How much do card machine fees cost a UK salon?

Card fees are one of the biggest costs a salon pays that nobody sends a bill for. They come off every payment before the money reaches your bank, so most owners only see them as a line on a monthly statement. On a busy salon's takings they usually come to more than the booking software itself.

We make Daviana, and our till takes cards, so we are one of the companies in this article. Every rate for another company below comes from its own UK pricing page, with the date we checked it listed at the end. Where someone else is cheaper, we say so.

What do you pay for when you take cards in a salon?

Taking cards costs you in three ways. Put all three in your sums.

1. The rate. A percentage of every payment, and on some providers a fixed few pence on top. This is the big one.
2. The reader. Bought outright, rented monthly, or included with a contract. Bought readers cost from £19 to £229 plus VAT on the pages we checked.
3. Monthly fees. Some providers sell a plan that lowers the rate for a fixed monthly charge.

Watch for the exceptions too. Online payments, such as deposits and payment links, often cost more than tapping a card at the desk. Typing a card number in by hand costs more again on some providers. And premium, business and international cards can carry a higher rate than an ordinary UK debit card.

What do UK card machines and salon systems charge?

These are the published UK rates. The first five are standalone card providers you can use with any diary; the rest are salon systems whose rates apply when you take payments through their own till. Superscripts link to the sources at the end. A dash means the company does not publish that figure on the page we checked.

The spread looks small, a few tenths of a percent. On a salon's takings it is not. And the fixed pence change the order depending on how big your average bill is, which is why the next section matters more than the table.

How do you work out your monthly card fees? A worked example

Here is the sum to run for each option:

• Your monthly card takings × the percentage
• + your number of card payments a month × the fixed pence
• + any monthly plan fee, and VAT where the provider adds it
• + the reader, spread over the months you expect to keep it

Now an example. Take a salon that takes £12,000 a month by card at the desk, across 300 payments, so an average bill of £40. Put your own figures in place of ours. Rates are the in-person ones from the table, for ordinary UK cards.

On these numbers the gap between the cheapest and the dearest option is about £1,440 a year. SumUp's paid plan wins clearly here, as long as most of your clients pay with ordinary UK cards. It only pays for itself above about £2,700 a month of card takings, though; below that, the £19 costs more than the lower rate saves.

Now change one thing. Say the same £12,000 comes from 600 payments of £20, as it might for a brow and lash bar or a barber. The percentages stay the same, but the pence double: Stripe goes to £228 a month and Fresha to £262.80, while Square stays at £210. Below about £29 a payment, a flat 1.75% beats 1.4% + 10p. Count your payments, not just your takings.

Should your card machine connect to your booking system?

A standalone machine is often the cheapest way to take a card. It is also blind. You key in the amount, the client taps, and the money arrives in your bank with nothing to say which visit it paid for, which stylist did the work or how the tip should be split. Somebody then matches the day's payments to the diary by hand, and any mistake shows up later as a till that does not balance or a tip that went to the wrong person.

A reader that is part of the till works the other way round. The bill goes from the visit to the reader, the payment lands against that visit, and tips are recorded for the right stylist. Deposits taken at booking and payment links sent by text are in the same record, so a no-show deposit or a refund does not live in a different system.

That is how the Daviana till works. It sends the bill to a Stripe card reader, takes the tip on the reader for each stylist, can save a card on file with the client's consent, and takes deposits when a client books online. Each night it checks what Stripe paid against what the till recorded. It is part of the salon booking system, not a separate box. The diary and till starts at £25 a month including VAT for one person, and our pricing page lists every product.

If you only want the lowest rate and keep your diary somewhere else, a standalone reader on a plan like SumUp's may cost less than any salon system's own payments. Weigh that against the time spent matching payments by hand each week.

How can a salon pay less in card fees?

• Know your two numbers. Your monthly card takings and your number of card payments. Without both, you cannot compare a flat rate with a rate plus pence.
• Ask for a quote at your volume. SumUp says businesses taking £10,000 or more a month can get bespoke fees³. Other providers may do the same if you ask.
• Take cards in person where you can. Online and keyed payments cost more on most providers. Keep online payments for deposits, where they earn their cost by cutting no-shows. Our salon no-show policy template shows how to word one.
• Check the card mix. If many clients pay with premium, business or overseas cards, ask what those cost. Stripe, for example, charges 2.8% + 20p online for premium UK cards².
• Count VAT where it is added. Booksy lists its payment fees plus VAT⁷; others quote theirs without.
• Buy the reader if you can. A £19 to £229 reader you own is cheaper over a few years than most rentals, and you can take it with you if you change provider.

Card fees are only one line in the cost of running a salon system. Our guide to how much salon software costs in the UK puts them next to subscriptions, texts and commission for a full year, and our 12 questions to ask before switching salon software covers what to get in writing.

Questions salon owners ask