takepayments Review: The Best Payment Solution for UK Businesses?

We tested takepayments as part of our 2024 merchant account research series, and found it to be the best overall provider for UK businesses, all things considered. We found the provider’s hardware to be notably lighter than other providers we got hands-on with, whilst the interface was among the easiest to navigate.

takepayments offers custom pricing plans and provides a variety of payment solutions, from card machines to EPOS systems and virtual payment gateways. All this makes it a great value option and a one-stop shop for the average small business.

If you’re still unconvinced, just give our free quote-generation tool a try. It allows you to get bespoke quotes from our trusted payment solution providers for you to compare. However, if you’re just here to find out if takepayments is the best fit for your business, read our rundown below.

What Does takepayments Do?

takepaymetns is a UK-based merchant services and payment solutions provider, that’s been around for 25 years.

It helps businesses accept cashless payments by providing a card processing service, enable by technology such as card machines, online payment gateways, EPOS systems, and more.

takepayments, like most modern merchant services providers, offer a range of services to facilitate cashless payments. Here’s a summary of what it offers:

takepayments’s Pros and Cons

✔️Pros

• Flexible and competitive pricing structure: takepayments offers tailored pricing to businesses, from account fees to transactions fees and more. This pricing model means you can negotiate a price that suits your budget, and access competitive rates.
• Great range of card machines: takepayments offers three card machines, two with 4G connectivity, and one that doubles as a mini EPOS device. On top of this, all have a touchscreen, built-in receipt printer, and can accept a wide variety of payments, making them extremely versatile.
• Next-day fund transfers: takepayments promises next day fund transfers, which is a big advantage if your business relies on fast cash turnover.
• Attentive customer service team: takepayments’s customer service team operates seven days a week, outside the standard 9-5 hours, and is available to customer for advice on anything from PCI compliance to fixing everyday glitches. They can be contacted several different ways, from live chat, phone, or WhatsApp, giving customer extra flexibility.

❌ Cons

• Requires a minimum 12 month contract: takepayments requires merchants to enter into a 12 month contract to use their payment services, which means that if you don’t like their product, it’ll be difficult to switch after a few months. For businesses that want flexibility, a zero-contract merchant account provider is a better option.
• Monthly fees can add up: takepayments charges separate monthly fees for a variety of products, such as card machine rental, and account fees. If you opt for more products, like an online payment gateway, or an EPOS terminal, these fees can add up to a hefty monthly sum. Some providers over these products for free, and make up for it with slightly higher transaction fees, which might be better for businesses with a low transaction volume.
• Charges an early termination fee: if you do choose to cancel you contract early with takepayments, you’ll be charged and early exit fee, which can add to the overall expense of changing providers.

How Much Does takepayments Cost?

takepayments’ pricing is bespoke, so you’ll need to request a quote to know your exact PDQ machine costs and software charges.

The provider prides itself on offering flexible and competitive pricing that’s adapted to the needs of each individual businesses. However, we recommend you compare your takepayments quote with quotes from other providers to ensure you really are getting the best deal.

Here’s an overview of the different fees and charges you can expect from takepayments:

• Basic account fees (£0-£20/month)
  • takeayments doesn’t advertise its account management fee, since pricing is bespoke. But, from testimonies, you can expect to pay anywhere from £0 to £20 per month to maintain your takepayments account.
• Merchant account fees (variable)
  • takepayments provides merchant account services through its partnered “acquiring banks”, which are Barclays, Elavon, and CashFlows, so your merchant account fees will depend on your chosen bank. Generally, small businesses won’t be subject to any fees.
• Card machine rental fees (from £25/month)
  • takepayment’s card machine rental fees start at £25 per month for its takepaymentsplus card machine, its most popular model.
• Transaction fees (0.3%-2.5% + flat fee)
  • Transaction fees are customised with takepayments, and vary depending on the card type and your business’s sales volume. You can expect to pay anything from 0.3% to 2.5% per transaction, with fees going down the higher your transaction volume is.
• Online and remote payment fees (custom)
  • if you’re selling products remotely, online or over the phone, you’ll be charged a fee to maintain an online payment gateway or virtual terminal. Once again, this fee will depend on the type of payments you’re accepting (pay-by-link, app, online store, invoice, etc.). Transaction fees for these types of “card-not-present” transactions are usually higher than in-person payment fees, which is standard across the industry.
• PCI compliance fee (optional) 
  • takepayments doesn’t charge a mandatory fee for PCI compliance, but they do offer to help you stay compliant, which may incur a fee depending on the level of support you require.
• Early termination fee (variable)
  • takepayments’ contract length is 12 months, which is quite standard, and they do charge a fee if you choose to end your contract early. How much you’ll pay depends on the terms of your contract, but it’s typically the equivalent of buying out the rest of your contract.

Is takepayments good value for money?

takepayments is generally good value for money, especially for small businesses.

Reading about all the possible fees you could incur might have you doubting this, but based on our research, it holds a firm middle ground when it comes to costs. When we compared takepayments average pricing to similar contract-based competitors, we found that it was generally cheaper than Worldpay, but more expensive than Clover.

For a lower price, takepayments offers better quality card machines than Worldpay (they’re easier to use and more lightweight), and has an extremely attentive and available customer service, making it a good value investment.

What are takepayments’s Card Machines Like?

takepayments offers three card machines, and which are highly modern, with a sleek design and touchscreen. Here are their key features:

• takepaymentsplus: mini handheld EPOS device with touchscreen, built-in receipt printer, and Wifi connectivity.
• A920Pro: touchscreen card reader for in-person payments with built-in receipt printer, and Wifi, 4G, and Bluetooth connectivity.
• DX8000: touchscreen card reader for in-person and remote payments, with built-in receipt printer, and Wifi and 4G connectivity.

The A920Pro and DX8000 are traditional card machines that can only be used to processing transactions, with the difference being that the DX8000 can accept remote payments, and pre-authorised payments.

The takepaymentsplus is takepayments star card machine, and besides being able to process card payments, it possesses the qualities of a basic EPOS system, which include:

• Logging cash payments: simply enter a transaction as normal, and indicate that the customer is paying cash.
• Storing products information: you can log products in the device, with preset prices for easy checkout. Plus, you can sort them into categories, and see when stock levels are low.
• Accessing reports: you can access sales reports on the device, and see a breakdown on sales, filtered by date.

What Remote Payment Solutions Does takepayments Offer?

Besides traditional in-person card payments, takepayments offers merchants a variety of ways to accept remote payments.

Here they are:

• Online payment gateway: takepayments’s online payment gateway integrates with over 50 virtual shopping carts, and can be customised to match your business’s branding. Besides card payments, it also accepts payments vis PayPal, to give customers more flexibility.
• Virtual terminal/phone payments: virtual terminals are designed for over-the-phone payments. They’re different from online gateways, since you, the merchant, will be accessing the terminal to enter the card information given to you by the customer. takepayments virtual terminal page can be accessed via desktop, tablet, or smartphone.
• Pay by link: takepayments pay-by-link service is a way to send electronic invoices to customers via an email link. Customers just need to click on the link, and will be taken to a secure payment page. The pay-by-link gateway accepts all major cards, as well as Apple Pay and Google Pay.
• QR code payments: if you’re a hospitality business, takepayments allows you to set up QR codes for customers to scan. They’ll be taken to a menu page, where they can place and pay for their order.
• Payment app: takepayments offers a payment app called beepaidGo, from which you can create invoices, and send them to customer vis text or email. They’ll receive a payment link to a secure payment page.

Are takepayments’s remote payment solutions worth it?

Whether takepayments’s remote payment solutions are worth it really depends on your business model.

takepayments is a jack-of-all-trades when it comes to payment services, offering a wider variety of ways to take payments than most competitors. However, than also means that if your business only requires one or two types of remote payments, you might find a cheaper and better service somewhere else, since takepayments does charge a monthly fee for most of its remote payment services.

If you run an ecommerce business, but also sell in-person, we don’t recommend takepayments. Instead, you should choose a provider that specialises in ecommerce, and offers online store building alongside online payment processing, such as Square, or SumUp, both of which have free online store builders.

If you’re an appointments-based business, or trade person, however, we recommend takepayments. You’ll be able to offer customers a variety of ways to pay, from in-person, to over-the-phone, to via electronic invoice, which can increase the likelihood of sale, an incentivise repeat customers. Having all your different payment processing services managed by the same provider will also make your life easier from a management perspective.

Are takepayments’s EPOS Integrations Any Good?

takepayments offers two EPOS systems, one for retail, and one for hospitality. While not the most advanced EPOS systems on the market, they’re an affordable solution for small businesses, and integrate seamlessly with takepayments payment processing services.

Hardware and software fees are bundled into one package, and takepayments offers two hardware set ups:

• tPOS counter: a tablet terminal with 12.5 inch touchscreen with a built-in customer display screen, along with the takepaymentsplus card machine.
• tPOS complete: a large countertop terminal with 15.6 inch touchscreen with a built-in customer display screen and receipt printer, along with the takepaymentsplus card machine.

Prices vary depending on whether you select a retail or hospitality EPOS system:

Both options also entail a £250 + VAT setup fee.

takepayments is far from the only merchant services provider to also offer an EPOS solution, with competitor Square offering free EPOS software, and only charging a one-off fee for hardware. Square’s EPOS system offers better value for money than takepayments’s, and is easier to use, earning top spot in our ranking of the best EPOS systems.

The pros of the EPOS system takepayments offers for hospitality is its ability to allow for bookings and employee time keeping, which are often add-on features in competitor EPOS systems, like Square. Meanwhile, takepayments’s retail EPOS system accepts an unlimited number of users, a bonus if you have a high number of staff on a part time basis.

What Kind of Business is takepayments Best For?

takepayments is undoubtedly best for small businesses, and markets itself as such, so its reassuring to see they know their niche.

If you own a small business, and deal with substantial sales volume, all the better. You’ll be more likely to negotiate low transaction fees from takepayments, which will offset monthly fees and other recurring costs in the long run, compared to if you were using a provider with fixed transaction fees, which tend to be a little higher.

takepayments is also a good option for appointments-based businesses and trades people, since it offers a variety of remote payment methods to suit your customers’ diverse preferences.

However, if you’re a new business, or have a low card transaction volume (maybe your customers prefer cash), you might be better off with a zero-contract provider like Square or Tide.

These types of providers offer more flexibility to new businesses testing the waters, since you can cancel anytime at no extra cost. And if your card transaction volume is low, you’ll be better off in the longer run, since zero-contract providers typically don’t have any monthly fees, and their slightly higher transaction rates won’t affect your bottom line as much.

Same goes if your business has a heavy focus on online selling. While takepayments does offer an online payment gateway, it’ll be cheaper, and easier to track sales across channels with a provider that specializes in ecommerce and card processing, like Square, SumUp, or Zettle by Paypal if you’re a new business.

How Does takepayments Compare to Its Competitors?

Let’s take a look at how takepayments squares off against the competition:

Although it’s hard to compare the pricing of providers that offer custom price plans, based on our research, we can tell you that overall, takepayments is less expensive than Wordlpay and Barclaycard, especially when it comes to transaction fees and monthly account fees. takepayments offers some of the lowest transactions fees on the market to merchants with high sales volumes, and often doesn’t charge an account fee.

However, Wordpay does have more advanced management and reporting tools that takepayments, and is a better choice for ambitious businesses. Barclaycard, being a part of Barclays, is a good option for businesses that want a singular provider for payment processing and business banking. Barclays is also among the list of acquiring banks that takepayments asks businesses to open an account with, so you could just skip takepayments and go straight to them for simplicity’s sake.

Tyl by Natwest offers the cheapest rental card machines, starting at £9.99 per month, but they aren’t as advanced as the takepaymentsplus, which starts at £25 per month. It’s still a cheap option for small businesses who feel safer using a bank as their payment processor, but it doesn’t offer competitive transaction fees, with rates fixed at 1.39%, unless you’re a high volume seller.

Square is a different beast altogether. It’s the only zero-contract provider in this table, and as such has zero monthly account fees, zero card rental fees (it sells them outright) and fixed transaction rates. Its designed to get merchants up and running quickly, and is favoured by merchants who sell online as well as in-person, since it offers a free online store builder. Its transaction fees are a litlle higher than competitors’, at 1.75%, so on that front you’ll get a better deal with takepayments if you have a high in-person sales volume.

Does takepayments have good customer reviews?

takepayments has excellent customer reviews, and has earnt an impressive 4.9 out of five stars rating on TrustPilot, with close to 50,000 reviews submitted.

Its customer support was particularly showered with praise, with many reviews naming and complimenting its support agents.

However, takepayments’ hardware woes and contract terms were harshly criticised by one user…

To the above review, a customer service representative replied asking for more information in order to help sort the situation.

Our We Reviewed takepayments