Tyl by Natwest Review: Best for Low-Cost Hardware?

With inflation rising steadily, you need to be able to take payments while making sure costs to do so are as minimal as possible. Enter Tyl by Natwest: one of the few card reader services offered by a big bank, it packs very economical hardware alongside superb customer service. These features led Tyl by Natwest to score 4.4/5 overall in our card machines research.

If you’re still unsure if Tyl is the right choice, you could save a bit of time by using our free comparison tool. It allows you to get bespoke quotes from our trusted providers for you to compare.

In this article, we’ll cover our research into Tyl by Natwest, in which we compared it with five competitors and analysed it in five categories. Out of these, it tops the ratings for price with a 4.8/5 score and receives a commendable 4.7/5 in customer support. To know more, read our findings below.

How much does Tyl by Natwest cost?

Tyl by Natwest (which we’ll call Tyl from now on) comes in two plans based on your revenue: Up to £50K and Over £50K. Its low-cost hardware made it one of the cheapest ways to take card payments among the providers our experts tested.

Up to £50K’s has a 1.5% transaction fee for Visa and Mastercard payments, which offers good value for money. This transaction fee is cheaper than SumUp’s 1.69%, but pricier than Revolut’s 0.8% + 2p. For its part, Over £50K has a custom transaction fee.

Tyl largely rents its readers instead of selling them. This makes it more in line with contract merchant accounts (like takepayments and Dojo) than mobile ones (like Stripe and Zettle).

Tyl’s reader types (and starting prices) are: Pocket (£6.99 + VAT per month), Countertop (£13.99 + VAT per month), All-in-One POS (£14.99 + VAT per month) and Portable (£19.99 + VAT per month). These prices make Tyl’s hardware the cheapest among the providers we researched. Runner-up Square’s entry-level reader, for example, is priced at £16 + VAT.

Unlike SumUp, Tyl charges an extra £14.95 + VAT per month fee for its online payment gateway. That said, it waives this fee, as well as the hardware costs, for the first three months on both its plans.

Reading these costs, you must be wondering how to get the best deal. Well, nothing’s stopping you from finding out! Fill in our free quote tool and you’ll be comparing several providers before you can say “transaction approved”.

Does Tyl by Natwest have any hidden fees?

Tyl processes Amex cards, but charges a higher custom transaction fee on both its plans to do so. If your business accepts them, you should watch out for the transaction fee Tyl quotes you.

Tyl charges custom authorisation fees on its Over £50K plan, which are due every time a transaction gets approved or declined. It also charges an extra PCI compliance fee on this plan: it costs £4 + VAT per month per physical or online store. However, Tyl doesn’t charge you when processing refunds on either of its plans.

Tyl by Natwest’s pros and cons

✔️ Pro: Accounting integrations

Tyl offers four third-party accounting integrations, which pair Tyl with some of the biggest accounting system providers (Xero, Sage, QuickBooks and FreeAgent). This is more integrations than Stripe and Zettle, which offer two and three respectively, but less than Square which packs an impressive 50. We found Tyl to be lacking in integrations with other types of third-party providers, such as ecommerce, which lowered its score for features to 3/5. However, for entrepreneurs keen on accounting integration, Tyl is a great fit.

✔️ Pro: Great connectivity

Three of the four card reader types Tyl rents are available in versions equipped with mobile data (Countertop is the only exception). That’ll make the eyes of mobile business owners sparkle, as Tyl can allow them to run their show without depending on an external source of internet. This makes Tyl better for connectivity than SumUp, which offers two card readers with mobile data, and Zettle, which offers only one.

❌ Con: Payout could be faster

Tyl takes three working days to pay out your funds. This greatly contributes to its low 1.6/5 score in compliance, despite the fact that its security procedure is solid (we’ll discuss this below). Tyl’s payout time is faster than Revolut’s up to seven working days. However, it’s much slower from Square’s by the next working day and Zettle’s up to two working days.

❌ Con: Only two reporting tools

Tyl only comes with two reporting tools. This impacts its features score in our research, leading to a 3/5. That’s because this shortcoming limits its use for small business owners who need data insights to help steer and grow their business. By only producing reports on transactions and orders, Tyl ties with Revolut in being the provider with least reporting tools among the ones we looked into. Tyl’s two reporting tools are less than Square’s four and Stripe’s six.

Tyl by Natwest’s key features explained

PCI compliance

Tyl is Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliant, which means they take steps to secure their data befitting the industry standard. Also, through its PCI portal, Tyl provides guidance so you can check if you’re PCI compliant too. This is an extra help in this area, specially for small and individual business owners who lack IT personnel. It’s worth noting Tyl isn’t PCI certified, which means its security protocols are not audited.

Tyl comes with an additional security feature through which it checks a card’s validity. This is particularly useful if your business processes a lot of card-not-present transactions.

Security measures aside, Tyl’s long payout time and lack of credit checks lower its compliance score in our research to 1.6/5. This makes it the lowest scorer in this category, trumped by Stripe’s 2.7/5 and Square’s 3.5/5. These providers are PCI certified, which is a higher security level than Tyl’s.

Customer support

If you run into a problem with Tyl, you’re able to get in contact with its agents everyday. This is a major plus, especially if your business also operates on a Sunday to Sunday basis.

You can contact Tyl via live chat Monday to Saturday from 8am to midnight and Sunday from 9am to 5pm. It’s also reachable via phone from 9am to 5pm on weekdays. With those hours, Tyl secures a respectable 4.7/5 in customer support in our research.

That said, Tyl lacks the email contact channel that Square, Zettle and Stripe have. This prevented it from getting the perfect 5/5 score that these three providers receive.

What kind of business is Tyl by Natwest best for?

Tyl’s best suited for medium-sized and large businesses. Such ventures are primed to reap the benefits of its transaction fees while not being hampered by its lack of reporting tools and integrations.

They are also more likely to have over £50K in revenue, which allows them to access the provider’s custom transaction fees. Finally, considering their size, the monthly subscription aspect of Tyl’s hardware cost won’t be a big expense in their books.

If you’re a small business owner, you’ll be better served by competitors that have more card readers available for outright purchase, thereby saving you a fixed cost. Tyl’s only option in that regard is Pocket, which, at £75 + VAT, is far from the cheapest in the land. In comparison, Square and Zettle sell their entry-level readers at £16 + VAT and £29 + VAT, respectively.

How does Tyl by Natwest compare to its competitors?

Price

Tyl fares quite well among its competitors in price, befitting its 4.8/5 score in this category in our research. Starting at £6.99 + VAT per month, its hardware cost is the cheapest within the companies we analysed. SumUp’s start at £39 + VAT, while Stripe’s and Revolut’s start at £49 + VAT.

Despite this, we note that Tyl rents its readers instead of selling them. This means that, while economical, its hardware incur a monthly cost. Square, Zettle, and SumUp avoid this by selling their readers.

Tyl occupies more of a middle ground in transaction fees. Tyl’s 1.5% is cheaper than Square and Zettle’s 1.75%, as well as SumUp’s 1.69%. However, it’s pricier than Revolut’s 0.8% + 2p and Stripe’s 1.4% + 20p. Also, unlike these providers, Tyl charges a higher custom transaction fee for Amex transactions.

Features

Tyl’s features offering is subpar. The provider is the lowest scorer in this category in our research, receiving a 3/5.

Tyl offers four accounting integrations, which is more than Zettle (three) and Stripe (two), but doesn’t offer any integrations with non-accounting software. This is limiting for companies keen on syncing its payment with other sides of the business, especially with ecommerce (a glaring omission). This makes it on par with Stripe, but worse than SumUp, Square, Zettle, and Revolut.

Tyl comes with the least reporting tools among its competitors. It packs two, less than Square’s four and Stripe’s six. Plus, it lacks multi-currency support, which doesn’t make it an ideal choice for international businesses. SumUp and Square also lack this, but Zettle, Stripe, and Revolut offer it.

Does Tyl by Natwest have good customer reviews?

Tyl has outstanding reviews online, though it doesn’t have an abundance of them. This scarcity impacts its result in the customer score category, where it receives 3.4/5.

The only major review aggregator which features it is Trustpilot, where Tyl scores an amazing 4.8/5. Plus, it has claimed its profile and consistently replies to reviews good and bad. The latter ones are rare, representing only 4% of the total. The vast majority are positive (94%), with great praise going to its transaction fees and customer support.

Our methodology

To give a rundown on Tyl, we looked at five key areas during our in-depth research: price, features, compliance, customer support, and customer score. We also looked at five of its direct competitors to see how Tyl compares with the wider market. We then consolidated the data into the scores we discuss throughout the article.

Based on our findings, we could establish Tyl’s high performance in the price and customer support categories. It tops the former with a high 4.8/5 due to its combination of low-cost hardware and competitive transaction fee. It obtains a 4.7/5 in the latter, largely for its long support centre opening hours, tying with Revolut. These results allow us to reassure you of the quality of Tyl’s service.