Irish card machine prices, transaction fees and contract terms for 2026: SumUp, Square, Revolut, Dojo, BOIPA, Elavon and AIB, with a worked cost example.
Updated · checked against 17 sources
Starting from zero with no commitment - market stalls, pop-ups, sole traders, and anyone who takes cards occasionally.
Trades and mobile sellers who want the money visible instantly and a cheap device with built-in connectivity.
Cafés, restaurants and shops that want a real till system rather than just a card reader, without signing a merchant contract.
Businesses already banking with Revolut - the lowest published in-person rate in Ireland if most of your customers use Irish or EEA consumer cards.
A counter business with steady, predictable card turnover that wants one fixed monthly number instead of a percentage.
An established business that wants a regulated Irish acquirer with published headline rates and 24/7 technical support.
An existing AIB business customer who wants card processing and banking with one provider and is prepared to negotiate a quote.
Larger Irish merchants comfortable negotiating a bespoke rate, or businesses already on Worldpay elsewhere.
Steady in-person trade above roughly €2,500-€3,500 a month on cards with an average sale over about €20, where 0.99% beats SumUp's 1.69% by more than the €15 monthly fee.
Businesses that already sell online through Mollie and want to take in-person payments on the same account.
Irish pricing only, checked August 2026. Where a provider publishes no Irish rate we say so rather than quoting UK figures. Rentals are marked /mo; everything else is a one-off purchase. The table gives each provider's headline figure; card-type variations, plan tiers and exact terms are on the provider pages.myPOS * pays out instantly to a myPOS account, not to your own bank. Zettle isn't in this table because it doesn't serve the Republic of Ireland.
Most guides to card machines in Ireland are written for the UK and quietly swapped into euro. That is why Irish searchers keep getting pointed at Zettle, which you cannot buy here at all.
This page uses Irish pricing only, checked against Irish provider pages on 1 August 2026. Where a provider will not publish a euro figure, it says so rather than filling the gap with a British one.
There are two completely different products being sold under the words “card machine”, and picking the wrong category costs more than picking the wrong brand.
Pay-as-you-go readers. You buy a small device outright for somewhere between €19 and €199, pay a flat percentage on every sale, and owe nothing in a month where you take no cards. SumUp, Square, myPOS and Revolut all work this way. No contract, no credit check worth the name, and you can be trading in a few days.
Merchant accounts with a rented terminal. You sign up with an acquirer (BOIPA, Elavon, AIB Merchant Services, Worldpay, Dojo) and pay a monthly bundle that covers terminal rental plus processing. Rates are lower at volume, but there is a minimum monthly charge, a contract term, and an exit cost. These are the ones that require a phone call and a quote.
The crossover is not where most people expect. Under €5,000 a month in card turnover, take the pay-as-you-go reader: the fixed monthly costs of a merchant account swamp the percentage saving. Over €10,000 a month, the merchant account wins on rate. Between €5,000 and €10,000 it is a genuine close call that only a written quote settles, because the answer turns on the minimum monthly service charge rather than the headline percentage.
Device prices exclude VAT. Rates are the headline in-person rate for Irish and EEA consumer cards.
| Provider | Cheapest device | Transaction fee | Monthly fee | Contract | Payout |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SumUp | €25 (Solo Lite) | 1.69%, or 0.95% on Payments Plus | €0, or €19 for Payments Plus | None | Next day, 7am, to SumUp account |
| Square | €19 (Reader) | 1.75% + VAT | €0 | None | Next working day |
| myPOS | €39 (Go 2) | From 1.59% + €0.05 | €0 | None | Instant to myPOS account |
| Revolut | €69 (Reader) | 0.8% + €0.02 (Business); 1.5% (Pro) | €0 on Pro; from €10 on Business | None | Within 24 hours |
| Dojo | €15/mo terminal fee | 0.99% + €0.05 per transaction | €15, no minimum service charge | 6 months under €150k/yr, then rolling | Next day from 10am; 7 days if your bank settles 7 days |
| BOIPA | Included in plan | Included in plan allowance | From €40; €60 covers €4,000 spend | TBC | Next working day |
| Elavon | €19 (Mobile reader) | From 0.99% on published plans | €0–€50 depending on plan | 12 months, then rolling | Next day |
| AIB Merchant Services | Not published | Quote only | Quote only; €9.75 PCI published | Not published | Next day |
| Worldpay | Rental, quote only | Not published | Not published | 18 months (UK terms) | Not published |
| Zettle (PayPal) | Not sold in Ireland | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a |
Take a shop doing €5,000 a month on cards across 200 transactions, averaging €25 each. All Irish consumer cards, no commercial cards, no UK cards.
| Provider | Working | Monthly cost |
|---|---|---|
| Revolut Business (Basic plan) | 0.8% + €0.02 × 200, plus €10 plan | €54 |
| SumUp Payments Plus | 0.95% + €19 | €66.50 |
| Revolut Pro (sole trader) | 1.5% flat | €75 |
| Elavon POS current offer | 0.75%, €0 terminal until end 2026 | €37.50 now, €60.50 from 2027 |
| SumUp pay-as-you-go | 1.69% | €84.50 |
| myPOS | 1.59% + €0.05 × 200 | €89.50 |
| BOIPA | €8,000 plan needed at this turnover | ~€90 all-in |
| Dojo | 0.99% + €0.05 × 200, plus €15 terminal fee | €74.50 |
| Square | 1.75% + VAT | €107.63 (€87.50 if you reclaim VAT) |
| AIB Merchant Services | Quote only, AIBMS publishes no euro rate | Not calculable |
Three things fall out of that table.
At €5,000 a month the cheap end is Revolut, then SumUp’s €19 subscription, but Dojo’s published plan lands fourth at €74.50, so a merchant account is no longer automatically the expensive option at this size. Elavon’s headline looks unbeatable, but only because the terminal is free until the end of this year.
Square is the only pay-as-you-go provider that explicitly adds VAT on top of its transaction fee on its Irish pricing page. If you are VAT-registered you reclaim it and Square lands mid-table. If you are not, it is the most expensive of the simple options.
The picture changes completely if your customers pay with commercial cards. Revolut charges 2.6% + €0.02 on non-EEA and commercial cards, so the account that was cheapest above becomes the dearest.
Cheapest way to start taking cards. Square Reader at €19, or SumUp Solo Lite at €25. Both are outright purchases with no monthly fee and no contract. If you already have a recent iPhone or Android phone, Square, SumUp and Mollie all offer Tap to Pay with no hardware at all: €0 to start.
Lowest fees once you have volume. Revolut Business at 0.8% + €0.02 is the lowest published in-person rate in Ireland, provided your customers use Irish or EEA consumer cards. Dojo’s published 0.99% + €0.05 is the next lowest and needs no quote under €150,000 a year. Above that, and for BOIPA and Elavon at any size, get written quotes and compare total monthly cost including any minimum charge.
A café or a counter. Square, if you want the till software, table service and stock tracking to come from the same place as the card machine. BOIPA or Elavon if you would rather one fixed monthly number and a next-working-day payout into your existing business bank account. Dojo suits a genuinely busy site: its next-day payout lands by 10am seven days a week, which matters if you trade weekends.
Mobile trades. SumUp Solo at €79 has a built-in SIM with free mobile data, so it works without tethering to your phone or finding a customer’s wifi. myPOS Go 2 at €39 is cheaper and also has built-in connectivity, but the money lands in a myPOS account and costs extra to move to your bank.
If you already use Revolut. The Revolut Reader at €69 pays for itself quickly at 0.8%, and settlement into the account you already look at every day removes a step. Check which Business plan tier is required for the 0.8% rate before you buy. Plans start at €10 a month.
The advertised rate is rarely the whole bill. Before you sign anything with a term attached, get these in writing.
Minimum monthly service charge. Elavon’s Multichannel campaign carries a €30 minimum merchant service charge, though its five standard plans publish none. This is the amount you pay in a month where you take almost nothing, and it is the single biggest reason a merchant account beats a reader on paper and loses in practice for a seasonal business. Dojo publishes no minimum service charge either, so under €150,000 a year its €15 terminal fee is the whole fixed cost. AIB Merchant Services publishes nothing at all, so ask.
PCI compliance fees. BOIPA states it charges no PCI fee at all: no monthly fee, no set-up fee, no late-validation fee. AIB Merchant Services publishes €9.75 a month. Dojo includes PCI at no extra charge. Elavon charges a non-compliance fee whose amount sits in the application, not on the site. Ask, because it runs to €120 a year or more.
Terminal rental after the offer ends. Elavon’s current Irish campaigns give €0 monthly terminal fee for 12 months, or until the end of 2026 on the POS offer, then €23 a month. The Multichannel offer reverts to “the standard rate available at that time”, a phrase that means nothing until you get the number.
Contract length and early exit. Elavon runs a 12-month initial term on every product, then rolling monthly. Leave inside the first 6 months and you owe the rest of the terminal rental plus recovery and non-compliance fees. Dojo is 6 months under €150,000 annual card turnover, then rolling. BOIPA no longer publishes a term at all, having stated 18 months as recently as 2024. AIB Merchant Services publishes nothing. Worldpay’s published UK plans run 18 months; its Irish terms are not published.
Software subscriptions. A Clover terminal from AIB Merchant Services carries a separate software charge, and Elavon’s Business Control plan adds a talech licence at €10 to €40 a month with €10 per extra licence. AIBMS does not publish its software price, so ask for it as a line item. On smart terminals the software can cost more than the hardware.
Zettle (PayPal) is not available to Republic of Ireland businesses, and PayPal is renaming it: the UK site now calls it PayPal Point of Sale, with PayPal Reader and PayPal Terminal hardware, so expect UK guides to push those names at Irish searchers next. None is sold here. PayPal’s Irish business site offers online payments, payment links, invoicing, a business debit card and QR code payments in the PayPal app, but there is no in-person card reader. Zettle is also absent from the list of providers offering Tap to Pay in Ireland. UK comparison sites recommend it to Irish readers constantly; the prices they quote are in sterling and you cannot buy the product here. If a Zettle recommendation is what brought you to this page, SumUp and Square are the closest equivalents on price and simplicity.
Dojo does serve Ireland, despite lingering confusion. It trades as Paymentsense Ireland Limited, is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland, and publishes a euro rate card for businesses under €150,000 a year: 0.99% + €0.05 a transaction and a €15 monthly terminal fee. Above that threshold the rate is quote-only.
Worldpay serves Ireland but has no Irish website. It runs an Irish support line on 1800 24 26 36, but there is no Irish locale on worldpay.com and not one euro figure anywhere on it, including settlement times. Everything is a quote.
Not always. SumUp, Square and myPOS will settle into their own accounts and pay out from there, and Revolut settles into your Revolut account. Merchant accounts from BOIPA, Elavon, AIB Merchant Services and Worldpay generally do expect a business current account in the trading name, and you will need your tax reference number and proof of identity either way. Sole traders can use Revolut Pro without a separate business account.
Yes. Tap to Pay on iPhone works in Ireland and is offered by SumUp, Square, Revolut, Stripe, Adyen, Mollie and BOI Payment Acceptance. Your customer taps their card, phone or watch against your iPhone, and no reader is needed. On Android, Square, SumUp, Mollie and myPOS offer it out of the box. Square, SumUp and Mollie are the only three that support both platforms without custom development. The fee is the same as the provider’s normal in-person rate, except on Revolut, where Tap to Pay on iPhone adds around €0.08 per transaction.
Yes. Merchant service charges, terminal rental and card processing fees are allowable business expenses, on the same basis as bank and credit card charges, provided they are incurred wholly and exclusively for the trade. Keep the monthly merchant statements, because that is what Revenue will want to see. If you are VAT-registered, Square’s VAT-on-fees is reclaimable in the normal way. This is general information, not tax advice; check with your accountant on your own circumstances.
Faster than most people expect, but read where the money lands. myPOS credits your myPOS account effectively instantly. Revolut pays into your Revolut account within 24 hours. SumUp pays into a SumUp Business Account next day at 7am including weekends, but takes 1 to 2 working days to reach an external bank. Dojo pays from 10am the next day, though when it lands depends on whether your own bank settles at weekends. Square, BOIPA and Elavon settle the next working day into your own bank, which means a Friday sale arrives Monday. AIB Merchant Services states next-day funding. Worldpay publishes no Irish settlement time.
Under about €5,000 a month, Revolut Business or SumUp’s €19 Payments Plus plan, with Dojo’s published plan close behind if your average sale is over €20. Well above that, get written quotes from BOIPA and Elavon and compare total monthly cost rather than headline rate. For occasional selling, SumUp or Square pay-as-you-go, where a quiet month costs nothing.