Our Verdict
For a sole trader, market stall, or mobile service starting out, SumUp is an easy yes: owned hardware from £25, 1.69% on every UK card including Amex, and a free account that pays out next morning, weekends included.
The one real catch is support. Standard accounts get email and chat, with phone lines only Monday to Friday, 8 AM to 5 PM, so a Saturday fault waits until Monday. We’d plan a backup if you trade weekends. Clear around £2,714 a month and the £19 Payments Plus subscription drops the rate to 0.99%.
See SumUp pricing →Everything below explains the trade-offs in full.
SumUp Card Reader at a Glance
Best For
You’re a sole trader, market stallholder, mobile service, or pop-up shop. You want owned hardware, no monthly minimum, and the freedom to stop trading for three months without paying for a dormant terminal.
Or your card turnover clears £2,714 a month and you can do the maths on Payments Plus. At 0.99%, you’ll undercut Square, Zettle, and most negotiated Dojo rates.
Not Ideal For
You need free inventory management, table plans, or accounting sync out of the box. SumUp’s free app is basic. POS Plus adds those features but costs £29/month on top.
You need same-day settlement at a low fee. SumUp doesn’t offer instant payout at all. Square does, at 1.5% on top of the standard rate.
Key Facts
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Hardware | Solo Lite £25; Air £39; Solo £79 + VAT; Terminal £135 + VAT. Owned outright, no contract. |
| In-person rate | 1.69% PAYG on every UK card including Amex. 0.99% on Payments Plus (£19/month) above ~£2,714/month. Online 2.50%. |
| Monthly fee | None on PAYG. Payments Plus £19/month; POS Plus £29/month for inventory, table plans and accounting sync. |
| Settlement | 2–3 working days to your bank, or next working day by 7 AM via the free SumUp Business Account, weekends included. No instant payout. |
| Security | PCI DSS Level 1 certified. No per-dispute chargeback fee. Trustpilot 4.1/5 from 23,920+ reviews. |
| Verified May 2026. | |
What Is the SumUp Card Reader?
SumUp is a range of four card readers, not one device, so the first decision is which model matches how you trade. They run from a £25 phone-paired reader to a standalone unit with a built-in printer.
SumUp launched in 2012 and now serves over 4 million businesses worldwide. The UK arm is one of the most established mobile-first payment providers in the country.
Solo Lite at £25 is the entry point: a Bluetooth reader that pairs to your phone over the free SumUp app. You ring up the sale on your phone; the customer taps or inserts their card on the reader.
Air at £39 is functionally similar with a slightly different form factor and battery profile. Both Bluetooth readers depend on a charged smartphone. If your phone dies, your till dies.
Solo at £79 + VAT is the standalone reader. It has its own screen, its own WiFi, and a complimentary 4G/3G SIM card included in the box.
Terminal at £135 + VAT is Solo plus a built-in receipt printer. For a cafe or hospitality venue where customers expect paper receipts, that’s the obvious choice.
If you run a market stall in a field with patchy phone signal, Solo or Terminal works where Solo Lite and Air won’t. The built-in 4G SIM removes the WiFi dependency entirely.
We verified current pricing and product details from sumup.com/en-gb in May 2026.
Fees and Costs
Card Payment Fees
Every in-person UK card costs 1.69% PAYG, American Express included, across every SumUp reader. A £40 sale costs 68p.
That covers chip & PIN, contactless, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. Amex at the same rate is the line we’d circle: most rivals either exclude it or charge more.
When you run a coffee van and a tourist pays with an Amex Platinum, you pay the same fee as on a Visa Debit. For a hospitality venue with a 20% Amex customer base, that’s real money over a year.
| Payment channel | SumUp rate |
|---|---|
| In-person UK card incl. Amex (chip & PIN, contactless, Apple Pay, Google Pay) | 1.69% PAYG |
| In-person on Payments Plus (£19/month, or £189/year) | 0.99% (Amex stays 1.69%) |
| Online, payment links, invoices, virtual terminal | 2.50% |
| Verified May 2026. | |
Payments Plus saves 0.70% per transaction. At £19/month, you need around £2,714/month in card turnover to clear the subscription cost.
Below that level, stick with PAYG. Above it, switch. You can cancel Payments Plus any month, so trial it for a quarter if you’re close.
Hardware Costs
Hardware is owned outright: no lease, no rental, and nothing to return when you stop trading. Prices start at £25:
| Device | Price | Built for |
|---|---|---|
| Solo Lite | £25 | Phone-paired Bluetooth; 12 hours / ~1,000 transactions a charge |
| Air | £39 | Phone-paired Bluetooth; 8–12 hours a charge |
| Solo | £79 + VAT | Standalone with screen, WiFi and a complimentary 4G SIM |
| Terminal | £135 + VAT | Standalone Solo plus a built-in receipt printer |
| Verified May 2026. | ||
Compare against Dojo: their standard arrangement is a 12-month lease at around £20–£24/month. You’d pay roughly £240–£288 over a year before any transaction fees, with nothing to keep at the end.
For a new business that might not survive the first year, we’d call owned hardware the lower-risk choice. If you stop trading, you’ve lost £25, not £240. That is the real cost.
Monthly Fees and Contract Terms
PAYG has no monthly fee. No contract, no minimum term, no early exit charge.
You can leave the reader in a drawer for six months and come back to it. When you switch it back on, you pay 1.69% on the first transaction. Nothing accrues in between.
Payments Plus is £19/month (or £189/year). Cancel any month. No lock-in.
POS Plus is £29/month and adds the inventory, table plan, and accounting features the free app doesn’t cover.
Stack both: Payments Plus plus POS Plus is £48/month. At that level, you’re paying about half what a Dojo Fix plan costs (£39.99/month plus rental), with the 0.99% transaction rate to go with it.
Chargeback fees: SumUp doesn’t charge a per-dispute fee. The disputed amount is deducted from your next payout when the chargeback is raised. If you win the dispute, you’re reimbursed within 15 days.
Refund fees: No charge. Refunds are processed through the app against the original sale. The card fees on the original transaction aren’t returned, though, that’s a sunk cost.
Other charges to watch: Online payments via payment links cost 2.50% (versus 1.69% in person). Virtual terminal keyed-in transactions follow the online rate. There’s no statement fee, PCI compliance fee, or minimum-spend penalty.
Payouts and Settlement Times
Standard settlement times. Standard settlement to your existing bank account is 2–3 working days, the free default, verified from help.sumup.com in May 2026.
When you take a card payment on Monday, funds typically land in your bank on Wednesday or Thursday. Weekends and bank holidays don’t count as working days, so a Friday sale could settle the following Tuesday.
For seasonal traders and weekend market sellers, that’s the friction, and we’d flag it as the main reason to open the SumUp Business Account on day one. You trade Saturday and Sunday but don’t see the money until midweek without it.
The fix is the free SumUp Business Account, the next subsection covers it.
Faster payout options. The free SumUp Business Account comes with a prepaid Mastercard. Sales settle to this account next working day by 7 AM, weekends and bank holidays included.
No extra fee. No subscription. No minimum balance. A Saturday trader sees Saturday’s takings in the account by 7 AM Sunday and can spend them on the Mastercard immediately.
You can transfer from the SumUp Business Account to your main business bank when it suits you. Or use the Mastercard directly for supplier payments, fuel, and stock.
Worth being plain: SumUp doesn’t offer an instant payout option. Not free, not paid. If you need funds in your account 20 minutes after the sale, SumUp isn’t your reader. Square offers that at 1.5%.
Payout holds: SumUp can hold funds for verification on new accounts or after unusual transaction patterns (a sudden large sale on a young account is the most common trigger). Holds typically resolve within a few days once you supply ID and proof of business.
Account reviews: Some Trustpilot reviews flag drawn-out reviews where funds were held for several weeks. The pattern is consistent with what any UK acquirer does for AML compliance, but the response speed is the recurring complaint.
Weekend and bank holiday delays: Bank-to-bank standard settlement excludes weekends and bank holidays. The Business Account route does not, it pays out 365 days a year by 7 AM.
Card Reader Features
Accepted Payment Types
You won’t turn a customer away: every SumUp reader takes chip & PIN, contactless, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Amex, with international Visa and Mastercard at the same 1.69% rate as domestic.
Contactless follows standard UK card network rules. Check sumup.com/en-gb for the current per-tap limit before advising customers.
We’d circle Amex acceptance at 1.69% again. A tourist hotel taking 30% of bookings on Amex pays SumUp the same fee per transaction as on a Visa Debit, where many rivals would charge 2–3% on Amex.
Connectivity and Portability
Connectivity is the choice that decides whether you can trade off-grid. Solo Lite and Air pair to your phone over Bluetooth: you run the free SumUp app on iOS or Android, the reader handles the card, the phone handles the sale.
When you trade a busy farmer’s market and your phone battery dips below 10% by 2 PM, that’s your real risk. Carry a power bank.
Solo and Terminal don’t need a phone. They’re standalone, with built-in WiFi and a complimentary 4G/3G SIM included in the price. UK 4G coverage is bundled, no separate data plan required.
For a coffee van pitched in a rural field with no WiFi and patchy phone signal, we’d say the 4G SIM in a Solo is the difference between trading and not trading. Bluetooth-only readers fall back on the merchant’s phone signal; standalone readers have their own.
Receipts: All readers email or SMS receipts via the app. Only Terminal prints paper receipts on the spot. If your customer base expects paper (older demographics, hospitality), that’s the Terminal’s strongest pitch.
Accessories: Charging dock, carrying case, and lanyard available separately. The dock is useful if the reader lives on a counter and needs to be ready first thing in the morning.
Offline payments: SumUp readers store transactions locally if connection drops. They sync when reconnected. For a market trader in a poor-signal area, that’s a workable safety net, though sustained offline trading isn’t guaranteed to settle if a card later proves invalid.
Battery Life and Reliability
Solo Lite covers around 1,000 transactions or 12 hours on a single charge. That’s a full Saturday market day without needing to plug in.
Air sits at around 500 transactions or 8–12 hours. Slightly lower throughput per charge, similar working-day coverage.
Solo and Terminal both run 8 hours per charge. They’re heavier devices with screens and (in Terminal’s case) a printer, so the maths is harder to push.
All readers charge by USB-C. A small power bank in the apron pocket is cheap insurance for a busy day.
When you run a stall with a queue of customers and your reader battery dies, you stop trading. For a busy hospitality service or a market peak hour, plan one full charge for every 8 hours of trading you expect.
App, Dashboard and Reporting Features
App features. The free SumUp app covers checkout, tipping, transaction history, and basic invoicing. That’s adequate for around 80% of sole traders who just need to take a card and email a receipt.
When you run a mobile dog grooming round and need to invoice a regular customer after a Wednesday appointment, the free app sends the invoice and accepts the card payment in the same place. No spreadsheet, no separate accounting tool.
Simple sales reports show daily, weekly, and monthly totals. Tipping is built in. Multi-currency works if you have a SumUp Business Account.
Where the free app stops: inventory tracking, table plans, staff permissions, accounting integrations. For those, you pay POS Plus at £29/month.
Reporting and analytics. The free app gives you transaction history, daily and weekly totals, and basic refund tracking.
POS Plus adds advanced reporting: sales by item, sales by staff member, peak-hour analysis, and stock-level alerts.
We compared this directly against Square. Square’s free POS includes most of those reports without a subscription. SumUp’s pricing logic puts the depth behind a paywall; Square’s puts it in the base tier.
When you reconcile at month end, the SumUp dashboard exports CSV. POS Plus pushes directly to Xero, QuickBooks, or Sage if you’re on the subscription.
Integrations. The free app integrates with SumUp’s own online store, invoicing tool, and Business Account. External accounting sync needs POS Plus.
POS Plus syncs to Xero, QuickBooks, and Sage. For a sole trader who already runs Xero for the year-end tax return, that’s the integration to value.
There’s no direct Shopify, WooCommerce, or major EPOS partner ecosystem at the level Dojo or Square offers. If you need third-party EPOS integration, check your specific tool against sumup.com’s partner list before buying.
Inventory tools: POS Plus only. The free app does not track stock levels or trigger low-stock alerts.
Product management: Both tiers let you build a product catalogue with prices and images. POS Plus adds variants, modifiers, and barcode scanning.
Accounting software: Xero, QuickBooks, Sage on POS Plus. No direct Kashflow or FreeAgent feed at time of writing.
Security, Compliance and Chargebacks
Payment security and PCI compliance. SumUp is PCI DSS Level 1 certified, the highest tier and independently audited annually, so a sole trader new to card acceptance doesn’t have to run their own compliance programme.
Card data is encrypted end-to-end at the reader. Your phone, your app, and your bank account never see raw card numbers.
Many smaller payment providers only meet lower self-assessment tiers (Level 2, 3, or 4). Level 1 is what the major banks themselves are audited against, and we’d rate it a genuine advantage for first-timers.
Fraud checks and account holds. SumUp’s fraud monitoring follows the same patterns as any UK acquirer: sudden jumps in average transaction value, high-risk merchant categories, or unusual customer locations trigger a review.
When a new account suddenly processes a single £2,000 sale on day three, SumUp may hold the payout pending verification. You’ll typically be asked for ID, proof of business, and a description of the transaction.
In practice, most small traders never encounter a hold. It happens at the edges, brand new accounts and unusual transaction profiles.
If you’re planning a large first transaction (a bespoke commission, a wedding deposit, a high-value piece of work), open the account a few weeks in advance and process some smaller sales first. That builds a baseline SumUp can verify against.
Chargeback handling. When a customer disputes a transaction with their bank, SumUp notifies you and deducts the disputed amount from your next payout.
You then have 30–60 days to contest the chargeback with supporting documentation: receipts, delivery confirmation, customer communications, anything that supports the original sale.
If you win, the disputed amount is reimbursed within 15 days. If you lose, the deduction stands.
SumUp doesn’t charge a per-dispute fee. The line worth circling: many rivals add £10–£25 per chargeback as an admin fee on top of the disputed amount. SumUp does not.
Keep digital records of every sale. A photo of the receipt, the customer’s email, the delivery tracking, whatever proves the sale was legitimate. Chargebacks can arrive weeks after the transaction.
Who the SumUp Card Reader Is Best For
Best business types. We’d recommend SumUp first to sole traders, mobile services, market stallholders, pop-up shops, and craft fair sellers. Owned hardware with no contract is the common thread.
Cafes and small retail in their first year or two of trading, where card turnover is still finding its level. Start on PAYG at £25 of hardware; switch to Payments Plus when monthly card volume clears £2,714.
High-volume sole traders processing £5,000+/month who can’t negotiate a Dojo rate (no credit history, no business banking with a major bank). Payments Plus at 0.99% holds up against any custom-quoted rate, check the maths on your monthly volume.
Best sales environments. Mobile and outdoor settings: market stalls, food trucks, mobile beauty, mobile mechanic, pop-up events.
For Solo Lite and Air, you need a phone with signal. For Solo and Terminal, the built-in 4G SIM removes that constraint, useful in rural markets or basements with poor mobile coverage.
Seasonal traders benefit most, we’d say. No monthly fee means a Christmas-fair-only business pays nothing for ten months of the year and still owns the hardware when December comes round.
When to consider alternatives. You want a free POS app with inventory and staff management out of the box. Square gives you more in the free tier; SumUp gates those features behind POS Plus.
You need instant settlement (funds in your account within 20 minutes of the sale). SumUp doesn’t offer it, and here we’d point you to Square, which does, at 1.5%.
You run a high-volume hospitality or retail operation processing five figures a month and want a sub-1.5% rate plus dedicated 7-day support. Dojo’s 12-month lease and negotiated rate undercut Payments Plus at scale, with the trade-off that you don’t own the hardware.
Customer Support and Reviews
Support channels. Phone: 020 3510 0160, Mon–Fri 8 AM–5 PM. Email: support@sumup.co.uk. Chat: through the website and the app.
POS Pro customers get extended hours: Mon–Fri 8 AM–8 PM and weekends 8 AM–7 PM. Standard accounts don’t.
When you trade weekends and hit a reader fault on a Saturday afternoon, that’s the gap. You’re into the help centre, the chat, or email until Monday morning.
Plan a backup. A second reader (a £25 Solo Lite as backup for an Air), a cash float, or a mobile payment link customers can pay through their phone.
What customers praise. SumUp scores 4.1 / 5 on Trustpilot from 23,920+ reviews, with 62% five-star (checked at uk.trustpilot.com/review/sumup.com, May 2026).
Positive themes are consistent: easy setup, intuitive interface, reliable hardware, no hidden fees. Sole traders praise the speed of getting started, some are taking their first card payment the day the reader arrives.
The hardware itself rarely features in negative reviews. Build quality and reliability aren’t the issue.
Common complaints. The recurring complaint, seen consistently across review clusters, is customer support response time. Standard accounts on email and chat report slow replies, particularly during peak hours.
A second cluster involves account reviews where funds are held pending verification. The hold pattern is consistent with what any UK acquirer does, but the response speed when you’re trying to resolve it is the friction point.
We’d be clear about one thing: these are support and process complaints, not product failures. The reader takes the card. The money lands in the account. The friction, when it shows up, is what happens if you need to talk to SumUp about something unusual.
SumUp Card Reader Alternatives
We compared SumUp against Square, Dojo, and Revolut Reader. Each solves a specific limitation flagged in this review.
A more capable free POS app, a lower percentage rate at high volumes on a contract, or card acceptance inside an existing Revolut Business setup, pick the one that matches the trade-off that matters to you.
SumUp vs Square Reader
Square Reader is £19 + VAT against SumUp Solo Lite at £25, Square is slightly cheaper on hardware. Per-transaction is the other way round: Square charges 1.75% versus SumUp’s 1.69% PAYG.
For a £40 sale, Square takes 70p and SumUp takes 68p. Small per-transaction; meaningful over a year of trading.
Where Square wins is the free POS. Inventory, staff logins with permissions, CRM, gift cards, and basic table management are all included in the free tier. SumUp puts those behind POS Plus at £29/month.
Square also offers instant payout at 1.5% on top of the standard rate. SumUp doesn’t offer instant payout at all.
If your bottleneck is inventory tracking and staff management rather than per-transaction cost, we’d call Square the swap. If you don’t need those features and want the lowest hardware cost plus Amex at the same rate as Visa, SumUp wins.
Payments Plus changes the maths. At £19/month and 0.99%, SumUp undercuts Square by 0.76% per transaction above £2,714 monthly card turnover.
SumUp vs Dojo
Dojo’s pitch is a negotiated rate (around 1.4% + 5p per transaction at higher volumes) plus 7-day support and weekend next-day settlement. The pricing comes with a 12-month lease at roughly £20–£24/month.
SumUp’s pitch is owned hardware from £25 and no contract. Payments Plus at 0.99% beats most Dojo rates per transaction, without the monthly rental.
We ran the maths at £15,000/month in card turnover. Dojo’s 1.4% + 5p costs around £225/month in fees plus £24 rental, totalling £249. SumUp Payments Plus costs £19 subscription plus £148.50 in fees, totalling £167.50.
Where Dojo wins is the operational stuff: dedicated account support, weekend phone hours, integrated EPOS for hospitality. For a busy restaurant or multi-site retailer, that matters.
Where SumUp wins is the flexibility: no contract, no rental, owned hardware. If you stop trading for three months, you stop paying, we’d call that the core argument for sole traders. With Dojo, the lease continues.
SumUp vs Revolut Reader
Revolut Reader is built for existing Revolut Business customers. Card takings land in the Revolut balance instantly, in the same app as your FX, expenses, and banking.
The Reader requires an active Revolut Business account. That’s another account to open and maintain if you’re not already a customer.
SumUp doesn’t require a Business Account. The free SumUp Business Account is optional, you can settle straight to any UK bank, just slower (2–3 working days standard).
For Revolut customers, the integrated workflow is the value. For everyone else, SumUp is lower-friction because it doesn’t make you open a new account first.
For a full comparison across all options, see our best card machines for small businesses roundup.
Final Verdict: Is the SumUp Card Reader Worth It?
We’d recommend SumUp as the default for sole traders, market stallholders, mobile services, and small operators starting out. £25 of owned hardware, 1.69% on every UK card including Amex, no contract.
Above £2,714/month in card turnover, Payments Plus drops the rate to 0.99%, the strongest reason we’d stay with SumUp once you scale.
The trade-off is support. Standard accounts get weekday phone hours and slower email replies. If you can plan around that, carry a backup reader, keep a cash float, know the help centre, then we’d call the rate advantage genuine.
For everyone else, the sole trader buying their first reader, the market stallholder weighing £25 against a Dojo lease, the cafe owner with £3,000/month in card sales and no need for table plans, SumUp is the lowest-risk, lowest-cost way in.
You’ll trade Saturday morning, see the money in your account by 7 AM Sunday, and pay nothing in the months you don’t trade. That is the whole deal.
Frequently Asked Questions
What transaction fee does SumUp charge?
1.69% PAYG on every UK card in person, including American Express. No monthly fee, no contract on the default plan. Online payments and payment links cost 2.50%.
Payments Plus at £19/month drops the domestic in-person rate to 0.99%. Amex stays at 1.69% on Payments Plus. The subscription breaks even at around £2,714/month in card turnover.
Does SumUp settle on weekends?
Yes, via the free SumUp Business Account, we confirmed this from sumup.com/en-gb in May 2026. Sales settle next working day by 7 AM, weekends and bank holidays included, no subscription needed.
Standard bank-to-bank settlement is 2–3 working days and excludes weekends. The Business Account route is the way to get weekend payouts.
What happens if my phone dies while using SumUp Air?
Solo Lite and Air both depend on a paired smartphone. If the phone runs out of battery, you can’t take card payments until you charge it.
For sustained trading where phone battery is a risk, consider Solo (£79+VAT) or Terminal (£135+VAT). Both are standalone with built-in 4G SIM and 8 hours of battery, no phone needed.
Is Payments Plus worth it?
We ran the maths: Payments Plus is worth it if you process over £2,714/month in card turnover. Below that level, the £19 subscription costs more than the 0.70% rate saving recovers.
You can cancel any month, so a sensible test is to switch on Payments Plus the month your card volume clears the threshold and switch off in quieter months.
Does SumUp accept American Express?
Yes, at the same 1.69% PAYG rate as Visa and Mastercard. No surcharge.
That’s notable: we found most UK acquirers either exclude Amex or charge a higher rate (often 2.5%+) for it. If your customer base includes Amex users (tourists, business travellers, premium-card holders), SumUp’s flat Amex rate is a real saving.
Does SumUp offer instant payout?
No. SumUp does not offer instant payout at any price. The fastest option is next-day by 7 AM via the free SumUp Business Account.
If instant settlement (funds in your account within 20 minutes of the sale) is critical, look at Square, which offers it at 1.5% on top of the standard rate.
How we reviewed SumUp
What we assessed. We evaluated SumUp on pricing, contract terms, features, and eligibility. These are the factors that matter most to UK small businesses considering this provider.
Data sources. SumUp’s pricing page, terms, and product docs were checked directly in May 2026. No comparison sites, no press releases, no affiliate material. FCA register cross-checked for regulatory status.
Update cadence. We re-verify this page at least monthly, and whenever a provider changes pricing, eligibility, or terms. The verification date on the page reflects the most recent full review. Some links on this page are affiliate links, see our editorial policy.