Epos Now Payment Processing Review (2026)

Epos Now Payment Processing at a Glance

Verdict

If you need a full POS counter with cloud reporting, inventory, and integrated card payments in one contract, Epos Now earns its place on your shortlist.

The £299 headline price does a lot of work in marketing copy. True year-one commitment is £947 minimum once the mandatory £54/month subscription is included. That is the figure we put in front of you, rather than the £299, because it is the one you are actually committing to when you pick up the phone.

The 1.70% integrated rate on Visa and Mastercard is competitive, beating Square’s 1.75% flat (verified squareup.com/gb, October 2026). That saving only counts once you’ve absorbed the subscription cost first.

Best For

Established retail shops, cafes, pubs, and restaurants that need a full counter setup in one commissioned installation. You get a touchscreen till, cash drawer, thermal printer, and cloud POS from a single UK provider.

Counter-based operators running multi-location visibility, stock control, and integrated card payments through one back office. If you run two or more sites, consolidated reporting is built in.

Hospitality businesses adding a Kitchen Display System (KDS), tableside ordering, and online ordering through the app marketplace without moving to a higher-priced specialist POS.

Not Ideal For

Low-volume mobile sellers, market traders, and sole traders taking occasional card payments. The £54/month subscription costs more than the per-transaction saving at modest volumes.

Operators who want a zero-subscription card reader with no software commitment. Square Reader or SumUp will work out cheaper if you don’t need POS depth.

Businesses that need instant settlement. Epos Now collects transactions at the end of each day and pays them out after two days.

Key Facts

Transaction fee: 1.70% flat on Visa and Mastercard via Epos Now Payments (verified October 2026). Amex is opt-in at a separate flat rate that Epos Now does not publish.

Hardware: Complete POS bundle from £299 (Pro-C15 touchscreen terminal, cash drawer, receipt printer). Hospitality bundles from £379.

Monthly fee: £54/month care and support subscription required with discounted hardware. 12-month minimum, auto-renews annually.

Settlement: transactions collected at the end of each day and paid to your bank account after two days.

Connectivity: WiFi, Ethernet, and 4G on the Payments Lite standalone reader (embedded SIM).

What Is Epos Now Payment Processing?

How Does Epos Now Payment Processing Work?

Epos Now is a Norfolk-based POS and payments provider selling into UK retail and hospitality. What you’re buying is three things in one contract: a hardware counter, Back Office cloud software, and card processing through Epos Now Payments.

Your sales path runs through a phone consultation rather than a self-serve checkout. You describe your business, Epos Now sizes a bundle, and pricing and contract terms come back in a written quote.

The core product is the Complete Solution bundle from £299. It includes a Pro-C15 touchscreen terminal, a metal cash drawer, a thermal receipt printer, Epos Now cloud software, and installation.

Whether you run retail or hospitality, the Back Office platform runs the same codebase. Sector-specific features such as KDS, tableside payments, and Yoello-powered online ordering are activated through the app marketplace rather than sold as a separate product tier.

The standalone Payments Lite reader is a separate product at £179 + VAT outright or £15 + VAT/month on a 12-month contract. It carries an embedded 4G SIM, a built-in receipt printer, and is rated up to 650 transactions per charge.

What Payment Types Does Epos Now Support?

Accepted card networks on Epos Now Payments: Visa and Mastercard as standard, with American Express, JCB, Diners, Discover and UnionPay as an opt-in at another flat rate. All support chip and PIN, contactless, and digital wallet.

Amex, JCB, Diners, Discover and UnionPay are opt-in on Epos Now Payments. The integrated Amex rate is described as a second fixed rate without a published figure. We could not find that figure published anywhere, so Amex is the one card cost you cannot price from Epos Now’s public pages.

Online ordering runs through Epos Now Order & Pay, powered by Yoello, from £25/month. Mail order and telephone order (MOTO) are not called out as headline features on the public pages.

How Much Does Epos Now Payment Processing Cost?

What Are Epos Now’s Transaction Fees?

Epos Now Payments charges 1.70% flat on Visa and Mastercard in person. This is the rate verified from eposnow.com/uk in October 2026.

Digital-wallet payments (Apple Pay, Google Pay, Samsung Pay) route through the contactless interface at the same rate as the underlying card.

At 400 card transactions a month on a £25 average ticket, £10,000 of card turnover costs £170 in fees at 1.70%. Add the £54/month subscription and your all-in monthly cost is £224 to process that volume.

We compared that £224 against a standalone Square Reader at 1.75% with no subscription: the same £10,000 volume costs £175 in fees. Epos Now wins on rate but costs £49 more all-in once the subscription is included at this volume.

Are There Monthly, Setup or Hardware Fees?

The Complete Solution bundle starts from £299 on promotional pricing, reduced from £849. Named contents: Pro-C15 touchscreen terminal, metal cash drawer, thermal receipt printer, Epos Now cloud software, and installation.

A card reader is not explicitly named in the £299 bundle. Whether one is included or ordered separately as a Payments Lite unit at £179 + VAT is not confirmed on the public product page. Epos Now’s payments page says additional hardware fees apply for card readers.

The mandatory £54/month care and support subscription runs on a 12-month licence that auto-renews annually. Written notice 30 days before renewal is required to cancel. Miss that window and you’re committed to another 12 months.

Installation and configuration are included with the bundle. A technician commissions the till, configures the software, and runs initial staff training. There is no separate setup fee.

What Other Fees Should You Watch?

The Amex rate for integrated Payments is a separate flat rate that Epos Now does not publish, which matters most for hospitality venues with corporate Amex spend.

The ProtectNow Care Plan, if offered, is a separate 36-month fixed contract covering hardware care and support. Early exit costs remaining monthly payments minus 3.5%. We rate this the most important number in your quote if it appears there at all.

Software add-ons layer on: online ordering from £25/month, accounting sync from £25/month, Kitchen Display System from £19/month, and loyalty from £15/month. A hospitality counter with KDS, online ordering, and accounting sync lands above £100/month in software alone.

How Quickly Does Epos Now Pay Out?

What Are Epos Now’s Settlement Times?

Epos Now Payments collects all transactions at the end of each day and pays them to your bank account after two days.

Epos Now’s payments page gives the two-day figure without saying whether weekends and bank holidays count, so a sale on Friday or Saturday may wait longer than two days to reach your account.

For a busy Friday-to-Sunday pub or restaurant, that means the biggest days of takings are the ones still in transit at the start of the week. We weigh that gap as a working-capital cost rather than a service detail, especially if your supplier payments fall early in the week.

Can Epos Now Hold, Delay or Reserve Funds?

Epos Now’s payments page offers no same-day or faster payout option, so the two-day schedule is the one to plan your cash flow around.

There is no instant wallet-style settlement comparable to MyPOS. Funds flow through standard bank clearing rails on an accelerated cycle.

Standard merchant underwriting applies at onboarding. High-risk sectors may face reserve requirements. Because your POS and card processing run through Epos Now together, a payment account pause can affect till operation, not just payouts. That coupling is worth naming before signing.

What Payment Features Does Epos Now Offer?

Does Epos Now Support Online, In-Person and Remote Payments?

In-person card acceptance is the core use case. The Complete Solution is built around a fixed counter: WiFi and Ethernet connect the Pro-C15 terminal at the till. If you need a counter-first setup, this is the right product shape.

For tableside or event use alongside your main counter, Payments Lite is the portable option. It carries an embedded 4G SIM, a built-in receipt printer, and all-day battery life rated up to 650 transactions per charge.

Online ordering runs through Epos Now Order & Pay powered by Yoello, from £25/month. You get QR-code tableside ordering, delivery, and collection, all feeding back into the Back Office.

MOTO (mail order, telephone order) and stand-alone payment links are not called out as headline features on the public pages.

What Integrations and Business Tools Are Included?

The app marketplace lists 10 categories. Named integrations include Xero, QuickBooks, Shopify, OpenTable, Caterbook, Deputy, Fourth Hospitality, Loyalzoo, and Yoello.

For ecommerce, Shopify sync connects products, stock, and orders between Shopify and the Back Office. Epos Now Online is the first-party webshop option for businesses without an existing ecommerce platform.

Xero and QuickBooks integrations sync automatically. When a payment is confirmed, the reconciliation records itself in the ledger. Sage does not appear in the marketplace at all. If your accountant works exclusively in Sage, that is a manual export every month rather than a sync, and it is the strongest reason on this page to look elsewhere.

For hospitality bookings, OpenTable covers restaurant reservations and Caterbook handles hotels and guesthouses. For staff scheduling, Deputy and Fourth Hospitality are available through the marketplace.

How Does Epos Now Handle Chargebacks, Disputes and Security?

How Are Chargebacks and Disputes Managed?

Chargeback handling on Epos Now Payments runs through the merchant portal. Specific chargeback fees are not published on the public pages.

Epos Now does not publish a chargeback fee, and we rate an unpublished one as a real exposure on a hospitality account where disputes are routine.

If you run a hospitality venue with high-value table bookings, chargebacks on no-shows and disputes can be material. Your chargeback response window matters if you’re processing £200+ covers regularly.

Standard UK card scheme rules apply: customers have up to 120 days to raise a dispute on most card types. Epos Now Payments processes disputes through the normal acquiring workflow.

Is Epos Now Secure and Compliant?

PCI DSS compliance is managed through Epos Now Payments. No separate PCI compliance charge is levied on the integrated product, which removes the annual fee some merchant account providers add.

Card data flows through Epos Now Payments infrastructure rather than your local network, which limits your PCI scope as a merchant. For tableside use, Payments Lite carries point-to-point encryption from the card tap to the acquirer.

We still recommend completing the annual Self-Assessment Questionnaire (SAQ) your acquiring bank asks for, even when the provider handles compliance infrastructure.

Standard merchant onboarding applies: company details, directors’ ID, expected transaction volumes, and average ticket size. UK limited companies and sole traders are typically approved within a few working days.

What Is Epos Now Like to Use Day to Day?

How Easy Is Epos Now to Set Up?

Installation and configuration come included with the bundle, so you are not the one commissioning the till. A technician does that, configures the software, and runs initial staff training on site.

Staff management, permissions, and till-level access controls are included from day one. You can have roles and PIN access configured per employee during the setup visit, rather than setting them up yourself afterwards.

Multi-location visibility is built in. If you run more than one site, stock and sales reporting consolidate across locations in the same back office without a separate configuration step.

For hospitality, KDS, tableside payments, and Yoello-powered online ordering layer on through the app marketplace rather than requiring a separate product tier or new installation, so you add them when you need them. For a restaurant, our guide to the best POS systems for restaurants shows where Epos Now sits against the specialists.

What Is the Dashboard or App Like?

The Epos Now Back Office is a cloud POS accessible from any browser. Your bookkeeper can pull VAT-period sales data at month-end without logging into a terminal on the shop floor.

Core reports cover sales by product, staff, till, and time of day, plus stock levels, low-stock alerts, and purchase order tracking. Daily Z-reports and end-of-day reconciliation come as standard.

For multi-site operators, sales velocity and till performance across locations compare in one view. Export formats include CSV as standard, plus direct integrations for Xero and QuickBooks.

Check the accounting integrations carefully before committing. Xero and QuickBooks are confirmed on the marketplace page. If your bookkeeper runs quarterly returns from Xero, the fee sync saves manual entry work.

What Do Customers Say About Epos Now?

What Do Positive Reviews Mention?

Public review patterns show the product performs well for counter-based retail and hospitality operators who understood the contract terms at sign-up.

Positive reviews reference the hardware setup quality, cloud reporting depth, and support quality on standard queries. Commissioned installation is particularly praised by operators new to POS systems.

Phone support and live chat responsiveness on routine queries draw consistent positive mentions. Operators who needed a full counter commissioned by a single provider describe the process as straightforward.

What Complaints Come Up Most Often?

The 36-month ProtectNow Care Plan and the 12-month auto-renewing software licence come up repeatedly in negative reviews.

Early-exit costs on the care plan (remaining payments minus 3.5%) catch operators who signed without reading the care plan terms separately from the main licence.

The pattern we found reading them back is consistent: operators who understood the product and read the full contract terms are broadly satisfied, and operators who relied on the headline £299 figure are not.

Support response times show a mixed picture. Negative reviews cite slow response on account-level queries such as contract amendments. The practical safeguard is simple: get every contract element in writing before signing.

Who Is Epos Now Payment Processing Best For?

Which Businesses Is Epos Now Best Suited To?

Established retail shops, cafes, pubs, takeaways, restaurants, and hotel food-and-beverage operations are the core audience. If you need a full till commissioned as one installation, Epos Now fits your shape.

Counter-based operators running multi-location stock control and integrated card payments through one back office have the most to gain. Consolidated reporting across sites is built in rather than bolted on.

On fees alone the subscription rarely pays for itself. Against Square’s 1.75%, the 0.05-point saving at 1.70% covers the £54/month subscription only at roughly £108,000 a month in card sales, so the case for Epos Now rests on the counter, stock control and reporting.

Hospitality businesses adding KDS, tableside ordering, or online ordering without a full specialist POS upgrade will find the marketplace add-on model a lower-cost route into those features.

When Should You Consider an Alternative?

If you only need to take cards, a subscription-free Square Reader or SumUp will usually be cheaper all-in. Against Square’s 1.75%, the 0.05-point saving at 1.70% does not cover the £54/month subscription until card takings reach roughly £108,000 a month.

If you need portability above POS depth, start with a standalone reader. Epos Now’s counter setup is the wrong shape for a mobile trading pattern.

If instant settlement matters to your cash flow, MyPOS Go 2 removes the two-day gap that Epos Now’s default schedule creates for your weekend takings.

If you already bank with Tide and want card acceptance without a separate POS subscription, Tide Card Reader keeps your card takings and invoicing in one app.

What Are the Best Alternatives to Epos Now Payment Processing?

Epos Now vs Square Reader

Square Reader costs £19 + VAT and charges 1.75% flat on all in-person card payments. There is no monthly fee and no hardware bundle contract.

At modest volumes, Square Reader is cheaper all-in than Epos Now once the £54/month subscription is included. The break-even point sits at roughly £108,000 of monthly card turnover (about £1.3 million a year).

We send retail and hospitality operators who need POS depth to Epos Now and operators who need simplicity to Square. Square removes the subscription and the hardware contract; the trade-off is thinner POS depth.

Epos Now vs myPOS Go 2

MyPOS Go 2 solves the specific problem of two-day settlement. Funds land in a MyPOS wallet immediately rather than waiting through the weekend.

The device is standalone with a built-in SIM, no POS counter, and no subscription. It suits event caterers and market traders who need mobile acceptance and instant cash flow.

We choose MyPOS Go 2 over Epos Now only where instant settlement is the whole point. For fixed-counter retail or hospitality with full POS needs, Epos Now is the more complete product.

Epos Now vs Tide Card Reader

Tide Card Reader is a banking-first product, not a POS platform. Plan rates start from 0.69% + 3p for Tide business account holders.

It requires a Tide business account. Card takings land directly in the Tide account alongside invoicing and expenses. There is no inventory management, back-office reporting, or hardware bundle.

We rate Tide Card Reader the right call only if you already bank with Tide and don’t need POS depth. Amex isn’t accepted; Pay As You Go and Essential settle in 2-3 working days, while Premium settles next day.

Final Verdict: Is Epos Now Payment Processing Worth It?

Epos Now earns its place for established counter-based retail or hospitality operators. The complete POS bundle, cloud back office, and 1.70% integrated rate work well together when your card volume absorbs the subscription.

The two contract layers are the risk. A 12-month auto-renewing licence and a potential 36-month ProtectNow Care Plan create a combined lock-in that goes well beyond most standalone card reader competitors. We rate that combined lock-in as the biggest single risk in this decision, so read both terms in your quote before you sign.

We recommend Epos Now if you need a commissioned counter, cloud reporting, and integrated payments from one provider, and those features are worth the £54/month subscription to you. It is not the cheaper way to take cards: on fees alone it only beats Square above roughly £108,000 a month in card sales.

We steer you away from Epos Now if your card volumes are low, if weekend settlement speed matters to your cash flow, or if the subscription would cost more than it saves on your transaction fees.

Frequently Asked Questions