Best Card Machines for Hospitality Businesses in the UK

Updated August 2026. In a café, pub or restaurant, a card machine is not just a way to collect money. It is part of the service. When the venue is busy, you need staff to take a payment quickly, add a tip without an awkward conversation, split a bill and move to the next table.

For a small hospitality business, our shortlist starts with Dojo, Square Terminal, SumUp Terminal, Clover Flex and Worldpay’s mobile terminal. They serve slightly different types of venue, so the best choice depends on your card turnover, EPOS setup and whether you want to own or rent the hardware.

What matters more in hospitality?

If you are choosing the till as well as the terminal, see our restaurant EPOS guide. Pub owners can also use our card machines for pubs guide.

A reader that is perfectly fine for a plumber can be frustrating in a restaurant. Hospitality businesses should look beyond the advertised transaction percentage and ask six practical questions.

• Can staff take it to the table? Wi-Fi and 4G give you more flexibility than a fixed counter reader.
• Can customers tip naturally? On-screen tip prompts reduce the need for staff to ask.
• Can it split bills? This becomes important in table-service venues.
• Does it work with your EPOS? Integrated payments can reduce manual till entry and reconciliation errors.
• How quickly do you get weekend takings? Cash flow matters when wages, food and suppliers are due.
• What happens if it fails on Saturday night? Support and replacement speed are worth paying for when most customers pay by card.

Hospitality card machines compared

1. Dojo: our first choice for a busy hospitality venue

Dojo’s proposition is particularly well aligned with pubs and restaurants. Its current payment tools include bill splitting, configurable tip prompts and pre-authorisation, all of which solve normal hospitality problems rather than simply processing a card.

The pricing is also more competitive than the older figures that appeared on this page. Dojo currently publishes an all-in 1.2% blended rate for businesses below £100,000 annual card turnover. Businesses above that level move to custom pricing.

Dojo’s card machines use Wi-Fi and 4G connectivity and the company promotes next-day settlement options. It also integrates with a range of EPOS providers, which can be important if you want the bill sent directly from the till to the terminal.

Best for: pubs, restaurants and busy cafés where payment speed, tips and integrations matter.

What to ask before signing: exact hardware/plan cost, minimum term, settlement option and whether your existing EPOS integration is supported.

Read our Dojo card reader review.

2. Square Terminal: best for independent cafés and simpler operations

Square Terminal currently costs £149 + VAT and takes card-present payments at 1.75%. It is a standalone device, so staff do not need to pair it with a phone.

Square becomes particularly interesting if you also use its POS software. A small café can start with the free core POS and add paid restaurant, staff or online tools if needed. That makes it easier to grow the system without switching payment provider immediately.

For a lower-turnover café, the flat percentage is simple. For a venue taking substantial card sales every month, it is worth comparing the annual cost against a provider offering a lower or negotiated rate.

Best for: independent cafés, bakeries, food trucks and smaller venues wanting straightforward hardware and software.

See Square options (verified Quotehunt AppWiki partner link)

3. SumUp Terminal: best if you want to own the device

SumUp Terminal is currently £135 + VAT. It includes a touchscreen, built-in receipt printer, Wi-Fi and 4G connectivity, plus product and ordering functionality.

On pay as you go, in-person payments cost 1.69%. SumUp’s Payments Plus plan costs £19 a month and reduces eligible domestic consumer-card payments to 0.99%, while premium, international and American Express cards are 1.69%.

This can suit a small restaurant, food truck or café that wants a capable handheld without signing a terminal-rental contract. SumUp says funds in its Business Account are available by 7am the next day, including weekends and holidays, which may also appeal to hospitality businesses managing frequent stock purchases.

Best for: smaller hospitality operators who prefer buying hardware and keeping the payment agreement flexible.

Watch for: whether enough of your card mix qualifies for Payments Plus to justify the monthly charge.

4. Clover Flex: best when the card machine also needs to run the floor

Clover Flex is more than a payment terminal. The current UK proposition combines a portable device with built-in printer and scanner, sales reporting and POS software options.

Clover’s UK site currently lists Flex at £15 per month for the hardware, with service-plan and transaction costs on top. Processing is tailored to the business rather than one fixed public percentage.

This is most useful when your staff need to do more at the table than take a payment. If ordering, item management, staff access and reporting sit inside the same system, Clover can reduce the number of separate tools you run.

Best for: restaurants and hospitality businesses wanting a full handheld POS.

Watch for: add the hardware, service plan and transaction fees together before comparing Clover with a simpler terminal.

Read our Clover guide.

5. Worldpay DX8000: best traditional merchant option

Worldpay’s DX8000 is a standalone mobile card machine with Wi-Fi and 4G. Its current UK Simplicity tariff lists 1.50% for Mastercard and Visa, with different fees for some other card schemes.

Worldpay currently advertises £0 terminal rental for the first 12 months to eligible new customers, but the offer is part of an 18-month terminal hire agreement and has minimum transaction requirements. That is exactly why hospitality businesses should compare the full term, not the first month’s cost.

For an established venue, the trade-off may be worthwhile if the merchant-service package, settlement and support fit the business.

Best for: hospitality owners comfortable with a conventional merchant agreement and wanting a dedicated mobile terminal.

Also compare takepayments for a quoted hospitality package

takepayments is useful to price alongside Worldpay if you prefer a rented terminal and provider-led setup rather than buying hardware outright. Its current card-machine proposition includes portable and mobile terminals, next-working-day settlement subject to terms, seven-day support and a 12-month card-machine contract.

There is no single public transaction rate because pricing is tailored to the business. Ask for the merchant-service rate, terminal rental, minimum charges, PCI-related costs, settlement terms and any exit charges in writing.

Read our takepayments review or get takepayments prices (verified Quotehunt AppWiki partner link).

How much can transaction fees matter to a café or restaurant?

Imagine a small restaurant takes £25,000 a month by card. Ignoring other charges and assuming every transaction qualified for the stated rate:

• At 1.75%, processing is about £437.50 a month.
• At 1.69%, it is about £422.50.
• At 1.50%, it is about £375.
• At 1.20%, it is about £300.

That is a £137.50 monthly gap between 1.75% and 1.20%, or £1,650 over a year before allowing for device fees, subscriptions and differences in card mix.

This is why a busy venue should not simply buy the cheapest terminal online. At higher volumes, processing cost dominates the hardware cost.

Tipping: do not treat it as an afterthought

Since 1 October 2024, the Employment (Allocation of Tips) Act 2023 and the statutory Code of Practice have applied to qualifying tips in England, Scotland and Wales. Employers must pass qualifying tips to workers without deductions, except in limited circumstances such as required tax deductions, and allocate them fairly and transparently. A revised statutory code was published in draft in June 2026 and is due to come into effect in October 2026, subject to Parliamentary approval, following changes in the Employment Rights Act 2025.

Your payment system therefore needs to make tips easy to identify and reconcile. Ask whether the terminal records gratuities separately and whether your EPOS or back-office reports make tip allocation straightforward.

The card machine will not make you compliant on its own, but clean reporting can make the administrative side much easier.

Do you need integrated payments?

For a small coffee shop with a short menu, keying £8.70 into the terminal manually may be perfectly acceptable. In a table-service restaurant, integration becomes much more valuable.

With an integrated setup, the bill total can move from the EPOS to the terminal automatically. That reduces double entry, can reduce mistakes and makes end-of-day reconciliation easier.

If you are choosing an EPOS system as well, compare both together. See our restaurant EPOS guide.

Questions to ask before you sign

• What is the transaction rate for UK consumer Visa and Mastercard?
• What do you charge for American Express, corporate and international cards?
• Is there an authorisation fee or minimum monthly service charge?
• How much is each terminal per month or upfront?
• How long is the minimum agreement?
• What happens if I close or sell the business?
• When do Friday, Saturday and Sunday takings reach my bank?
• Can the terminal split bills and accept tips?
• Does it integrate with my EPOS?
• What support is available outside normal office hours?
• How quickly will a broken terminal be replaced?

Our verdict

For a busy independent pub or restaurant, Dojo is our first provider to price because its current feature set is closely aligned with hospitality and its published 1.2% blended rate below £100,000 annual card turnover is competitive.

For smaller cafés and food businesses wanting straightforward ownership, Square Terminal and SumUp Terminal are easier to understand and avoid traditional terminal rental. Clover becomes more attractive if you want a handheld POS as well as payments. Worldpay belongs on the quote list when you have enough stable turnover to benefit from a conventional merchant-services package.

Do not decide on the card machine alone. For hospitality, the best provider is the one that keeps service moving and leaves the lowest sensible total cost once card fees, hardware, software and support are included.

How we checked the information

Hardware, payment features and pricing were checked against current UK provider information on 8 August 2026. For the legal position on qualifying tips, see the GOV.UK statutory Code of Practice on tips.

For related buying decisions, use Quotehunt’s card machine provider comparison and small-business card machine guide.

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