Cheapest Card Machines
Cheapest Overall for Low-Volume Sellers: SumUp Air
The SumUp Air is a Bluetooth reader that pairs with the SumUp app on your phone. At £39 upfront and 1.69% per transaction, the lowest flat rate among the no-contract readers in this guide, it is the most cost-effective option for businesses taking under £3,000 per month. There is no monthly fee, no contract, and no minimum transaction volume.
The Air is a compact device with a long battery life. It accepts contactless, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and chip and PIN. SumUp settles to your bank account within one to three business days.
At £5,000 per month, the 1.69% rate costs £84.50 in fees, fractionally less than Square or Zettle at the same volume. The saving grows as volume increases, which is why we would prioritise SumUp’s rate if you are choosing between no-contract readers.
Cheapest to Get Started: Square Reader
The Square Reader costs £19, the lowest upfront hardware cost in this comparison. It connects to your phone via Bluetooth and the free Square POS app. Transaction fees are 1.75% with no monthly charge and no contract. Square settles in one to two business days.
The £19 reader covers contactless and chip and PIN payments. If you also need to take magstripe payments (rare in the UK but occasionally needed for older corporate cards), Square sells a magstripe reader separately.
Square’s app is well-designed and includes free invoicing, basic inventory, and digital receipts. We rate it the easiest system to set up among the options here. Most users are taking payments within 15 minutes of opening the box, which matters if you need to be trading this weekend, not next.
Cheapest with PayPal Ecosystem: Zettle Reader 2
The Zettle Reader 2 costs £29 for the first reader and 1.75% per transaction. If you already use PayPal for online sales, we rate Zettle the natural companion: funds from in-person payments land in the same PayPal balance as your e-commerce revenue, so you reconcile one pot instead of two. There is no monthly fee and no contract.
The reader is slim and fast, with around eight hours of battery life. Like Square, it pairs with a phone via Bluetooth. Zettle’s app handles basic inventory and reporting; it is not as feature-rich as Square but covers the essentials for most small businesses.
Cheapest for Same-Day Access to Funds: myPOS Go 2
The myPOS Go 2 costs around £49 and charges 1.10% + £0.07 per transaction. The device has its own 4G SIM, so it does not need a phone. Its defining feature is instant settlement: funds land in a myPOS e-money account immediately after each payment. You can then transfer to your bank or spend directly using the included Visa debit card.
There is no monthly fee in the first year; after that, a £3.99 monthly account maintenance fee applies. For businesses where same-day access to cash matters (a market trader buying stock from the morning’s takings, say), we rate it the most cost-effective option, as long as you are comfortable holding funds in an e-money account rather than your bank.
Cheapest Standalone 4G Reader: SumUp Solo
The SumUp Solo costs around £79 and charges 1.69% per transaction. It has its own 4G SIM (no phone needed) and a colour touchscreen. Battery life is up to 12 hours. There is no monthly fee and no contract. If you need 4G independence without a monthly rental commitment, we rate the Solo the most affordable way to get it.
The Solo is available in two versions: a standalone reader, and a version with a dock that includes a receipt printer. The dock version costs more but is useful for any business that regularly issues printed receipts.
Cheapest at High Volume: Dojo Go
Dojo Go charges a monthly rental of around £20–£25 and a transaction rate that starts around 1.2% for businesses processing £10,000 or more per month. For a business taking £20,000 per month, the numbers work out roughly as follows: Dojo at 1.2% costs £240 in transaction fees plus £25 rental = £265 total. SumUp Air at 1.69% costs £338. The saving at volume more than covers Dojo’s monthly fee.
The break-even point, where Dojo’s monthly fee is offset by the lower rate, is roughly £12,000 to £15,000 per month depending on your negotiated rate. Below that threshold we would stay on a no-contract reader; the rental is dead weight until your volume earns it back.
Cheapest Card Machines Compared
SumUp Air
The Air is SumUp’s entry-level device. It accepts contactless, chip and PIN, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. The app covers basic reporting, VAT tracking, and tip prompts. SumUp also sells a SumUp Point of Sale app for Android tablets with a full EPOS interface. The Air connects via Bluetooth; signal range is good up to about 10 metres. Customer support is via chat and email. If you take more than about £1,000 a month, SumUp’s £19-a-month Payments Plus plan cuts the in-person rate on standard consumer cards from 1.69% to 0.99%.
Square Reader
Square Reader is primarily a hardware accessory; the value is in the app ecosystem. The free POS tier covers unlimited products, digital receipts, and basic reporting. Square for Retail (from £49/month) adds stock management and purchase orders. Square for Restaurants (from £69/month) adds table management. Payment rates are the same regardless of which POS plan you are on.
Zettle Reader 2
The Reader 2 is faster to process payments than the original Zettle Reader. The app has improved significantly in recent years and now includes product libraries, reporting by category, and basic staff management. Zettle’s integration with PayPal business accounts and PayPal Here means your in-person, invoice, and e-commerce payments can be viewed in one place. The Reader 2 charges a flat 1.75% on every major card — including international cards and American Express — and settles funds to your bank account in one to two business days.
myPOS Go 2
The Go 2 has a 5.5-inch touchscreen, built-in thermal printer, and supports contactless up to £100. The device supports tip entry and split payments. myPOS’s merchant portal provides daily transaction reports and refund management. The instant settlement feature requires a myPOS business account. You cannot direct instant settlement to an external bank account.
SumUp Solo
The Solo processes all major UK card schemes and supports tip prompts, VAT, and digital receipts via the SumUp app. The 4G SIM is pre-installed and included in the device price. There is no separate SIM contract. Software updates are automatic over-the-air. SumUp’s customer support has improved in recent years but is still primarily chat and email rather than phone.
Dojo Go
Dojo Go is rented, not purchased. The terminal is replaced for free if it fails. Dojo offers next-day settlement, real-time transaction monitoring via its app, and UK-based 24/7 phone support. Integration with Lightspeed, Epos Now, and other EPOS systems is available. Chargebacks are managed by Dojo. The minimum contract is 12 months.
How to Find the Cheapest Card Machine for Your Business
The cheapest option depends on your monthly volume and on whether you can pair to a phone or need a standalone device. We have set out the bands the way we would actually work through them with you.
Under £1,000 per month: Square Reader at £19 upfront and 1.75% is the cheapest to start. Annual transaction cost at £1,000/month: £210 in fees.
£1,000–£10,000 per month: SumUp Air or SumUp Solo. The 1.69% rate saves money over Square and Zettle at higher volumes, and the hardware is cheap enough that the rate advantage outweighs the modest upfront difference.
£10,000–£15,000 per month: Compare SumUp Solo (1.69%, no monthly fee) against Dojo Go (around 1.2%, plus £25/month rental). Run your own numbers. The break-even depends on your negotiated Dojo rate.
Over £15,000 per month: Dojo Go or TakePayments, both with negotiated volume pricing, are almost always the cheapest option over a 12-month horizon.
Card Machine Fees and Costs to Watch
Refund policy. SumUp does not return the transaction fee on refunds. If a customer returns a £100 item, you have already paid £1.69 in fees and it is not returned. Square does return the fee on refunds. If you have a high refund rate, this difference matters.
Chargeback fees. Square and SumUp both charge a fee (typically £10–£20) if a customer disputes a transaction via their bank. Dojo includes chargeback management as part of the service. High-dispute-risk businesses (event tickets, deposits, high-value items) should factor this in.
International cards. Most flat-rate providers apply a surcharge for non-UK cards. SumUp charges 1.99% for non-EEA cards, myPOS charges 2.20% + 7p on EEA consumer cards, and Square adds 1.5% on non-UK cards, taking its 1.75% rate to 3.25%. Check the specific rate for your card mix.
BNPL integration. None of the no-contract readers in this guide support Klarna or Clearpay in-person. If buy-now-pay-later is important to your business, you need a separate online checkout integration. It cannot be done via a standard card machine.
Minimum monthly charges. Some providers levy a minimum monthly service charge — often £15–£25 — and bill you the shortfall if your transaction fees do not reach that threshold. On a genuinely low-volume setup this can quietly become your biggest line of cost, so check for it before you sign.
Our Verdict
For most low-volume UK sellers, the SumUp Air is the cheapest card machine to own and run. At £39 upfront and 1.69% with no monthly fee or contract, it has the lowest flat rate of the no-contract readers here, and that rate advantage grows with every pound you take. If you process more than about £1,000 a month, SumUp’s £19 Payments Plus plan drops the in-person rate to 0.99% and changes the maths again in its favour.
Two cheaper-to-start or faster-funding alternatives are worth a look. The Square Reader is the lowest upfront cost at £19 and the easiest to set up, which suits genuinely occasional sellers. The myPOS Go 2 settles funds instantly into an e-money account — the right call if same-day access to your takings matters more than a marginal rate difference. Zettle Reader 2 earns its place only if you already live in PayPal.
Above roughly £12,000–£15,000 a month, switch your thinking to negotiated rates. Dojo Go’s ~1.2% rate plus a £20–£25 monthly rental beats any flat-rate reader once volume clears the break-even, but it locks you into a 12-month contract — so model your real monthly takings against the rental before you commit, and watch for minimum monthly service charges on any contracted plan.
Frequently Asked Questions
The cheapest to buy upfront is the Square Reader at £19, with a 1.75% transaction rate and no monthly fee. If you want the lowest transaction rate without a monthly fee, SumUp Air (£39, 1.69%) edges ahead as volume grows. For businesses taking more than £15,000 per month, a negotiated-rate provider like Dojo or TakePayments is usually cheaper overall despite the monthly rental.
No UK card machine provider offers zero transaction fees. The card schemes (Visa, Mastercard) charge interchange fees that providers pass on. Some providers describe themselves as “fee-free” but charge a higher monthly subscription instead. Always calculate total annual cost (hardware + monthly fees + transaction fees at your volume) rather than comparing rates in isolation.
Not necessarily. SumUp, Square, Zettle, and myPOS all operate without contracts; you can cancel at any time. Dojo Go requires a minimum 12-month contract. TakePayments contracts range from 12 to 36 months. No-contract readers give you maximum flexibility but tend to have higher per-transaction rates. At higher volumes, the rate saving from a contracted provider typically justifies the commitment.
Some providers run promotions offering a free card machine on sign-up, or discount the hardware heavily for new merchants. These offers appear periodically from SumUp, Square, and myPOS. The trade-off is usually a higher transaction rate or a minimum volume commitment. Check current offers directly with providers. Promotional terms change frequently and are not reflected in standard published pricing.
Hardware purchases from UK providers are subject to VAT at 20%. If your business is VAT-registered, you can reclaim this. Transaction fees and monthly subscription fees from payment processors are typically exempt from VAT (financial services exemption), though the precise treatment depends on the provider; check your invoice or ask your accountant.
Methodology & Disclosure
How we costed these card machines. We compared each reader on total cost of ownership, not the headline rate: upfront hardware price, the per-transaction rate (including international-card surcharges), any monthly or account-maintenance fee, contract length, settlement speed, and the smaller costs that catch people out — refund-fee handling, chargeback fees, and minimum monthly service charges. We worked the rates against worked monthly-volume examples so the cheapest option is the cheapest for your turnover, not in the abstract. Figures were checked against each provider’s published UK pricing in June 2026; Dojo’s rate is negotiated on volume, so we use its indicative range and recommend getting a written quote. We do not buy and test every device first-hand; this is a desk review of published pricing, specifications, and how each reader fits a defined business situation.
Disclosure. BusinessExpert is reader-supported and editorially independent. SumUp, Square, and myPOS are affiliate partners, and the links to them are affiliate links that may earn us a commission at no extra cost to you. Zettle and Dojo are not affiliate partners — those are standard outbound links that earn us nothing. Commissions never affect which machines we recommend or how we rank them; our recommendations are based on verified pricing, contract terms, and total cost of ownership, not on commercial relationships.