Compare payment processors and secure the lowest payment processing fees for your business

Compare payment processors and secure the lowest payment processing fees for your business

You'll only deal with us. We are not a lead generation company.
No multiple sales agents. No call centres. No referring your details.

Payment Processing Providers ms payment logos

Compare payment processors and secure the lowest payment processing fees for your business

Trustpilot-400w

Payment Processing Companies

Payment Processing Providers profile

Written by

Updated 24th February 2025

Jump to:

The payment industry can be confusing. There is limited transparency about fees, the terminology isn’t consistent, and any relationship between companies tends to be hidden in the small print. We aim to provide more transparency in this guide and list the top payment service providers for UK and international businesses. 

Before we start comparing payment processing companies, it is worth clarifying three elements are required to process debit or credit card payments:

  1. A merchant account from an acquiring bank
  2. A payment processor
  3. A payment gateway (online gateway or physical POS card terminal)

Full-service payment processors will provide all three elements in-house and are the most popular choice for UK merchants. 84% of SMEs buy all the products and services they need to accept card payments from or via a single provider.

Which is best for your businesses? Let’s start with an overview of full-stack merchant acquirers, which take care of the entire payment processing lifecycle, from the initial transaction to settlement, including payment gateway functionality, processing and risk management.

Many of these merchant service providers work with resellers and Independent Sales Organisations (ISOs) to attract SMEs, so many businesses may use them indirectly as their merchant acquirer (e.g., Takepayments uses Elavon, Evo Payments, and Cashflows as their acquiring partners).

Jump to:

If you are only interested in online payment processing, you may find our list of payment gateway providers more valuable.

Worldpay

Payment Processing Providers Worldpay from FIS Logo Red High Resolution PNG

We’ll get you preferential quotes from Worldpay and other suitable providers if required

Having been spun off by RBS and sold to two private equity firms in 2010, Worldpay was acquired by FIS for $43 Billion in 2019. This was a disastrous acquisition by most measures and in Feb 2024 the FIS shareholders took a $25 billion loss when the private equity firm CGTR acquired a 55% stake in Worldpay.

Worldpay is the largest end-to-end full-stack payment processor in the UK and together with Barclaycard processes about 70-80% of card transactions by volume and 60-70% of card transactions annually.

Together with Barclaycard, Lloyds Cardnet, Elavon and Global Payments, Worldpay provide payment processing services for 36% of all merchants in the UK. They target SMEs and enterprise businesses. Some of their main target sectors are retail, restaurants, financial services, gaming, travel and crypto. They also work with many software platforms and marketplaces.

They offer several alternative payment methods (APMs) for UK shoppers including Clearpay, Klarna, Open Banking, Paypal, paysafecard (prepay), SEPA (Direct Debit) and Trustly (bank transfer).

For businesses with an internal footprint they have have global acquiring with 68 domestic processing markets and 135 currencies. They also have omni-channel payment solutions in Europe, North American and Australia and several international APMs including Alipay, Blik, iDEAL, Sepa, Unionpay and WeChat Pay.

Worldpay UK Fees

Most SMEs will be offered a blended rate for debit, credit and business cards. These will be split by in person and card holder not present payments (online, mail or telephone) which will more expensive. Higher turnover businesses will be offered IC+ and IC++ pricing.

Below are a range of indicative rates based on the turnover of the business (lower rates are available for higher turnover businesses. The rates below are for businesses ranging from an annual card turnover of £25K up to £25M.

Note: These are indicative rates only and the actual rates offered will depend on several factors.

Visa & MastercardIn PersonOnline & Phone
Debit0.3% – 0.6%0.7% – 1.0%
Credit0.7% – 1.5%1.1% – 1.9%
Commercial1.8% – 2.6%2.2% – 3.0%

Other fees include:

  • Authorisation Fee: 4.5p
  • Point-of-sale terminal (per terminal per month): £25
  • Payment Gateway: Included
  • PCI DSS service fee: £5
  • Minimum monthly service charge (MMSC): £15
  • Settlement time: 24 hours

They also offer fixed fees for their ‘Worldpay eCommerce’ solution at the following rates:

  • No monthly fee, no minimum charge, no set up fee
  • 1.3% + 20p for consumer cards (Visa and Mastercard)
  • 2.9% + 20p for commercial cards (Visa, Mastercard and American Express)

This really only suitable for lower turnover businesses. We’ll be able to secure much lower fees for most businesses. You can request your bespoke quote here and compare Worldpay fees with other suitable payment processors for your business.

We can get preferential quotes from Worldpay due to our buying power

Barclaycard

Payment Processing Providers Barclaycard Logo

We’ll get you preferential quotes from Barclaycard and other suitable providers if required

Barclaycard is the second largest acquirer in the UK and the third largest in Europe. They process approximately £300 billion of payments annually for over 400,000 merchants. Together with Worldpay, they provide card-acquiring services to 50-60% of UK merchants with an annual card turnover above £10 million. No other merchant acquirer has above 10% market share (see a more detailed breakdown of the largest merchant acquirers in our analysis of the global digital payments market). 

They partner with many independent software vendors (ISV) and are an acquirer to several UK ISO’s, including UTP (one of the largest ISOs in the UK). However, in recent years, their enterprise and SME divisions have lost market share to new fintechs that have launched more innovative omnichannel solutions and forged more distribution relationships with ISVs and platforms.

Barclaycard Merchant Service Fees

These are indicative rates for retail businesses with an annual card turnover up to £240K and those between £25M-£50M (ATV up to £40).

Note: These are indicative rates only and the actual rates offered will depend on several factors.

Visa & MastercardIn PersonOnline & Phone
Debit0.60% – 1.75%0.85% – 2.05%
Credit0.95% – 2.45%1.20% – 2.75%
Commercial2.00% – 2.52%2.25% – 2.82%

Standard settlement time: 48 hours (pay extra for same day or 24 hours)

They also offer businesses with an annual card turnover under £100K a 1.6% blended rate for all card payments.

POS Terminals

  • Smartpay Anywhere: £29 + VAT (One-off cost)
  • Ingenico Move 5000: £15+VAT for 12 months
  • PAX (A920): £29+VAT per month for 12 month contract

Fixed fees

  • Authorisation Fee: 3p
  • Chargeback fee: £20
  • Payment Gateway: £25
  • PCI DSS service fee: £4.80
  • Minimum monthly service charge (MMSC): £20

We can get preferential quotes from Barclaycard due to our buying power

Trust Payments

Trust Payments

We’ll get you preferential quotes from Trust Payments and other suitable providers if required

Trust Payments are a full-stack end-to-end payment processor based in London. They have a higher risk tolerance than many other providers and are worth considering if you require a high-risk merchant account.

They offer several alternative payment methods including digital wallets (Google Pay, Apple Pay, Ali Pay and Paypal) crypto wallets (Bitpay) and bank to bank transfers (Trustly, Przelewy24, Pay by Bank, MyBank, EPS, iDEAL, PayU and Sepa).

Businesses can have separate accounts for different currencies or sales channels and take advantage of flexible settlement options to maximise their cash flow.

For businesses with overseas customers they offer 140 local payment methods and can process transactions in over 180 currencies and offer Dynamic Currency Conversion enabling customers pay in their local currency.

Transaction fees are bespoke based on the business and annual card turnover. Contact us to get a Trust Payment quote for your business.

Excessive chargebacks and higher risk businesses may incur additional fees (see table below).

Fee TypeDetails/RangeMonthly Fee
Re-Instatement Fee£100
Excessive Chargeback Fee5–10% (> 25)£500
 > 10% (> 25)£1,000
Risk Premium FeeForex (MCC 6211)£50
 Dating – (MCC 67273)£50
 Crypto – (MCC 6051)£50
 Nutra – (MCC 5499)£50
 Digital Goods – (MCC 5815 & 5816)£50
Excessive Fraud Fee5–10% (> £3000)£500
 > 10% (> £3000)£1,000

We can get preferential quotes from Trust Payments due to our buying power

Adyen

Payment Processing Providers adyen logo

Compare preferential quotes from multiple payment processors

Ayden is a Dutch fintech company offering end-to-end payment infrastructure and merchant acquiring that enables online and in-person payment processing.

It has invested heavily in its in-house tech stack. Combining its gateway software with merchant acquiring and processing means Adyen can reduce the fees it would otherwise pay third parties by underwriting merchants according to its own compliance standards.

Web and app developers are likely to be impressed by Adyen’s options for integrating and customising high-converting checkout experiences. Options include prebuilt UI components and a highly customisable API with extensive developer resources.

Their global payment platform accepts over 100 payment methods and most businesses will be able to find the currencies, local card networks, digital wallets, BNPL providers and bank transfer methods their customers prefer to pay with. They currently support over 70 currencies globally for settlements and payouts, 36 of which qualify for Dynamic Currency Conversion (DCC) for Visa, Mastercard and Maestro transactions.

Adyen offers full-stack acquiring in the UK as well as Australia, Brazil, Canada, Europe, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, Singapore, the UAE and the US. Merchants also have the option to connect to third-party acquirers via their API if they don’t want to sign up for their acquiring services.

You can integrate Adyen’s client-side libraries with different server-side flows. They have comprehensive integration guides for websites, iOS, Android, React Native and Flutter.

Adyen’s High-profile global companies that use Adyen include McDonald’s, H&M, Spotify, Uber, Netflix, and eBay. In the UK, some of their more well-known clients include Boohoo, Now TV, Debenhams, All Saints and Carwow.

 Adyen UK Fees

Based on a fixed processing fee of 11p plus a fee determined by the payment method used. Adyen fees for the main card schemes are below.

  • Visa, Mastercard & Maestro: 11p + 0.60% + Interchange+
  • American Express: 3.95%
Payment methodUK Transaction Fee
Clearpay4.19% + 30p
Alipay3%
Amazon Pay

Mastercard & Visa 0.8% + Interchange++

American Express 0.8% + 3.95%

SEPA direct debit 0.8% + €0.25

American Express3.95%
Apple PayDepends on card used
BACS direct debit50p
Diners3.95%
Discover3.95%
Google PayDepends on card used
JCB3.75%
Klarna4.99% + 20p
MaestroInterchange ++
MastercardInterchange ++
PayPalPayPal contract
PaySafeCard10-12% depending on merchant’s industry
Samsung PayDepends on card used
SOFORT1% (min €0.12) for physical goods, 2% (min €0.12) for digital goods
Trustly€0.50, additional rates up to 3% for gaming, gambling, travel and financial services
UnionPay3%
VisaInterchange ++
WeChat Pay3%
Zip4.25%

Adyen have no setup or monthly fees

Compare preferential quotes from multiple payment processors

Global Payments

Compare preferential quotes from multiple payment processors

Global Payments are HSBC’s payment processing partner and they successfully expanded their global footprint in March 2023 by purchasing Evo Payments after their $70 billion merger with FIS collapsed in December 2020. They boosted their market share in the UK when they purchased a 75% share of takepayments in 2024, one of the largest ISOs in the UK which has 75,000 merchants.

Global Payments has domestic acquiring licenses in over 50 countries, which enables businesses to sell and accept payments in over 130 currencies. They offer dynamic currency conversion, which enables international customers to pay in their currency, whilst the merchant can sell in their preferred currency.

Global Payments UK Fees

Based on a fixed processing fee of 11p plus a fee determined by the payment method used. Adyen fees for the main card schemes are below.

  • Visa, Mastercard & Maestro: 11p + 0.60% + Interchange+
  • American Express: 3.95%
Visa & MastercardIn PersonOnline & Phone
Debit0.60% – 1.7%0.60% – 1.7%
Credit1.00% – 1.7%1.00% – 1.7%
Commercial1.70% – 2.8%1.70% – 2.8%
  • Payment Gateway fee: £19 per month
  • POS Terminal: £25 per month
  • Authorisation: 4p
  • PCI DSS service fee: £25
  • Minimum monthly charge is £30
  • Chargeback fee: £25

Compare preferential quotes from multiple payment processors

Cashflows

Compare preferential quotes from multiple payment processors

Cashflows, based in Cambridge, UK, and owned by Pollen Street Capital, is a digitally native merchant acquirer offering payment processing and gateway services. In 2011, it became one of the first independent UK payments institutions to be accepted as a principal member of both Visa and Mastercard.

They invested heavily in developing their tech stack in-house and recently won the ‘Best Online Payments Solution’ award at the 2025 Payments award.

They’ve seen some strong growth via their network of ISOs, payment facilitators, and ISVs, as well as through their direct relationships with businesses in the higher-margin financial service sector.

Their gateway integrates easily with Woo, Magento, BigCommerce and Opencart and accepts Paypal, Mastercard Click to Pay, Apple Pay and Google Pay digital wallets as well as the card schemes listed above.

They offer Anytime Settlement for instant access to funds and next day payments are available at 30p per batch and a choice of gross or net settlement. They have a relatively fast onboarding process, with over 80% of merchant applications being processed within 24 hours.

Cashflows UK Fees

Cashflows offer a dynamic tiered pricing engine which changes the rate based on transaction volume.

Card Terminals

  • Castles Saturn 1000 F2: £22 per month (12 month contract)
  • Castles Vega Move: £18 per month (12 month contract)
  • Castles Vega Countertop: £15 per month (12 month contract)

Compare preferential quotes from multiple payment processors

Mollie

Compare preferential quotes from multiple payment processors

Mollie is a European acquirer and payment processor with over 130,000 customers and around 800 employees. It continues to experience strong growth and its net revenue grew by 36% in 2023 to each €99 million. At the end of 2024, Mollie’s UK team had grown to 26 people after its UK operations experienced triple-digit year-on-year growth in the first quarter of 2024.

Dave Smallwood, the Managing Director of Mollie UK appointed in August 2024, is confident of further UK growth and said: “The UK boasts Europe’s largest ecommerce market, yet business owners continue to be underserved in the payments sector due to excessive financial bureaucracy and inadequate support.

It targets digital native businesses and sectors, and in 2023, it added the Mollie Terminal to offer unified commerce through a single API. Businesses looking for a fully customised online solution have extensive client and server libraries for everything from JS and PHP to .NET and Python.

It supports over 35 payment methods, including digital wallets like Apple Pay and PayPal, Bank transfer options like Trustly, BNPL providers like Klarna and local payment options such as iDEAL and Bancontact.

It has prebuilt integrations for an extensive range of ecommerce platforms, including Shopify, Woo, Magento, Prestashop, BigCommerce, Lightspeed Ecom, Gambio, Shopware, PlentyOne, Sylius and OXID 6. It also has integrations with Salesforce and Hubspot.

They have high-converting embedded payment solutions, which offer a co-branded onboarding experience and a no-code monetisation tool that enables fees to be easily adjusted by customer segment and payment method.

Mollie’s UK Fees

Standard Blended Pricing (Up to 50K per month):

  • UK Domestic Consumer Cards: 1.20% + £0.20
  • UK domestic commercial + European cards: 2.90% + £0.20
  • All Other cards: 3.25% + £0.20
  • AMEX (UK Domestic Cards): 2.50% + £0.20

Volume pricing (over 50K per month):

  • Bespoke IC++ pricing with volume discounts

More payment method fees can be found on their website here.

Terminals

PAX (A920 & A35) Card Terminals

  • £350 plus £20 monthly service fee per terminal
  • Maestro / VPay Debit cards: 0.20% + €0.06 per transaction
  • Consumer Visa and Mastercard debit and credit cards: 1.80% + €0.10 per transaction
  • Business Visa and Mastercard debit and credit cards: 2.90% + €0.10 per transaction

Tap to pay on Android or iPhone

  • £0 monthly service fee
  • 1.80% per Maestro, Visa or Mastercard debit or credit card transaction

Compare preferential quotes from multiple payment processors

Wordline

Compare preferential quotes from multiple payment processors

Worldline is the largest merchant acquirer in merchant Europe and had 1.4 million customers at the end of 2023 (1.2 million in-store customers and 190K online retailers). Merchant Services’ revenue reached € 867 million in Q3 2024.

It provides á la carte acquiring solutions for financial institutions and end-to-end omnichannel payment solutions direct to merchants. Its mission is to create “a premium global Paytech at the heart of the European payment ecosystem.”

Its shareholders will hope this translates to more commercial success, as its share price has decreased 87% in the five years up to February 2025.

Their customer acquisition strategy is different from many competitors on this list as they aim to scale primarily through partnerships and/or acquisitions of retail banks’ merchant services businesses rather than direct merchant sales.

In 2019, Worldline purchased Ingenico for $8.6 billion to create the largest merchant acquirer and payments processor in Europe. They have an impressive list of clients, including M&S, Sephora, Subway, JD Sports, TUI Cruises, IHG Hotels and Resorts, KLM and Lufthansa.

They offer a range of solutions for enterprise businesses and financial institutions, including payment orchestration that can integrate over 260 payment providers and over 170 currencies.

They offer a good range of plugins, including Shopify, Woo, Prestashop, BigCommerce, Aero Commerce, SAP, Salesforce and Chargebee.

Their risk tolerance has decreased in recent years, and they have said, “Faced with the general rise in cybercrime, the emergence of new fraudulent behaviours and the tightening of regulatory directives and market constraints, we have tightened our risk appetite policy.”

Worldline UK Fees

  • Payment gateway: £29 per month (Includes 300 free transactions per month, then £0.10 per transaction)
  • Transaction fees: Domestic 1.00%, Regional 2.50%.
  • IC++ pricing is available for businesses that use their acquiring solution.

Compare preferential quotes from multiple payment processors

AIB

Compare preferential quotes from multiple payment processors

AIB Merchant Services (AIBMS), Ireland’s largest domestic merchant acquirer, is a joint venture between Allied Irish Bank (AIB) and Fiserv that operates as a global acquirer and supplies its eMAX platform for card processing.

AIBMS has a PAN-European Acquiring Licence and in the UK, AIBMS mainly supplies SMEs through ISO relationships and gains new customers directly via its banking network. In 2019 they purchased  Payzone €1100m, a leading supplier of in-store bill payments and one of the largest ISOs in Ireland.

You can also use their acquiring service with 11 third-party payment gateways, including NMI, Cardstream Opayo, and Paysafe.

The fees below are blended rates produced by its online PSR calculation tool, although its fees are charged on an IC++ basis. These were calculated with a business with MCC code 5999 (Miscellaneous and Speciality Retail) and an average transaction value. The rates in their calculator tool did not decrease with an increase in card turnover, which would not be the case in reality.

 MASTERCARD
UK-based cardDebitCreditBusiness
In person1.43%1.53%1.48%
Online/phone1.59%1.67%2.02%
 VISA
UK-based cardDebitCreditBusiness
In person1.42%1.52%1.87%
Online/phone1.49%1.59%2.45%

 

Other fees include:

  • Authorisation fee: 5p
  • Chargeback fee: £20.00
  • Point-of-sale terminal (per terminal per month): £28
  • Gateway: £21.99 + VAT
  • PCI Admin Charges: £3.90 + VAT
  • PCI Non Validation Fee: £25
  • Minimum Monthly Charge (MMC): £40
  • Paper Statement Fee: £7.50
  • Account Maintenance Fee: £9.50

Compare preferential quotes from multiple payment processors

Elavon

Payment Processing Providers elavon logo svg

We’ll get you preferential quotes from Elavon and other suitable providers if required

Elavon, based in Dublin and a subsidiary of US Bancorp, grew its UK market share with the acquisition of Sage Pay, later rebranded Opayo, in 2019 for £232 million. Since March 2023, they have stopped using the Opayo branding and have redirected the Opayo websites to Elavon.

They are an acquirer for Visa, Mastercard, DCI, JCB and UPI and also facilitate the acceptance of American Express. They process Apple Pay and Google Pay but far fewer alternative payment methods than their competitor. Their standard settlement time is 48 hours but you can pay to upgrade to same-day or next-day settlements.

Elavon’s UK Fees

These are indicative rates for retail businesses with an annual card turnover between £100K-£500M (ATV of £21-30). The higher the card turnover, the lower the rates. Rates will vary by business and these are for illustrative purposes.

MastercardDebitCreditCommercial
In Person0.46% – 0.91%0.56% – 1.01%0.96% – 1.41%
Online & Phone0.50% – 0.95%0.60% – 1.05%1.40% – 1.85%
VisaDebitCreditCommercial
In Person0.46% – 0.91%0.56% – 1.01%1.01% – 1.46%
Online & Phone0.53% – 0.98%0.63% – 1.08%1.48% – 1.93%

Other fees include:

  • Authorisation Fee: 4p
  • Chargeback fee: £25
  • Point-of-sale terminal (per terminal per month): £25
  • Payment Gateway: £25
  • PCI DSS service fee: £6
  • Minimum monthly service charge (MMSC): £30
  • Settlement time: 48 hours

POS terminal fees:

  • Talech mobile POS app: £19 one-off fee
  • Tetra Desk: £15 per month
  • Tetra Move: £18 per month
  • Ingenico Axium DX8000: £22 per month
  • Poynt 61: From £40 per month
  • talech POS Register: £62 per month

We can get preferential quotes from Elavon due to our buying power

Checkout.com

Compare preferential quotes from multiple payment processors

Checkout.com is a London-based fintech company that offers an end-to-end payment solution (payment gateway, global merchant acquiring and payment processing) for online businesses. They now have approximately 2,000 employees across 19 cities in Europe, the US, APAC and MENA regions.

They have invested heavily in building their proprietary technology stack to give them control over the entire payment flow, reduce settlement times, and avoid paying fees to third-party providers (which should hopefully feed through to savings for their merchants.

They have a strong offering for multinational and domestic merchants with direct acquiring offered in more than 55 countries, 145+ currencies processed and nearly 20 settlement currencies.

In the UK, they support multiple credit and debit cards (Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Diners, JCB, UnionPay Internation), digital wallets (Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal) and BNPL solutions (Klarna) and local bank transfers (Sofort).

Although they offer merchant accounts in-house, merchants can also use a third-party acquirer and integrate it into their gateway (this may be attractive when traditional acquiring banks offer lower transaction rates but have legacy tech that is inferior to that developed by Checkout).

They offer a range of options for integrating their gateway software from using Checkout.com to host your checkout page, integrating a prebuilt payment interface (their ‘flow’ solution ) or using their unified payments API or mobile SDK for maximum customisation options.

Payment links are simple to set up, and they have a range of plugins for popular e-commerce platforms, including Magento, Woo, Shopify, Prestashop, Salesforce Commerce Cloud and SAP Commerce Cloud.

 

Rates are all bespoke.

Flat rate pricing is offered to most SMEs based on the risk profile of the business and risk category (MCC code).

Higher turnover businesses will be offered Interchange++ pricing.

Compare preferential quotes from multiple payment processors

Stripe

Compare preferential quotes from multiple payment processors

Stripe grew rapidly due to its high-converting checkout UI and API accessibility, which opened it up to a wider range of businesses. Its customer base has evolved from loyal tech-savvy startups to more mainstream digital-first SMEs who are willing to put up with its high fees in exchange for ease of use.

It has now moved into in-person payments and offers card machines but this is likely to benefit their digitally native clients that also take face to face payments. They are unlikely to attract merchants that only take in-person payments as their USPs are still in remote payments (web, app, invoices, payment by links).

They offer two checkout integration options to cater for different levels of coding skill and customisation requirements. Elements offer prebuilt components; Stripe Checkout is a prebuilt checkout form. Stripe Connect is their product for platforms and marketplaces used by companies like Shopify, Instcart and DoorDash.

The Stripe payment platform enables businesses to accept over 100 payment methods and can automatically switch currencies and payment methods offered by customer location. They support over 135 currencies and over 30 languages and offer adaptive pricing, where Stripe calculates the localised price and handles all currency conversions.

It should not noted that their fees are relatively high and there is a continued trend of customers complaining their accounts were frozen or closed without warning.

Stripe Fees

Payment TypeFee
UK standard cards (Visa, Mastercard, Maestro, Amex, Discover, JCB, Diners Club, Apple Pay, Google Pay)1.5%+20p
UK Premium cards
(Commercial, corporate or business cards issued by Visa and Mastercard)
1.9% + 20p
European Economic Area cards2.5% + 20p
International cards3.25% + 20p
+ 2% if currency conversion is required
Pay by link1.2% + 20p
Wallets

Alipay: 2.9% + 20p

Paypal: 0.2% + 10p + Paypal fees

Revolut Pay; 1.5% + 20p +

Wechat Pay: 2.9% +20p
+2% if currency conversion is required

BNPLClearpay: 6% + 30p
+ 1.5% for international transactions
+2% if currency conversion is required
Bank Transfers (UK)GBP Bank Transfer: 0.5% (£5 cap)
Bacs Direct Debit: 1% (Min: 20p, £4 cap)
Pay by Bank: 0.5% + 20p (£5 cap)

Compare preferential quotes from multiple payment processors

Payment Processors For UK SMEs With Annual Card Turnover Under £100K

Dojo (Paymentsense)

Compare preferential quotes from multiple payment processors

Paymentsense started an ISO of Fiserv / First Data Europe LTD and has continued to grow its market share over the last few years after launching its Dojo brand in 2020 and becoming an acquirer.

Dojo has a clear focus on SMEs and centers its offering around its Dojo card reader (a rebranded PAX A920) and in-house processing platform, which is no longer reliant on Fiserv / First Data for merchant acquiring. Migrating more merchants to its in-house acquiring service has boosted Dojo’s turnover and profit margins.

The whole company, owned by Typhoon Noteco, now have over 1200 staff and over 150,000 businesses use their payment solutions. Their impressive growth was helped by their generous offers of up to £3K to buy out merchants of their existing contracts, limiting contract lengths to just 6 months and their self-employed payment consultants that some have said could be ‘overly persistent’ (likely motivated by their commissions for new signups).

They plan to target larger merchants and new locations by developing their “cloud-native next generation card acquiring Dojo platform” and has already made good progress in Spain.

Dojo fees

  • Terminal: : £15 (min £100K turnover) or £179 upfront
  • Transaction fee: 1.2% on all cards or bespoke rates based on card turnover
  • Contracts: Rolling monthly contract with no locked rates or 12 months contract with rates locked

Paymentsense Fees

Indicative Paymentsense transaction fees for a beauty saloon with an ATV of £25 based on quotes from their online PSR quotation tool.

Visa & MastercardIn PersonOnlinePhone
Debit1.40%1.40%1.40% + 50p
Credit1.40%1.40%1.90%
Commercial1.99%1.99%2.49%

Monthly fees:

  • Terminal: £20.00 +VAT
  • Gateway: £9.95
  • PCI DSS service fee: £4.95 +VAT
  • Minimum monthly service charge (MMSC): £24.95
  • Account on File Fee: £3.99
  • PCI Non-Compliance: £35.00 +VAT
  • Reporting Fee: £12.95

Other fees:

  • Chargeback fee: £28
  • Refund fee: 50p

Compare preferential quotes from multiple payment processors

Tyl By Natwest

Compare preferential quotes from multiple payment processors

Launched in June 2019, Tyl targets small and medium-sized enterprises across the UK. It relies heavily on its banking network to attract and onboard new merchants (indeed merchants need a Natwest business bank account tin ordet to get Tyl merchant account).

It competes with SumUp, Zettle and Square for businesses with a card turnover under £50K per year by offering a fixed 1.39%+ 5p authorisation fee for all UK and European card transactions. Most businesses will have larger card turnover and qualify for cheaper bespoke rates.

Tyl By Natwest Fees

Card turnover up to £50K per year (in-person and online)

  • UK and European Cards: 1.39%+ 5p authorisation fee per transaction
  • All other business and international cards: 1.99%+ 5p authorisation fee per transaction
  • Amex: Rates vary by industry

Card turnover over £50K per year (in-person and online)

  • 5 price categories for your Mastercard, Visa and Discover® Global Network
  • Payment Gateway: £14.95+VAT per month
  • There are no minimum monthly service charge

Card Terminals

  • PAX A50: £9.99+VAT per month
  • Clover Flex: £16.99+VAT per month
  • Ingenico Move 3500: £19.99+VAT per month

Compare preferential quotes from multiple payment processors

Lloyds Cardnet

Compare preferential quotes from multiple payment processors

Lloyds Cardnet was established as a joint venture between Lloyds Banking Group and First Data, now Fiserv (Lloyds own 51% of Cardnet). They are used by over 33,000 businesses in the UK but have been losing market share in recent years to nimbler tech-savvy fintechs that are not encumbered by legacy software. In 2023, gross revenue from merchant service fees fell 3% to £314.3m and total payment volume fell 8% to £54.6bn.

Their customer acquisition strategy relies heavily leveraging the bank’s corporate relationships to sign up new merchants (i.e. Paypoint are one of its ISOs and their 60,000 SME customers will use Lloyds Cardnet to process payments).

They offer a hosted ‘off the shelf’ payment gateway solution and also an API integration option for merchants that want more flexibility in how their checkout UI. For international businesses they support more than 35 major currencies and offer Dynamic Currency Conversion (DCC). It can take 1-4 business days for funds to reach your account, depending on the contract.

LLoyds Cardnet Fees

Below are are indicative rates for retail businesses with an annual card turnover ranging from £25K to £25M (ATV up to £25 with 50% face to face payments).

Visa & MastercardIn PersonOnline & Phone
Debit0.43% – 0.54%0.63% – 0.74%
Credit0.67% – 0.96%0.87% – 1.16%
Commercial1.82% – 2.09%2.02% – 2.29%

POS Terminal Fees

  • Mobile card reader: £49 one-off cost
  • Clover Flex: £21+VAT per month (£10+VAT for optional SIM)
  • Castles Saturn: £27+VAT per month (includes SIM)

Other Fees

  • Authorisation: 3p
  • PCI DSS service fee: £5
  • The minimum monthly charge is £10.
  • Chargeback fee: £15
  • Service charge (Visa and Mastercard): 0.5% of the sale
  • Card Not Present (CNP): 0.2% of sale
  • Payment Gateway: 0.13% of sale (if their payment page has been used). Note: their PSR quotation tool shows 10p per transaction.

Compare preferential quotes from multiple payment processors

Square

Compare preferential quotes from multiple payment processors

Together with SumUp and Zettle, the two other largest payment facilitators, they serve about one-third of merchants in the UK, predominantly those who sell face-to-face. They are used by about 4 million businesses across eight countries, and First Data is primarily used as their merchant acquirer in the UK.

Square have previously targeted micro merchants that not typically targeted by acquirers directly but they are starting to focus on larger SMEs in order to continue their growth.

Their POS hardware is priced upfront at a fixed fee, with fixed headline rates for in-person and online transactions. They offer lower rates for businesses processing over £200K in card sales annually.

Square enables SMEs to accept a range of cards and digital wallets, including Visa, V Pay, Mastercard, Maestro, American Express, Google Pay, Apple Pay and Samsung Pay.

Square UK  Transaction Fees

  • In Person: 1.75%
  • Manually entered or using a card on file: 2.5%
  • Invoices: 2.5%
  • Online: 1.4% + 25p (1.4% + 25p for non UK Cards)
  • Instant Transfers: 1.5%
  • Clearpay: 6% + 30p per transaction

Compare preferential quotes from multiple payment processors

SumUp

Compare preferential quotes from multiple payment processors

As with the other payment facilitators, SumUp primarily target SMEs with relatively low card volume that want simple pricing, no contractual tie-ins and payment processing solutions that are easy to set up and use.

They recently launched a subscription service, SumUp One, which reduces their transaction fees on UK domestic cards from 1.69% to 0.99% for a monthly fee of £19.

They have grown significantly since launching in 10 European countries in 2012. They expanded organically and through acquisitions, such as their purchases of Shoplo, Debitoor, Goodtill, Tiller, and Fivestars. They are currently used by over 4 million businesses globally, and in October 2024, Reuters reported they may be planning a new share sale that could value the company at $8.87 billion.

SumUp uses Worldpay for its global acquiring and Starling Bank for settlements in the UK.

SumUp Fees

Pay-as-you-go transaction fees

  • In-person: 1.69%
  • Online: 2.5%
  • Monthly fee: £0

SumUp One

  • In-person UK domestic cards: 0.99%
  • Online UK domestic cards: 0.99%
  • International, Commercial cards, Amex: 1.99%
  • Virtual Terminal: 2.95% transaction fee + £0.25 fixed fee per transaction
  • Monthly fee: £19

Compare preferential quotes from multiple payment processors

Zettle

Compare preferential quotes from multiple payment processors

After Paypal purchased Zettle (or iZettle as it was called then) for $2.2 billion in 2018, Zettle stepped up its competition with Square and SumUp.

They are a payment facilitator that uses Bambora and Elavon as acquirers in the EU. After Paypal purchased Zettle (or iZettle as it was called then) for $2.2 billion in 2018, Zettle stepped up its competition with Square and SumUp.

The speed and ease of setup of Zettle products and the simplicity of their flat fee pricing are key selling points for micro businesses. However, 1.75% for UK cards and 2.5% for payment links are expensive for most low-risk merchants and only makes commercial sense for low card turnover businesses where monthly fees charged by other providers would take up a greater proportion of their costs.

Fees

  • UK Domestic Cards: 1.75%
  • PayPal QR Codes: 1.75%
  • PayPal Invoice: 2.5%
  • Payment Links: 2.5%

Business with over £120K annual card turnover may be eligible for bespoke rates.

Hardware Costs

  • Card Reader: £29+VAT
  • Card Terminal: From £149+VAT
  • Store Kits: From £169+VAT

Compare preferential quotes from multiple payment processors

DNA Payments

Compare preferential quotes from multiple payment processors

Established in 2018, DNA Payments has attempted to scale via acquisitions of smaller ISOs following a £100 million investment from Alchemy Partners in 2021. Merging seven payment processing companies businesses has proved harder than expected, and its aim to be the “4th largest payment provider in the UK by close of 2022” was never close to being achieved.

The DNA Payment Group is now made up of nine companies: DNA Payments Limited, 123Send, Optomany, Active Payments, EFT Solutions, Kwalitas, FPMS, Card Cutters, and Zash. Revenue for the year ended December 2023 was £26M, and a net loss of £21M, which brings the total losses to date to £55 M.

DNA offers a full end-to-end omnichannel payments platform targeting UK SMEs. Their online solutions and website integration options are likely to be too basic for high-turnover ecommerce businesses.

Bespoke rates based on business type and card turnover.

Compare preferential quotes from multiple payment processors

Teya

Compare preferential quotes from multiple payment processors

Teya, formerly known as SaltPay, is a London based acquirer and payment processor established in 2019. It raised $845 of Series C funding in 2021 to support its growth across the UK and Europe and looks to have been a bit too eager to start writing cheques. The last two sets of accounts of Teya Europe Ltd show they have written off investments totalling £234M in 2022 and £113.5M in 2023. Their accumulated losses of £347M as of Dec 2023 will take some time to overcome.

Like Dojo, it uses self-employed sales agents to find and onboard merchants and targets small consumer-facing businesses like hospitality, food and drink, events and beauty.

Transaction fees

  • Teya tap: 1.59% (Amex not accepted)
  • Pay once: 1.29% (Amex / other: 1.9%)
  • Monthly rolling plan: 1.59% (Amex / other: 1.9%) 
  • 12 month plan: 1.29% (Amex / other: 1.9%) 

Card Machines

  • Essential (PAX A920 Pro): £139+VAT per machine
  • Pro (Sunmi P2 Pro): £179+VAT per machine

Compare preferential quotes from multiple payment processors

Compare Payment Processors