SumUp vs PayPal: Battle of the Mobile Merchants

SumUp and PayPal are two major merchant accounts and card reader providers available to UK businesses  – and according to our in-depth research, SumUp is the winner by the smallest of margins.

SumUp has lower transaction fees overall (especially if you subscribe to SumUp One) and lower hardware prices than PayPal, plus faster payouts, including on weekends, for business account holders. That said, PayPal has cheaper online transaction fees when comparing the two providers’ standard accounts.

With SumUp offering multiple types of accounts, it can get a little confusing, but we’ve broken down what you can expect and how each SumUp plan compares to PayPal’s merchant account, below.

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SumUp vs PayPal: Overview

Here’s a quick overview of whether SumUp or PayPal is the superior choice based on our five areas of consideration in our extensive research.

If you’d like to know more about SumUp, feel free to take a look at our SumUp review.

For more information about PayPal’s offerings, just head to our PayPal review.

SumUp vs PayPal: Best for Pricing

SumUp and PayPal both offer zero-cost and no-contract ‘pay-as-you-go’ plans, however, SumUp also has two other account options for potential customers.

Here’s an overview of what monthly fees, transaction fees, and hardware costs you can expect with each option.

Lowest transaction fees: SumUp

When it comes to transaction fees on both merchant account providers’ regular plans, there’s not much in it. However, SumUp edges out PayPal with a slightly cheaper rate of 1.69% compared to PayPal’s lowest rate of 1.75% for card transactions and PayPal QR Codes.

However, SumUp takes a clear lead when you opt for its business account with 1.49% rates as its lowest transaction rate.

Better yet, while SumUp business account rates for online payments stay at 2.5%, you’ll get 0.99% transaction fees for both in-person and online payments with SumUp One. Of course, SumUp One does cost £19/month for the pleasure of these lower fees.

Cheapest hardware: PayPal

PayPal Point of Sale edges out SumUp in terms of hardware costs, especially when it comes to its most expensive card machine.

The standard price of the SumUp Air, SumUp’s cheapest card reader, is £25 + VAT, compared to the £29 + VAT PayPal Reader from PayPal, giving SumUp a slight advantage for entry-level users.

However, PayPal becomes more competitive when you look at more advanced devices. The PayPal Terminal, an all-in-one handheld POS card machine, costs £149 + VAT, compared to £169 + VAT for the comparable SumUp Solo.

Overall, while SumUp offers the slightly cheaper basic card reader, PayPal’s more advanced POS hardware is typically more affordable, which can make it the better-value option for businesses that want a standalone payment device with additional built-in POS features.

SumUp vs PayPal: Which has the best free plan?

PayPal has the best free plan. Both SumUp and PayPal offer their merchant account functionalities as free services, but PayPal ups the ante by also including a more capable EPOS system in its free offering that can be used on its hardware devices, as we’ll detail shortly.

SumUp vs PayPal: Best for Hardware

Verdict: SumUp for 4G card machines, PayPal for cheaper handheld EPOS devices
SumUp’s cheapest card reader, the SumUp Air is cheaper than the PayPal Reader. However the £149 PayPal Terminal is cheaper than the £169 SumUp Terminal, decreasing PayPals overall hardware price. And since both the PayPal Terminal and SumUp Terminal  offer an on-device catalogue item selection with imagery, PayPal offers a better deal.

Both PayPal and SumUp now offer three hardware options. The cheapest card readers are similar when it comes to functionality, and both providers forgo countertop hardware options, so you’ll be using portable products with either merchant account provider. Here’s a rundown of each product and its respective features:

How do PayPal and SumUp’s cheapest hardware options compare?

PayPal and SumUp’s hardware options are relatively similar, especially their cheapest options.

Both the SumUp Air Reader and the PayPal Reader require you to connect to a smartphone or tablet to be used, with the hardware itself acting as a processing point for contactless, swipe or chip-and-pin payment. You input costs on the respective applications, with both functioning fairly similarly, according to our research.

A downside we found is that PayPal’s Reader can’t be used offline, despite being targeted to smaller mobile sellers.

However, as noted in the pricing section, the PayPal Reader is slightly more expensive than the SumUp Air.

How do SumUp and PayPal’s most expensive hardware options compare?

PayPal’s £149 + VAT PayPal Terminal and the £169 + VAT SumUp Terminal both have built-in software that allows them to function as standalone devices from which you can access each respective provider’s EPOS software.

They each have large touchscreen displays, although the SumUp Terminal is heavier and thicker than the PayPal Terminal since it has a built-in receipt printer. That PayPal Terminal comes with an optional charging dock, which doubles as a receipt printer, but this costs an extra £50-£89 + VAT.

Both card machines offer Wifi and 4G connectivity, making their difference in price, and the presence of a built-in printer on one and not the other, the main difference.

In this way, PayPal’s Terminal is the best value option on price alone, if you don’t mind, or even prefer, not having a built-in printer on your card machine.

SumUp Air vs PayPal Reader: Best for Usability

Verdict: PayPal Reader is slightly better for usability
Another category seperated by a hair’s breadth, PayPal’s most popular card machine edges out the SumUp Air in user testing. While both have a lightweight and small size ideal for table service, users preferred its bevelled buttons and simple software to SumUp’s clunkier menu with limited visual feedback.

During our research of SumUp and PayPal, we also managed to get hands-on with our own user testing of both the SumUp Air Reader and the PayPal Card Reader.

Here’s a run-through of the benefits and drawbacks we encountered when using both hardware options to give you a taste of the user experience with either merchant provider’s card machines.

SumUp vs PayPal: Best for Features

Verdict: SumUp for faster payouts, offline functionality (till only) and richer reporting
SumUp has a clear victory for businesses requiring fast access to funds by offering next-day payouts, every day including weekends, with its free business accounts (valid for any operations including sole traders). PayPal offers between one and three business day payouts without weekend funding options. SumUp also has slightly more detailed reporting and can offer offline functionality with its tills, unlike PayPal.

There are a lot of software features and payment functionality to consider when comparing SumUp and PayPal. We’ll go through them one-by-one below.

Payment options

Both SumUp and PayPal support all major credit and debit card payments, including Visa, Mastercard, and American Express. You’ll also be able to accept contactless payments like Apple Pay and Google Pay across all their hardware devices.

Both providers also offer Tap to Pay functionality on iPhone and Android devices. This means you can use your smartphone to take payments without the need for additional hardware.

Payout timeframe

When it comes to receiving your funds, PayPal typically pays out within 1 to 2 business days. While it doesn’t offer weekend payouts, you can customise your deposit schedule to suit your financial needs—for instance, setting payouts to occur on a specific day of the month.

SumUp, on the other hand, processes payouts within 1 to 3 business days. However, things change if you get a free SumUp Business Account instead. This allows you to receive next-day payouts even on weekends, unlike standard SumUp accounts. If you subscribe to the SumUp One plan, you’ll also guarantee next-day payouts. This could be a significant advantage if your business requires quicker access to funds.

Reporting

Both SumUp and PayPal provide a free dashboard and mobile application for accessing various reports, including item, discount, and employee-specific reports.

However, SumUp offers a slight edge here as it allows you to filter reports by card type as well. This added granularity can help you gain deeper insights into your sales patterns and customer preferences.

POS integration

Both providers offer a full, native point-of-sale (POS) platform to help you manage your inventory efficiently.

Both providers integrate with a range of third-party POS systems too, including Lightspeed, Goodtill, AirPOS, Hike, and more. This flexibility is beneficial if you’re already using a specific POS system or plan to scale your operations. To find out if the specific POS software your business uses is covered, you’ll need to contact each provider directly.

Offline functionality

A significant difference between the two merchant accounts lies in their offline capabilities. SumUp offers an offline mode that automatically activates if you lose internet connectivity when using its till hardware. After connecting to Wi-Fi when you first open your till, you can continue to process transactions without an internet connection.

Unfortunately, this feature isn’t possible without its POS till, so when using just the SumUp Air or Solo card readers you’ll still need an internet connection.

Still, PayPal does not offer an offline mode at all so if you find your businesses regularly lose WiFi connection and 3G/4G service is also patchy in your region, SumUp’s till might be a better option.

Provider app

Both SumUp and PayPal have aesthetically pleasing and user-friendly mobile applications, which are essential for managing your POS inventory, accessing analytics, and utilising other tools on the go. The apps are designed to be intuitive, making it easier for merchants to handle day-to-day operations directly from smartphones or tablets.

Security

Security is paramount when handling financial transactions. Both SumUp and PayPal are PCI compliant and hold an ISO 27001 certification, ensuring they meet international standards for information security management systems.

PayPal offers live transaction monitoring as part of its fraud prevention measures, providing real-time oversight of your transactions. SumUp emphasises data security by ensuring that no sensitive data is ever stored on mobile devices like your smartphone, tablet, or card reader. This means that even if someone gains access to your hardware, they won’t be able to retrieve any critical financial information.

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SumUp vs PayPal: Best for Customer Support

Verdict: Varied, near-identical support unless you pay for SumUp One
PayPal edges SumUp’s Pay-As-You-Go customer support due to slightly longer availability. Though, if you plump for a paid SumUp One subscription, your business will benefit from weekend support that PayPal doesn’t offer at all.

When considering customer support, there’s very little between SumUp and PayPal. Here’s a quick overview before we compare them with our research in detail.

Customer support options and quality

As the table above shows, both have the same four support lines: live chat, email and phone support, and a dedicated knowledge centre of articles to help yourself. There is no user forum to discuss issues with other business owners on either platform.

After testing whether we could find five identical queries via both SumUp and PayPal’s knowledge centres, we found pretty similar performance here, too. SumUp slightly edged things, as we found we could find answers to all queries within the first page of results.

PayPal performed even better with most queries, giving us the answer on the first search result, however on one occasion we couldn’t find any helpful content at all (namely, for the query “card reader offline”).

Customer support availability

You’ll also have roughly the same support availability with either option, too. SumUp has Monday to Friday coverage between 9am and 5pm while PayPal has the same support days but with half an hour extra at the start and end of each working day (in other words, 8:30am to 5:30pm).

Where SumUp could become a winner is if you opt for the SumUp One plan. This extends SumUp’s support availability by an extra three hours each weekday (Mon-Fri: 8am to 7pm).

Even better, it extends support across weekends too, between 7am and 5pm on Saturdays and Sundays. That’s a real clincher for businesses operating on weekends, as otherwise, you’ll be without any help options if your card reader stops working during operating hours, for instance. It’s worth reiterating that SumUp One will cost a fee of £19 per month, however.

Alternatives to SumUp and PayPal

There are several top-rated merchant accounts that we’ve researched to rival SumUp and PayPal. Here’s an overview of what those competitors could offer your business.

Revolut and Square are competitors with similar mobile hardware that are worth a mention. Revolut has very economical plans and overall cost-benefit might come out on top versus SumUp and PayPal given its low transaction fees of 0.8%.

Like SumUp and PayPal, Square also offers an EPOS system. It has more integrations than any of its competitors we looked at, and it also has the cheapest card reader (it costs £19 + VAT).

How We Compared SumUp and PayPal

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