Payment Processing for Market Traders at a Glance
For most stalls we’d start with the SumUp Solo Lite, a £25 reader that pairs with your phone and charges 1.69% on every card, Amex included. A market pitch rarely has Wi-Fi or a plug, and a trading day can run from 6am to 4pm, so the wrong reader fails mid-Saturday with a queue forming and a customer’s card in their hand. We compared six readers on price, fees, how they connect and how fast the money reaches you; all of them are portable and none needs Wi-Fi.
- SumUp Solo Lite: Best overall for most market traders
- SumUp Solo: Best without a smartphone
- Square Reader: Cheapest hardware to get started
- PayPal Reader: Best with built-in stock tracking
- myPOS Go 2: Best for instant access to funds
- Dojo Go Max: Best for very high volume
How often you trade, and how good the signal is at your pitch, decide most of it. If you’re outdoors every week and don’t want your phone involved, buy a standalone 4G card machine such as the SumUp Solo. If you trade now and then somewhere your phone holds a good signal, a phone-paired card reader such as the Solo Lite, or Tap to Pay on the phone you already carry, will cost you less.
Market Trader Card Readers Compared
| Provider | Hardware cost | Transaction fee | Connectivity | Monthly fee | Settlement |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SumUp Solo Lite | £25 | 1.69% | Bluetooth + phone | £0 | 1 to 3 days |
| SumUp Solo | £79 | 1.69% | Standalone 4G | £0 | 1 to 3 days |
| Square Reader | £19 | 1.75% | Bluetooth + phone | £0 | Next day |
| PayPal Reader | £29 first, £69 after | 1.75% | Bluetooth + phone | £0 | Minutes, to PayPal balance |
| myPOS Go 2 | £39 | 1.10% + 7p | Standalone 4G | £0 | Instant to myPOS account |
| Dojo Go Max | £229 (£149 on offer) or £25/month | 1.2% blended | Standalone 4G | £0 on Essential | Next day |
Prices and rates checked 5 to 7 October 2026 against each provider’s own UK pricing pages. Hardware prices exclude VAT. Dojo’s 1.2% is its published rate below £100,000 of card turnover a year; above that it quotes custom. SumUp often sells below its list prices: on 9 November 2026 the Solo Lite was on offer at £15 and the Solo at £49.
Best Payment Processing for Market Traders
Best Overall: SumUp Solo Lite
The SumUp Solo Lite is where we’d start for most stalls. It replaced the SumUp Air, which SumUp no longer sells, and at £25 plus VAT it costs less than the Air did. Its 1.69% is the same on Visa, Mastercard and American Express, with no separate Amex charge, so a tourist paying with a US Amex costs you no more than a local debit card. There’s no monthly fee and no contract. The one weakness is that it pairs with your phone over Bluetooth, so a flat phone battery stops you taking cards just as surely as a flat reader would.
View SumUp Solo Lite on SumUp →
Best Without a Smartphone: SumUp Solo
The SumUp Solo costs £79 plus VAT and works on its own, with its own screen and a built-in 4G connection, so no phone is needed. That matters if you want to hand the reader to a customer, or to whoever is helping on the stall, without handing over your own phone too. You get the same 1.69% rate and the same no-contract terms as the Solo Lite, so the extra £54 pays only for taking your phone out of the sale.
Cheapest Hardware: Square Reader
At £19, the Square Reader is the lowest-cost UK card reader, and we would point a trader with a fixed product range here first. It pairs via Bluetooth to your phone and includes the free Square POS app with stock management, so you get an inventory system without paying extra for it. The transaction rate is 1.75%, and settlement lands the next business day.
View Square Reader on Square →
Best for Stock Tracking: PayPal Reader
At £29 plus VAT for your first one, the PayPal Reader comes with the Zettle POS app, which tracks your products and stock levels and warns you when something is running low. For a craft trader with 50 or more lines, or a food stall keeping an eye on what sells out each day, that stock tracking is the reason to choose it over the Solo Lite, since the rate is slightly higher at 1.75% against 1.69%. Extra readers cost £69. You may also see it sold under its older names, the Zettle Reader 2 and PayPal Here.
Best for Instant Access to Funds: myPOS Go 2
The myPOS Go 2 costs £39 plus VAT, runs on its own free data SIM and pays your takings into a myPOS account straight away. If you buy tomorrow’s stock out of today’s takings, that is the reason to choose it, because waiting two days for your own money can mean missing the next pitch. The money does land in a myPOS account rather than your bank, though, and each transfer on to your bank in pounds costs £1.50.
The 7p charged on every sale, on top of the 1.10%, also costs most on small sales. On a £5 sale that 7p adds another 1.4%, more than wiping out the lower rate. There’s no fixed monthly cost on takings under £10,000 a month, contrary to the £3.99 this page used to quote.
If you only trade for part of the year, check one more line of the myPOS terms. After 10 months without a single valid transaction, myPOS can charge a £15 inactivity fee, or a £30 fee after 10 months without taking a card payment. It gives two months’ notice and charges only one of the two at a time, but a Christmas-market reader that sits in a drawer from January to October is exactly the kind of account it applies to.
Best for High Volume: Dojo Go Max
Dojo publishes 1.2% all-in below £100,000 of card turnover a year, which is roughly £8,333 a month, and it is a published rate rather than the negotiated one this page used to describe. The hardware is £229 outright, cut to £149 on a launch offer when we checked on 7 October 2026, or £25 a month, and the Essential plan itself carries no monthly fee. The standalone terminal has a built-in printer and next-day settlement. Above that £100,000 ceiling Dojo quotes a custom rate, so get it in writing before you assume the 1.2% follows you up. On our costing Dojo only becomes cheaper than SumUp at around £3,470 a month of card takings; below that, the lower rate never earns back the cost of the terminal.
How to Choose Payment Processing for Market Trading
Connectivity. Bluetooth-paired readers (Square, SumUp Solo Lite, PayPal) lean on your phone’s signal. Standalone readers (SumUp Solo, myPOS Go 2, Dojo Go Max) carry their own SIM. For rural markets, festivals or any pitch where the signal drops, a standalone reader is the safer choice, and we’d check the coverage at each of your pitches before buying anything that depends on your phone. However little a reader cost, every sale it can’t connect for is a sale you lose.
Offline mode. A card machine with its own SIM frees you from your phone, but it still needs a mobile network. Taking a card with no signal at all is a separate, much narrower feature. Square’s offline mode works with the Square Reader (2nd generation) and its Point of Sale app, but it won’t take a tapped plastic card, so your customer has to insert the card or pay from a phone wallet. The payments go through when you reconnect, within 24 hours and no later than 72, and any the bank declines at that point are your loss. SumUp’s offline payments work only on the Solo on its own, and only for selected merchants in a trial, so neither is a substitute for a pitch with signal.
Tap to Pay on your phone. SumUp, Square and Revolut all offer Tap to Pay on iPhone, and Square also runs it on compatible Android phones, so you can take contactless payments with no card reader at all. That works for an occasional stall, or as a second till for a busy hour. As your only way to take cards, though, it leaves the whole stall depending on one phone’s battery and signal.
Volume. Below about £3,470 a month of card takings, roughly £800 a week, pay-as-you-go (SumUp Solo Lite, Square, PayPal) wins on net cost, because that is where Dojo’s published 1.2% only starts to overtake SumUp’s 1.69% once its £229 terminal is counted. If you trade seasonally, stay on PAYG even at your busy peaks, because any monthly commitment still lands in the quiet off-season months when you are not earning.
Monthly plans. SumUp’s own plan, Payments Plus, costs £19 a month or £189 a year and cuts the rate to 0.99%, but only on UK personal cards: Amex, premium, corporate and international cards stay at 1.69%. SumUp says it pays for itself once you take £3,000 a month. On our sums the £19 is covered at about £2,714 a month of those UK personal cards, so a stall with plenty of tourists or business buyers needs to take more than that. You can cancel online at any time, so it’s possible to pay for it only in your busy months.
Battery. Every Bluetooth-paired reader needs a charged phone to work, so you are running two batteries, not one. Carry a power bank regardless of which reader you use; a dead battery at 2pm costs you the rest of the day’s card sales.
Market Trader Payment Fees and Costs to Watch
What one sale costs you. On small sales, a fixed charge of a few pence can cost you more than a lower percentage saves. Our sums for a UK personal card, before hardware, plans or transfers:
| Sale | SumUp, 1.69% | Square, 1.75% | myPOS, 1.10% + 7p |
|---|---|---|---|
| £5 | 8.5p | 8.8p | 12.5p |
| £20 | 33.8p | 35p | 29p |
| £40 | 67.6p | 70p | 51p |
myPOS overtakes SumUp on any sale above £11.86, so a stall selling £3 coffees and one selling £40 prints get opposite answers from the same rate card. The £1.50 transfer to your bank eats into that saving each time you move money out.
Refund policy. Square keeps its processing fee when you refund a payment, so a refunded sale still costs you the fee. If you sell clothing, gifts, or anything with a higher return rate, those lost fees add up over a season, so factor them in rather than judging on the headline rate alone.
Keyed-in transactions. If you ever take card details over the phone for a pre-order or deposit, most readers charge a higher rate for manually entered transactions: Square charges 2.5% keyed-in versus 1.75% in person. Use a payment link for remote payments instead, and you keep the lower rate.
Foreign cards. SumUp’s 1.69% covers Amex and overseas cards. Square adds 1.5% to a non-UK card, so a tourist’s card costs you 3.25% in person rather than 1.75%. If many of your customers are visitors, check what each provider charges on overseas cards before you compare the advertised rates.
Lowest headline rates. Two providers outside our six charge less on UK consumer cards, with conditions attached. Lopay charges 0.79% on UK consumer Visa and Mastercard if you wait for its free Thursday payout, or 0.99% for instant access, and adds 1% each for Amex, international and corporate cards. Its WisePad 3 reader costs £35 plus £6.95 postage on a first order made in the app. Revolut charges 0.8% + 2p on domestic consumer cards in person and 2.6% + 2p on international cards, with its Lite Terminal at £129 plus VAT, and the rates come with a Revolut Business plan. Both work out cheapest for a stall whose customers are mostly locals paying by debit card.
Final Verdict: Which Market Trader Card Reader Should You Choose?
For most stalls, we’d start with the SumUp Solo Lite at £25. Its 1.69% is the same on every card, Amex included, so a tourist’s overseas card costs you no more than a local debit card, and none of the other five pairs that with such a low hardware price.
Buy the SumUp Solo instead if your pitch has a poor signal or you don’t want your trading day to depend on your phone’s battery. The extra £54 pays for a reader that works on its own; the rate stays the same.
Choose the myPOS Go 2 only if getting your takings the same day changes what you can restock, and only if your average sale is comfortably above £5, because below about £12 its 7p per sale costs you more than its lower rate saves.
Dojo Go Max makes sense only once you’re taking more than about £3,470 a month on cards. Below that, its £229 terminal costs more than its lower rate saves you against a £25 reader.
The bottom line. Compare the rate on the cards your customers really use, and check the reader will connect at your pitch, before you look at the price of the hardware.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes. Standalone readers (SumUp Solo, myPOS Go 2, Dojo Go Max) carry their own mobile data and do not need Wi-Fi. Bluetooth-paired readers (Square, SumUp Solo Lite, PayPal Reader) rely on your phone’s signal, which is fine at most outdoor sites but patchy in rural or remote pitches. Check coverage at your specific pitch before you decide.
Below about £3,470 a month in card volume, PAYG wins on total cost: the rate difference does not cover Dojo’s £229 terminal. Above that reliably, compare Dojo’s published 1.2% against your current PAYG costs. If you trade seasonally (Christmas markets, summer festivals only), stay on PAYG even at your higher weekly peaks, because monthly minimums still hit in the quiet periods.
For most cards it is still £100 a payment. Since March 2026 the FCA has let banks and card providers with strong fraud controls set their own contactless limit, but it expects most to keep their existing limit for now. When a sale goes over the customer’s card limit, they pay by chip and PIN instead, which every reader in this guide takes.
Not separately. SumUp, Square, PayPal Zettle, and myPOS are payment facilitators: you collect under their merchant ID. That means faster sign-up, minutes rather than days, but it also means they can hold or close your account if they flag unusual activity. For most market traders that is not a practical worry, but if you trade at high volume or in a higher-risk category, consider a dedicated merchant account through an acquirer like Dojo or TakePayments. These providers are payment facilitators or e-money institutions, not banks, so money held with them is not covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS).
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Review Methodology and Disclaimer. This guide is costed from published prices, not from a trading day with each reader in hand. We rechecked every rate, settlement time and contract term against each provider’s own published UK pricing on 5 to 7 October 2026. Where a judgement rests on how a device behaves rather than what it costs, we say so and say why. Dojo’s 1.2% is a published rate below £100,000 of card turnover a year, not the negotiated one we previously described.