How much is a card machine? The terminal is the smallest number

The short answer

The card machine is the smallest number on your bill. The transaction fee is what you pay on every sale, so that is the number to look at.
Buying or renting depends on your business. There is no single right answer.
Check the whole statement, not just the headline rate, and review it at least once a year.

Tony Berry has spent 16 years in card payments and runs Payment Guru and Tip4 from Kent. We asked him the questions shop, pub and restaurant owners ask about what a card machine costs. His answers are below, in his own words, from two voice notes he recorded in October 2026.

He started by moving the question:

"In terms of the most important part, it's not the price of the terminal, it's the transaction fee."

Published 5 November 2026. Checked against Payment Systems Regulator and legislation.gov.uk sources on 5 November 2026.

What's the difference between buying a card machine and renting one?

There is no single right answer, and Tony will not pretend there is.

"With the terminal, depending on the relationship, we will either provide free terminals or not. It should always be on a case-by-case basis.

"Sometimes it's better to buy a terminal. Sometimes it's better to rent one. Sometimes that is personal preference, sometimes that is commercials."

He is careful about the word free.

"However, rest assured there's a lot of flexibility there. We can sometimes make them more affordable, potentially free. But how we show that to merchants, we have to be very careful, because we do not want people coming in for a free device when we may not do that."

What are the monthly fees, and what do they actually pay for?

A cheap machine can cost you more than it saves. Tony's point is about what happens at the till. He goes through what a good one should do in how do card machines work?

"In short, though, it's also about what the terminal does for you. So again, you can get a cheap terminal, but if the payment flow doesn't work as well, your business can slow down sales. That causes friction, which could result in fewer sales, missed sales or various other things.

"The cost of the terminal shouldn't always be the be-all and end-all."

And the terminal is a small line on a big bill.

"Card machines are an interesting one, because this is something a lot of businesses focus on, but it can actually be a very small part of the cost of their processing.

"For example, take a business that's actually turning over a hundred thousand a month. For them, the machine is a small part of the processing cost."

What are transaction fees, and how are they worked out?

This is the number that moves. Here is what sits inside it.

"It's very important to look at things in the round. It's made up of your debit card or credit card, commercial and international fees, which may be going through as premium charges, and your cardholder not present. But effectively, you should always have a facility that is priced accordingly for how you are transacting."

Some of those parts have got cheaper. That does not mean yours have. If you take payments over the phone, read why Tony sends a payment link instead.

"Cardholder not present has come down a lot in terms of cost over the last few years, as have international cards. But again, if you're a business that is doing nearly all debit and all face-to-face, then logically that is actually where the price should be."

What hidden charges show up on a card statement that people don't notice?

Two ways to be caught out, and they are opposites.

"You cannot just purely look at the headline figures. If you only look at the headline figure, you may miss authorisation and international fees. And if you only look at those and ignore the headline figure, that can be just as problematic."

The pence matter when the sale is small. A coffee shop feels this more than a furniture shop.

"But again, if you've got a very low average transaction value, having pence as a per transaction fee or authorisation fee is actually quite significant."

And the deal that looked good on day one.

"Or again, you may have things like very strong introductory figures with no guarantee that they are going to have any longevity at all."

Why do two similar businesses pay completely different amounts?

Because one was priced for what it does and the other took what came out of the box.

"And this is about understanding what sort of business you are, what sort of processing you do, and having something that's tailored for you rather than out of the box. And again, someone who doesn't really understand pricing will lead you down a dark avenue."

Scale changes the answer too.

"If, however, they are a business that's got hundreds of terminals and relatively low turnover, then of course there's a different truth to all of this."

What should you ask a provider before you sign anything?

One question. What is in the whole package, not what is the machine.

"But yes, either way, there's certainly a lot more to card machines on top of that. With card processing, most importantly, the question should be: what is the overall package? The overall package is more important than the price of the terminal."

How can someone find out if they're paying too much right now?

Look at the statement, then put a date in the diary to look again.

"It's really important therefore to make sure you're doing things right. You're doing things correctly. You're regularly looking at these things, making sure you haven't had any price changes, that you haven't had a rate increase.

"But yeah, certainly at minimum on an annual basis, hopefully with a plan to review properly every, say, 18 to 36 months."

The rules, with sources

What a card payment costs is three fees, not one. Interchange goes to the cardholder's bank. Scheme and processing fees go to Visa or Mastercard. The acquirer's margin is what your provider keeps. Your statement usually shows them blended into one rate, which is why Tony says to look at the whole package. The Payment Systems Regulator found the card-acquiring market "doesn't work well for merchants with annual card turnover below £50 million". Source: PSR market review into the supply of card-acquiring services.

Interchange is capped by law. For UK consumer cards the cap is 0.2% of the transaction on debit cards and 0.3% on credit cards. Commercial cards and cards issued outside the UK are not capped, which is why Tony lists commercial and international fees separately. Sources: Interchange Fee Regulation, Article 3 and Article 4, legislation.gov.uk.

Scheme fees have gone up. The PSR's final report of 6 March 2025 found Mastercard and Visa "increased their core scheme and processing fees to acquirers by at least 25% since 2017, costing businesses at least £170 million extra per year". If your rate has not moved since 2017, check whether a new line has appeared instead. Source: PSR market review of card scheme and processing fees, final report.

Terminal rental contracts are capped at 18 months. Since January 2023 the 14 largest acquirers and terminal lessors cannot tie you into a point of sale terminal lease or rental for longer than 18 months, and it must roll monthly after that. From July 2023 they must also send you a summary box of your fees and a trigger message when the contract is about to roll. If you signed before 2023, your contract may not have these. Source: PSR policy statement PS22/2, card-acquiring market remedies, 6 October 2022.

On the £100,000 a month example. Tony's figure is an illustration, not a survey. We could not find a published UK figure for the average share of processing cost that the terminal represents. The PSR's own review is the nearest published work on what small merchants pay, and it does not break the terminal out as a share.

Quick answers

How much is a card machine?
Tony: "It's not the price of the terminal, it's the transaction fee. And transaction fees can have a number of variables."

Should I buy or rent a card machine?
Tony: "Sometimes it's better to buy a terminal. Sometimes it's better to rent one. Sometimes that is personal preference, sometimes that is commercials."

Can I get a free card machine?
Tony: "We can sometimes make them more affordable, potentially free. But how we show that to merchants, we have to be very careful, because we do not want people coming in for a free device when we may not do that."

What fees do people miss on a card statement?
Tony: "If you only look at the headline figure, you may miss authorisation and international fees. And if you only look at those and ignore the headline figure, that can be just as problematic."

How often should I review my card processing fees?
Tony: "Certainly at minimum on an annual basis, hopefully with a plan to review properly every, say, 18 to 36 months."

Is a cheap card machine a false economy?
Tony: "You can get a cheap terminal, but if the payment flow doesn't work as well, your business can slow down sales."

Next step

I get it. You searched for a price and got a man telling you the price is not the point. But the terminal is a few pounds a month and the fees are a percentage of everything you take, so he is right to send you to the statement first.

Send Tony last month's card statement. He will read it, tell you what you are paying for each kind of card, where the pence per transaction are adding up, and what he would do. If the answer is that you are on a fair deal, he will say so.

This will not suit everyone. If you take a few hundred pounds a month on cards, a pay-as-you-go reader is probably right and a review will not change much. If you want to see what the machines themselves do first, the payment terminals page covers that.

Send a statement for a free review · Call 020 3535 6085

About Tony Berry

Tony runs Payment Guru and Tip4 from Kent. He has worked in card payments for over 16 years and set up Payment Guru to find businesses the right card processing, terminals and payment tools, and Tip4 to do tipping and tronc. He is the person who answers the phone. Payment Guru on LinkedIn

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How much is a card machine? Why the terminal is the smallest number on your bill