the cardholder’s identity at the point of sale. They are also subject to separate PCI DSS obligations under SAQ C-VT.
Yes, if you use it correctly. The virtual terminal page itself is hosted and secured by the payment provider (Stripe, Square, SumUp, and the rest) and accessed over HTTPS. Your side of the bargain is to keep the device you use locked down (antivirus, no malware, password-protected), to never record full card numbers on paper or in unsecured files, and to limit terminal access to authorised staff. These are exactly the controls documented in PCI SAQ C-VT, which your payment provider will usually help you complete.
For low to medium volume, Stripe’s virtual terminal at 1.5% + 20p is the lowest rate, with no monthly fee or contract. Square and SumUp both charge 2.5% for MOTO but also carry no monthly fees, so they stay free to keep open. Once you are processing more than £5,000 a month in phone orders, Dojo’s negotiated MOTO rate (typically 1.3% to 1.8%) starts to offset its £20 to £25 monthly fee. Run your actual phone-order volume against both the flat-rate and the negotiated options before you commit; the cheapest provider on paper is not always the cheapest for your numbers.
Methodology & Disclosure
How we reviewed these virtual terminals. We assessed each provider on the factors that decide cost and fit for taking cards over the phone: the MOTO (card-not-present) rate rather than the cheaper in-person rate, monthly fees, contract length, international and FX surcharges, chargeback handling, and PCI scope (all five sit under the lighter SAQ C-VT). We checked figures against each provider’s published pricing in June 2026. Dojo and TakePayments quote MOTO rates on volume rather than publishing them, so we give the typical ranges they confirm and recommend getting a written quote before you compare on cost. We do not process live payments through these terminals; our assessment is a desk review of published terms, product capability, and how each provider fits a defined business situation.
Disclosure. BusinessExpert is reader-supported and editorially independent. Square, SumUp, and TakePayments are affiliate partners, and the links to them are affiliate or tracked links that may earn us a commission at no extra cost to you. Stripe and Dojo are not affiliate partners — those are standard outbound links that earn us nothing. Commissions never affect which providers we recommend or how we rank them; our recommendations are based on verified MOTO rates, contract terms, and product capability, not on commercial relationships.