Revolut Card Reader Review

The Revolut Reader offers some of the lowest fixed-rate transaction fees on the market, at just 0.8% + 2p for in-person transactions, with no monthly fees. The reader is also available for a one-time cost of £49 + VAT.

This makes the Revolut Reader a great option for sellers who want to avoid being roped into a contract while still keeping costs low. Plus, with the addition of Revolut’s iPad-based EPOS hardware, it’s a cheap option for small hospitality businesses, such as food trucks or market vendors.

That said, the Revolut Reader is more geared to casual and occasional sellers, rather than businesses that take daily card payments, since it lacks detailed sales reporting tools or integrations with more advanced third-party EPOS systems. This bumped the Revolut Reader off our ranking of the best card readers for small businesses during our latest round of testing and research, but it remains a solid option for merchants on the hunt for a good deal.

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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 relatively 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’s 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 for a Revolut Business bank account.

Does Revolut offer any other card machines or hardware?

Revolut used to only offer the Revolut Reader, but in March 2024, it launched the £149 + VAT Revolut Terminal. At the same time, it released its EPOS app.

The Revolut Terminal is a large card machine with a touchscreen and built-in printer that doubles as a handheld EPOS device. It syncs with Revolut’s EPOS system, but can function independently on Wifi or a 4G connection, and can be used to access Revolut’s EPOS software and process chip and PIN and contactless payments.

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: Low monthly fees

One of the main draws of taking payments with Revolut is that it’s cheap, since Revolut sells its card reader outright, so you won’t have to pay monthly card machine rental fees.

That said, to use Revolut as a payment processor, you need to have a Revolut Business account, which costs £10 per month at a minimum.

This is still quite cheap compared to competitors, with takepayments, a more traditional card machine provider, charging an undisclosed monthly account fee and renting 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 not to 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 it 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, which now costs a minimum of £10 per month (the Basic plan used to be free).

This isn’t surprising, since Revolut is 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: Limited additional hardware available

One of Revolut’s biggest downsides is that, besides its Revolut Reader, it doesn’t sell much additional hardware for taking payments.

Last year, it launched the £149 + VAT Revolut Terminal, which is a standalone card machine that doesn’t require a Bluetooth connection to a phone, but it doesn’t sell any physical EPOS terminals, iPad stands, or accessories such as printers, despite launching an EPOS app last year.

Most providers offer at least three types of card machines for businesses to choose from, or at the very least offer EPOS hardware and accessories, with Tyl by Natwest and Barclaycard offering up to four card machines.

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.

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 unusual thing 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, but monthly fees start at £10 per month on the Basic business banking plan. The Basic plan used to have no monthly fees, and Revolut has increased the pricing of its more premium business banking plans, which now cost between £30 and £90 per month, compared to £19 and £79 per month last year.

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.

Revolut Reader: Key Features Explained

The Revolut Reader accepts a variety of payment types and cards, but it’s missing key EPOS integrations and a wide set of reporting tools. 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, Maestro, 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 over 25 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 an iPad or a Mac computer. The product was only launched in March 2024, so it’s 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 product catalogues, assign orders to tables, and access basic sales reports. However, more advanced features like stock level management, staff scheduling, and marketing integrations 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.

However, the Revolut Reader 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 has 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 requirements 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.

However, last year, the efficacy of Revolut’s fraud prevention measures was called into question by customers, with many complaining that they were the victims of hacking or scams that Revolut failed to prevent.

On the face of it, Revolut’s security measures are quite solid, but they clearly aren’t on par with larger providers, such as Worldpay, which 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 cable 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.

How We Tested the Revolut Reader