Revolut Card Reader Review

The Revolut Reader is a low-cost solution for taking payments on the go. The card reader costs £49 + VAT, and in-person transaction fees start at just 0.8% + 2p, some of the lowest fixed fees on the market.

That said, the Revolut Reader is really more geared to casual and occasional sellers, rather than businesses that take daily card payments, since it lacks detailed sales reporting tools, and integration with a fully-fledge EPOS system.

These gaps in Revolut’s offering bumped it off our ranking of the best card readers for small business during our latest round of independent testing and research. But, the Revolut Reader still has its merits as a no-fuss way to take payments, especially for sole traders who already use Revolut’s business banking services.

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What Is the Revolut Reader?

The Revolut Reader is a compact, portable card reader that can accept contactless and chip and pin payments.

To take payments with the Revolut Reader, the card reader needs to be connected via Bluetooth to either the Revolut Business app for smartphones, or the new Revolut POS app for iPad, which was launched in March 2024.

One aspect we like about the Revolut Reader is that it has a small, touchscreen display that can be used as a pin pad when taking chip and pin payments. This saves you from having customers enter their pin on your phone or iPad, as is the case with the Square Reader, Square equivalent compact Bluetooth card machine.

Revolut itself is an e-bank offering both personal and business banking services, although to use the Revolut Reader businesses need to sign up to a Revolut Business bank account.

How Much Does Revolut Cost?

Here’s a quick overview of how much it costs to take payments with Revolut:

For standard in-person card payments, made with a personal UK Visa or Mastercard, you’ll only be charged 0.8% +2p per transaction, which is very cheap for a fixed fee. For comparison, Revolut competitors Square and Zettle both charge 1.75% for equivalent transactions, while SumUp charges 1.69%.

One thing that is unusual is that Revolut tacks on an extra 8p per transaction for payments made using iPhone tap to pay, something none of its competitors do.

There are no set up or exit fees for a Revolut Business bank account, which is quite standard for this type of provider, and no monthly fees if you’re the £0 per month Basic business banking plan. If you upgrade to any of the other plans, you’ll pay between £19 and £79 per month, or custom pricing.

Upgrading your business banking plan won’t make a difference to the payment processing features you have access to. What changes instead are the banking features you get access to, such as spend analytics, no fee international transfers, and expense management.

What Are the Pros and Cons of Taking Payments With Revolut?

Here’s quick look at Revolut’s pros and cons when it comes to taking payments:

✔ Pro: No monthly fees

One of the main draws of taking payments with Revolut is that it’s cheap, with the provider allowing you to start for free on the Basic business bank account. And, since Revolut sells its card reader outright, you won’t have to pay monthly card machine rental fees.

For comparison, takepayments, a more traditional card machine provider, charges a monthly account fee, and rents its card machines from £25 per month.

✔ Pro : Low transaction fees

Adding to Revolut’s low cost is the fact that its transaction fees start at 0.8% +2p, some of the lowest we’ve seen from a fixed fee, zero-contract provider.

Zero-contract providers tend to not charge monthly fees, and make up for it by charging slightly higher transaction fees. Stripe, for example, charges from 1.4% + 10p. Revolut’s fees, on the other hand, are closer to the negotiated fees you’d get with a contract-based provider, like Worldpay, whose fees go as low as 0.75%.

✔ Pro: Next day payouts

When you take payments with the Revolut Reader, you’ll receive the funds in your Revolut Business bank account the next day, including on weekends. This is great for businesses that rely on quick cash flow, and is a faster payout time than most competitors.

For reference, Worldpay, a big player in the payment processing industry, doesn’t do next day transfers on weekends, and popular small business provider SumUp transfers funds in one to three days.

X Con: Requires a Revolut Business bank account

Unfortunately, you can’t accept payments with Revolut without first opening a Revolut Business bank account. This isn’t surprising, since Revolut is for and foremost a banking service, and similar providers, such as Stripe and Barclays also require that you open a business bank account with them if you want to use their payment processing services.

But, if you’re happy with your existing business banking provider, and don’t want to switch, we recommend picking a provider that offers you flexibility, such as Clover, takepayments, or Square.

X Con: No additional hardware available

One of Revolut’s biggest downsides is that, besides its Revolut Reader, it doesn’t sell any additional hardware for taking payments. For example, it doesn’t sell standalone card machines that don’t require a Bluetooth connection to a phone, or countertop card machines, let alone accessories like receipt printers.

Most providers offer at least two types of card machines for businesses to choose from, with Tyl by Natwest and Barclaycard offering up to four.

X Con: App has limited reporting tools

Revolut’s reporting tools are a little lacking when it comes to sales analytics. You really only get access to your sales history, but you won’t be able to filter transactions by payment method, or get analytics that tell you what your best selling items are, or which employees sell the most product.

The platform does have excellent reporting and analytics tools to monitor spend management, but they’re on the banking side of the app, and related to how you or your team spend the money you earn.

If you’re looking for a platform that can offer you detailed sales reporting, we recommend takepayments, or Tide.

Revolut Reader: Key Features Explained

Revolut scored 4.5/5 in our Features category, behind Square (4.7/5) and Zettle (4.95/5). This is mainly because Square and Zettle offer fraud prevention features, more integrations, and a wider choice of reports. Let’s dive a little deeper into its features…

Accepted payments

With the Revolut Reader, you can accept the following types of payments:

• Contactless and chip and pin
• Visa, Mastercard, Amex
• Apple Pay, Google Pay, Samsung Pay

This should cover the spending methods of most of your UK customers. But, if you have foreign customers, who have different card issuers such as Discover, Union Pay, or JCB, you’ll miss out on a sale. takepayments card machines, on the other hand, can accept all of the above.

Where Revolut has the upper hand is that its Revolut Reader allows you to take payments in 13 foreign currencies. These include major European ones like the Euro and the Swiss Franc, and other world currencies like the Australian, US, and Canadian dollar.

Since Revolut is a bank that markets itself as facilitating international transfers and currency conversions, this is hardly surprising. And, it gives the provider an edge over competitors like Square, which only lets merchants accept payments in the currency of the country they signed up in.

EPOS Integrations

Revolut now offers a free EPOS app, Revolut POS, which can be downloaded on iPad. The product was only launched in March 2024, so is still fairly new, but it’s filled a significant gap in Revolut’s payment processing kit.

However, the Revolut POS app isn’t yet on par with the free EPOS apps offered by rivals Square or SumUp. It’s only designed for food and beverage businesses, and won’t be suitable for running anything more than a small food truck or cafe, since the tools you get access to are still quite basic.

The Revolut Reader can be paired with the Revolut POS app via Bluetooth. The app allows you to create products catalogues, and assign orders to tables. However, more advanced features like stock level management and sales analysis aren’t yet available.

The main advantage of the Revolut POS app is that it allows merchants to select a product from the catalogue for a faster checkout when taking payments, a feature that’s been available on card machines from other providers for a while, such as takepayments and Tide.

The Revolut Reader also can’t be paired with third-party EPOS systems, so we don’t recommend it for merchants that need a fully fledged EPOS system for managing sales and inventory.

Online payments

As well as a card reader, Revolut also two options for accepting online payments:

• Payment links and QR codes: you can create payment links to send to customers via email, or any messaging app, or generate a QR code for them to scan, all from the Revolut Business app. This takes them to a secure payment page, which you can customise with your brand colours and logo.
• Online payment gateway: you can also integrate a Revolut payment page into your existing online store via widget, plugin, or API. Revolut has ready-made plugins for several popular ecommerce platforms and shopping carts, including Shopify, WooCommerce, and OpenCart.

Revolut’s online payment gateway is free to use, and with transaction fees starting at 1% + 20p, it’s an affordable way to take payments online. For comparison, Square’s online transaction fees start. 1.4% + 25p.

However, given Revolut’s limited sales reporting tools, its affordability wasn’t quite enough to land it a spot in our ranking of the best payment gateway providers.

Security

Revolut is PCI compliant, whether you’re using the card Reader, payment links, or the online payment gateway. It also has an ISO 27001 certificate, which means it meets basic international requirement for security, and its automated security system monitors transactions for signs of fraud. You’ll receive a warning in the Revolut app whenever suspicious activity is detected.

Overall, Revolut’s security measures are quite solid, although Worldpay offers even more advanced fraud protections for large businesses that handle a lot of transactions.

How to Take Payments with the Revolut Reader

1. Register for a Revolut Business account then create a Merchant Account.
2. Order your Revolut Reader, which comes with a USB-C charging cabl and a one-year warranty.
3. Request your first payment by going to the “Merchant” tab on the Revolut app, selecting “Request”, and then selecting “Card reader” from the payment options available. You’ll then be able to connect your reader to the app, and be able to enter the amount you want to charge.

Taking payments using the Revolut Reader and Revolut Business app is relatively simple, although it does take a little longer than with other card machines, mainly because the app doesn’t open directly onto the checkout page.

For contrast, with the takepaymentsplus, takepayments’s proprietary card machine, taking a payment was much quicker, because the card machine’s touchscreen opened directly onto the checkout page.

Does Revolut Have Good Customer Reviews?

Overall, customers find Revolut easy to use, and enjoy its multi-currency features and fast fund transfer times.

On the downside, some negative customer reviews mention poor customer support, especially long waiting times and generic responses.

How We Tested the Revolut Reader