Came across this myself & it really depends on how much you think you will use the service, do you need a counter top or mobile terminal, what type of cards you are likely %to receive & also what the average payment will be. As these variables differ for every business- what is best for one may not be suitable for the other
Sum Up- €79 for card reader & then 1.95% for both debit & credit card payments.
AIB- €100 for card reader, €10 per month & then 2.25% for credit cards or 35c for debit cards
There is also the option of having a normal Counter Top/GPRS or Bluetooth terminal. Leasing costs on these run from €17.50 per month-€40 per month plus VAT depending on the terminal type required but the transaction costs would be approx 1.2% visa & 20c debit cards which is much lower BUT there may be a minimum monthly billing value of €20/€30 depending on the acquiring Bank.
The other point to make is that POGO/Sum Up ONLY accept chip & pin transactions where the cardholder is present & as far as I know won't accept American Express cards (not a huge amount of them around anyway)- you cannot process a payment from card details provided over the phone. This may be a problem in some businesses.
Important questions which will dictate your decision should be:
- Do I need my card reader to be mobile or operate from the office only?
- How many payments do you expect to receive per week or month?
- What is the average value of a sale or invoice in your business? This can be used as a guide to what each payment is likely to cost from each provider- e.g. €250 @ 1.95% with Sum UP is €4.88 while if this was a debit card payment with POGO with AIB it would cost just 35c or 20c through a traditional terminal. The €10 per month fee for terminal would be just over 2 transactions on Sum UP so likely to be better value while if you expected to process 15-20 transactions per month you might be better off with a physical terminal. If the average value is just €25 it costs 48.75c with Sum UP, 35c with POGO or 20c through terminal- again you need to factor in fixed costs
- Will you be taking payments from customers while in their presence i.e. where they can put in their PIN or are you likely to take payments over the phone (when people are ordering your product or service, taking deposits or when following up accounts)
- What type of cards do you expect to accept in general?
Hope this helps- if you need any more assistance just let me know.