SumUp review: affordable, no-fuss card readers with many extras

Our experience and opinion

Based on our research and testing over the years, we know that SumUp is generally great for low-volume merchants who just need to start accepting cards, for example in a shop, café, bar, market stall or on the go. We especially recommend it for cash-strapped merchants who need fast access to funds in a dedicated business account.

The pay-as-you-go transaction fee is competitive below a monthly turnover of £5k-£10k. The service has a low barrier of entry with the cheap, one-off cost of the card machine, no monthly fees and no contract lock-in.

“SumUp is one of our go-to recommendations for the easiest, cheapest way to get your business started with payments – for a reason. It just works really well and has a convenient business account for next-day transfers.”

– Emily Sorensen, Senior Editor, MobileTransaction

We found SumUp’s online payment options super-valuable for trading remotely. The click and collect features and online store are, however, basic, so eventually you may need to look elsewhere to expand these systems.

Additionally, the SumUp app and payment terminals have just the essentials you need without compromising on efficiency and build quality. If you do need more POS features, an upgrade to a paid POS system is possible.

Potential downsides include a slow or poor service, and the terminals have caused issues for some users. We had some teething issues with Solo, for example, but the latest terminal version has addressed some of that.

Bottom line: With its uncomplicated costs, easy sign-up and free extras, SumUp is a solid place to start for a wide variety of businesses.

SumUp payment terminals

SumUp sells the following card readers:

They are all wireless and portable, ideal on the go or at a till point when stationed in their corresponding charging dock.

The cheapest model, SumUp Air, costs only £39 + VAT because it does not work independently. Rather, this wireless reader connects with your mobile device (Android tablet or smartphone, iPod Touch, iPhone or iPad) via Bluetooth, working in tandem with SumUp App to process chip and contactless cards.

The card reader comes with a micro USB cable, which you can plug into a computer or power supply when it needs a charge (a wall plug is bought separately).

Photo: Emily Sorensen (ES), MobileTransaction

Box contents of our SumUp Air delivery.

You’ll get about 500 transactions out of a full charge. Busy stores may want to opt for a charging station, which not only keeps the Air charged all day, it also looks good and keeps the reader in place on a countertop.

“I’ve never had issues with SumUp Air when I’ve used it in shops and my own tests, but I can imagine it slipping out of my hand one day because of its smooth, rounded exterior.”

– Emily Sorensen, Senior Editor, MobileTransaction

The card reader is smooth and stylish with a glass surface and plastic base that’s nice to hold in the hand. It’s tamper-proof, meaning any external effort to manipulate its technology will shut it down so it can’t be used any more. That’s great for security, but you need to make sure it’s not near highly magnetic fields, which could inadvertently deem it permanently unusable.

If you need to print paper receipts, Air works with compatible receipt printers available at an extra cost. SumUp’s listed options are all mobile Bluetooth printers that connect with the app on your mobile device. A cash drawer can be linked to it, but only via a receipt printer.

Solo has a built-in SIM card with unlimited data, so you don’t need a connected mobile device to process card payments. This could be a handier solution for those who don’t need elaborate POS features, but instead prefer one portable device for card payments or just an extra terminal to use independently from the point of sale.

It has a shorter battery life compared with Air: up to 100 transactions.

“We found that Solo’s touchscreen was more power-hungry when the screen brightness was on maximum, but the terminal’s battery performance has improved since we tested it. It should now be able to last up to 8 hours without the receipt printer.”

– Emily Sorensen, Senior Editor, MobileTransaction

It’s possible to link several SumUp terminals to your main account, but you cannot link any other brand of card machine to it.

Alternative to the card readers: Tap to Pay on a smartphone

Like most leading payment companies, SumUp has now added a functionality to SumUp App: acceptance of contactless cards/mobile wallets on the merchant’s iPhone or Android phone.

As long as the merchant has a compatible, NFC-enabled smartphone, they can ask their customers to ‘Tap to Pay’ for a transaction directly on the phone instead of a dedicated card reader. The feature has to be enabled first, and it’s only an option for users with a card reader.

Get a SumUp Air card reader for just £39 + VAT. No monthly fees or contract. Free delivery in 2-3 working days.

Fees: low, fixed rate and no monthly charge

No ongoing or monthly fees apply to SumUp by default – you only pay a flat rate of 1.69% per card reader transaction, which is lower than Zettle’s and Square’s fixed rate. The payment terminals are purchased upfront and owned by you, but can be returned for a full refund within 30 days if you change your mind.

Given the lack of contractual commitment, termination fees or monthly minimum sales volume, you’re not charged anything if you don’t make sales for any length of time. This is great for fluctuating sales, seasonal businesses or anyone making £5,000 or less per month in card payments.

Additional payment methods are email invoicing, online store payments, and transactions via payment link (SMS, email or social app) or QR code. These are available to everyone in the SumUp account from the start.

Keyed and virtual terminal payments are 2.95% + 25p per transaction, while online transactions, payment links and email invoices cost 2.5% without a monthly subscription. QR code payments are currently free to accept, i.e. no transaction fee is charged.

Chargebacks always have a processing cost of £10, applicable when a customer disputes a card transaction with their bank.

Refunds are free if processed before the money is settled in your bank account. After that, you can only process refunds with enough outstanding payouts (money not yet settled in your account), and SumUp will charge you the transaction fee originally paid.

With an optional subscription, SumUp One, you get the following reduced rates:

The One plan is cancellable any time, so you can try it for a month or two to see if it saves money with the lower domestic rate of 0.79% for in-person and online transactions. If a card issued abroad is used for a transaction, it costs 1.99%. With a lot of tourists and international customers, the plan might therefore not be worth it.

If you’re planning on buying a Solo card machine anyway, you will pay less the first month on SumUp One (because of the Solo discount) than without it.

And consider how many invoices you need to send per month – more than 4 invoices requires the paid Invoices Pro plan (£7-£8 + VAT per month), but this is included in One.

We also know you can get lower transaction rates with a SumUp Point of Sale subscription. This requires speaking to the sales team for a quote.

SumUp App: POS features (and more)

When SumUp first launched in the UK, the purpose of its app was to link with the card reader to accept payments in person. It has since matured into something much more than that, covering most payment and business management features.

Here, we focus on its point of sale features for face-to-face merchants. The app also lets you manage the SumUp Business Account, and access the Virtual Terminal, invoicing, online store functions and customer orders.

Product library: Unless you prefer to enter a transaction amount with optional description, you can add products with an image, category, tax rate, variants and prices. Items are shown in a checkout menu so you can easily tap to add them to the bill.

You can create different category labels, e.g. “Hot Drinks” and “Food”, shown as separate tabs on the screen to switch between. However, SumUp does not track stock levels or allow you to add more than one level of variants per product.

Payment options: Accept cards (via SumUp Air), cash and tips. Only recently, SumUp also added discounts (percentage or fixed amount), if you want to reduce the price of items.

If ‘Payment Links’ is switched on, you also see options to send a payment link or text message, or generate a QR code that the customer can scan to proceed on their phone – a great way to take payments face to face without a card reader. Keyed card entry is displayed for users with a virtual terminal activated.

The app does not accept vouchers, cheques or other special payment types. You cannot accept partial payments, splitting between cash and card.

You can, however, accept SumUp Gift Cards. Customers can purchase these online from a fixed link you share via social media, text, email or messaging app. The customer then receives the virtual gift card over email.

Receipts: Taxes can be shown on the receipt, as enabled in your settings. After each transaction, you can send a receipt via email or text or print it. Alternatively, you can share it to an app on your – or a nearby – device via the cloud or Bluetooth.

Refunds: Refund a complete or partial transaction amount via the original payment method. If the customer paid by card, the refund is processed to that card. A refund can only process if there is enough balance, i.e. outstanding payouts currently underway to your bank account, to fund it.

Reports and analytics: View a list of transactions and payouts, and filter these according to a time period.

Staff accounts: Create multiple staff logins with basic restrictions, including whether they can view all transactions, process refunds or use the virtual terminal (if activated).

In the browser dashboard, you can sort transactions according to users to monitor sales activities.

POS integrations

Merchants can upgrade to a more extensive, but still easy, POS system called SumUp Point of Sale (previously Goodtill).

This is a modular POS system allowing you to add the features relevant to your industry, such as restaurant, customer loyalty and online ordering features. The basic POS software costs £49 per month, with additional modules added to the price.

A few external POS systems are also compatible with SumUp Air, such as Loyverse. Consequently, you shouldn’t be afraid to start with the really simple SumUp App if all you want is to receive payments now, but later anticipate growth.

Those looking for an order-and-pay solution can get a SumUp Kiosk. This is a big self-order, touchscreen station you can place in store, where customers can add food or products to their bill, then pay on the attached SumUp Air reader. You get a custom quote for this starting at £49 + VAT per month.

Who is SumUp best for?

SumUp suits sole traders, entrepreneurs and small businesses requiring an extremely user-friendly card machine and versatile features for remote selling too.

Market stalls, artists and makers, independent shops, taxi drivers, tradesmen, beauty salons, barbers and hairdressers like the straightforwardness of the platform. Many cafés and restaurants also use SumUp, sometimes with a more advanced POS system.

SumUp is designed to suit businesses that don’t need more than a few card readers – anything more, and you probably want a more complex POS system that tracks stock levels, staff movements and more.

You can use many SumUp readers in the same account, but the lack of location management can make it hard to monitor who did what.

Outside traders working a lot in the sun can go for either SumUp Air or Solo reader which has a bright, adjustable screen viewable in the sun. The display on the old SumUp 3G (now replaced with Solo) was hard to read in strong sunlight.

Customer service and user reviews

SumUp’s online support section will answer the majority of questions. To contact customer support, you can phone them on weekdays between 8am and 7pm and weekends between 7am and 5pm. To put that into context, the closest competitors, Zettle and Square, only offer weekday support, not Saturdays or Sundays.

Alternatively, you can always email SumUp, but getting a reply can take days, sometimes weeks. We’ve experienced response times of over a month for non-urgent queries, but you can deal with pressing issues on the phone or through a contact form in your account during working hours.

Users tend to rate SumUp highly compared to several other mobile card readers, but it is not a perfect service.

For example, people have complained about lack of support when they needed it. There have also been card reader issues, e.g. some users have said their old card reader has stopped working for no reason, forcing them to buy a new terminal after the warranty is up.

Photo: ES, MobileTransaction

The SumUp Air in its charging dock looks great at a till point – here seen in a restaurant.

Sign-up and eligibility

SumUp accepts registered sole traders and businesses with a bank account owned by the organisation, business or self-employed person. Not-for-profit organisations and private individuals may be accepted too, provided they meet certain criteria. SumUp can advise further on this if you get in touch.

As with all payment companies, there are certain high-risk business types SumUp will not support, e.g. multi-level marketing, any kind of adult entertainment, door-to-door sales and unlicensed counselling.

It’s very easy to get started: you sign up on SumUp’s website, submitting basic information about yourself and your business. Like any other payment provider, SumUp performs a check against the business details provided.

As long as you are not classed as a “restricted business”, and your bank account name matches your business name, they should accept it all pretty swiftly.

After sign-up, you can order a card terminal on the website, arriving within three working days. In the meantime, you can download SumUp App on an iOS or Android device and use the available features there.

It is also possible to buy a SumUp card reader from stores like Ryman, Toolstation, Amazon and WHSmith, but then you are likely to pay shipping charges too.

The virtual terminal can also be activated for qualifying merchants. You need to contact customer support for this and answer some questions about your business and payment usage. After reviewing your account, SumUp may add the virtual terminal to your dashboard and app.