Revolut Card Reader Review

As a business owner taking payments, transaction fees should be one of your main concerns – and with inflation rising over 12% in March 2023, you need to look for low ones to make your balance books look green. Revolut’s card reader is an excellent choice for that: compact and stylish, it charges just 0.8% + 2p per in-person transaction.

That fee is one of the lowest we came across in our card readers research, where Revolut receives an impressive 4.8/5 overall score – a joint top score with Zettle. On top of that, the provider can transfer funds in just one business day and offers live chat support.

While Revolut’s reader is mightily impressive, there are some readers that might suit your specific business better. If you’d like more options, we’re more than happy to share our free comparison tool to help you decide. It allows you to compare costs from our trusted providers for you to compare.

What is the Revolut Reader?

How Much Does Revolut Cost?

Revolut is great value for money, offering some of the lowest transaction fees around. Its online transaction fees start at 1% + 20p, which is cheaper than Square (1.75%) and Stripe (1.4% + 20p). This is why we found Revolut to be one of the cheapest ways to take card payments in the market.

Revolut’s PDQ machine costs £49, which, price-wise, sits in the middle of the park. Check out our table below for more information on Revolut’s costs.

The easiest way to get a clear price is to compare tailored quotes on our free cost comparison tool. Simply answer a few questions about your business, and we’ll match you with trusted merchant account suppliers who’ll contact you directly with free, no-obligation quotes. Our tool is quick, easy, and totally free to use.

What are the Pros and Cons of Revolut for Taking Payments?

Pro: Lowest transaction fees of any reader we tested

Revolut charges just 1% + 20p per online transaction, and 0.8% +2p per in-person transaction. That’s cheaper than its rivals Square (1.75% per online transaction) and Stripe (1.4% +20p per online transaction). Naturally, Revolut’s card reader is the best option if you want to cut costs.

Pro: Supports over 30 currencies

Revolut supports over 30 currencies, which is ideal for businesses operating in different territories that want to transfer funds in local currencies – something we did note in our merchant account comparison. It’s not as many as Stripe’s 135+ supported currencies, but it’s more than Square, SumUp, and Tyl, who don’t have multi-currency support at all. Meanwhile, Zettle supports 25 major currencies but only invoices in GBP.

Pros: Offers excellent customer support

Our researchers gave Revolut 4.75/5 for Customer Support – it provides a knowledge base, phone support, and live chat. These support channels, especially live chat, allow you to get issues resolved in real-time. Revolut missed out on a perfect score due to its lack of email support or community centre.

Con: Only mobile reader without fraud prevention measures

Revolut offers zero protection against fraud, which is something to consider if you’re cautious about security. For context, Zettle encrypts credit card data, self-destructs when interfered with, and offers transaction protection of up to £250 in eligible chargebacks per month.

Con: Limited reporting tools

Revolut only provides reports on spend management and team management, which could prove frustrating if you want detailed insights into your finances or inventory. When you consider other mobile readers, such as Stripe and Square, offer reports on inventory, sales and revenue, and staff hours, it’s clear that Revolut could report on more.

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…

Payments

Revolut makes funds available in your Revolut Business account within 24 hours, which is faster than Stripe, SumUp, and Tyl, which take at least two business days. Meanwhile, Revolut supports over 30 currencies, which is more than Zettle (25), and SumUp, Square, and Tyl, which don’t support multi-currency payments at all.

Ease of use

Revolut’s card reader pairs through a smartphone or tablet, making it ideal for retail businesses or pop-up stores. While it doesn’t have a dedicated POS app, you simply need to use the Revolut Banking app to find the POS-specific features. In terms of connectivity, Revolut could be more seamless.

Help and support

Our researchers gave Revolut 4.75/5 for Customer Support – you can access a knowledge centre, phone support, and live chat help. Revolut also offers a 30-day money back guarantee, refunding its cost to your Revolut Business account. The reader itself comes with a one-year warranty.

Integrations and reporting

With Revolut, you can send invoices in 28 currencies, which is mightily impressive and ideal for businesses trading internationally. It also supports 16 third-party integrations, including Sage, QuickBooks, and WooCommerce, which is more than you get on Stripe (2) or Tyl (4). Finally, it packs a virtual terminal, allowing you to take online payments. This feature helped it land a spot in our best payment gateway providers list.

Security

Revolut is PCI compliant, whether you’re using the Payment Request feature or using the plugins or API. It also provides credit checks, helping to secure your business from potential ‘bad actors’ with a poor credit history. However, Revolut is the only merchant account we tested that doesn’t offer fraud prevention, which is why our researchers gave Revolut 3.3/5 for Compliance.

How to Take Payments with Revolut

Before you can start taking payments, you need to register for a Revolut Business account then create a Merchant Account. Once you’ve opened your Revolut Business bank account, you can then order your card reader, which comes with a one-year warranty.

With Revolut, there are different ways to take payments, as you’ll see below.

QR Codes

QR codes allow customers to make contactless payments within seconds. To generate QR codes, you just need to download the Revolut Business app on your smart device.

What is Revolut Pay?

Revolut Pay enables your customers to pay directly with their Revolut Personal account at the checkout, offering a more seamless way to process payments. It also allows customers to pay in multiple currencies, or with digital wallet payments like Apple Pay.

Revolut Pay is available to Business customers with a Revolut Merchant account. Revolut Pay can be plugged into your online store, integrated with ecommerce platforms, or used as a payment gateway partner.

Does Revolut have good Customer Reviews?

Overall, customers find Revolut easy to use, and enjoy its multi-currency features and fast fund transfer times. For businesses going abroad, Revolut makes it really easy and relatively affordable to accept local currencies. On the downside, some customer reviews mention poor customer support, especially long waiting times on the phone.

Our Methodology

At Expert Market, our independent team of researchers takes a deep dive into all the topics we write about. They find the best providers or services on the market, rigorously test them first-hand, then collaborate with our team of writers, allowing us to create research-backed articles about the best mobile card readers.

For this article, our researchers tested six different merchant accounts and compared them in specific categories: pricing, features, compliance, customer support, and customer scores. They put each software through their paces and rated them out of five in these areas:

• Pricing – its transaction fees and hardware costs
• Features – its range of core features, from invoicing to integrations
• Compliance – its range of tools designed to keep your business compliant
• Customer Support – the available customer support options
• Customer Score – aggregate of consumer scores on sites like G2 and Trustpilot