Square vs Stripe vs SumUp: tap to pay in 2026
What each charges for in-person card payments, which need hardware, and where an invoice still beats a tap.
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Pick SumUp if you take the occasional in-person payment and want a low per-tap rate with no monthly fee. Pick Square if you want a full point of sale with inventory and receipts. Pick Stripe if your online payments already run through it and you want in-person money in the same dashboard. Rates below are US rates and change often.
Why in-person card acceptance matters
Cash keeps shrinking. The Federal Reserve's 2025 Diary of Consumer Payment Choice found that cash fell to 14% of consumer payments by number in 2024, with credit at 35% and debit at 30%. If you photograph events, cut hair, run classes or sell at markets, saying "cash only" quietly costs you sales.
Taking a card no longer means buying a terminal either. Visa reported that Tap to Phone adoption rose more than 200% year over year, with nearly 30% of tap sellers being new small businesses. Phones now work as card readers in many markets.
The rates side by side
These are US numbers from public pages and reviews as of mid 2026. Check each provider before you sign up, since fees change, and outside the US the numbers differ.
Square lists its Free plan in-person rate at 2.6% + 15 cents for tap, chip or swipe. Reviews put its contactless-and-chip reader at $59 and the Square Terminal at $299.
Stripe's in-person rate is reported at 2.7% + 5 cents, and tap on a phone needs no extra hardware. One caution: some sources say Stripe adds 10 cents per authorization for Tap to Pay, so read Stripe's US Terminal pricing before you commit.
SumUp charges 2.6% + 10 cents for card-present payments on every plan, with no monthly fee on the free tier and next-day payouts. Its reader has a one-time hardware cost.
On a small ticket, the fixed cents matter more than the percentage. On a $20 payment, five cents beats fifteen. On a $2,000 payment, the percentage dominates and the difference is small.
Hardware is now optional
The biggest change is that you may not need a reader at all. With a phone that supports tap acceptance, a client holds a card or phone near yours and the payment goes through. No dongle, nothing to charge or lose. Availability varies by country and device, so check each provider's app for the markets and phones it supports.
For someone who only occasionally takes in-person payments, that beats buying and carrying a reader for a handful of transactions. If you also wonder whether you need a company to do any of this, our guide to accepting card payments without a company covers the setup.
Where each one wins
SumUp wins for the occasional seller. The low headline rate, no monthly fee and no ecosystem to learn make it a clean choice if cards are a sometimes thing.
Square wins when you run a real point of sale. If you sell products, track inventory or want receipts and a customer list, a free app and a cheap reader make a small POS. Of the three, its in-person ecosystem is the deepest.
Stripe wins if you already use it online. Payouts, reporting and your books stay in one place, and a slightly higher percentage may be worth it for that consistency. Our comparison of Stripe invoicing and Square invoices goes into the online side.
A worked example
Say you run weekend photo sessions and sell prints at a market. You take 40 print sales a month at an average of $30, so $1,200 in card payments.
On the published rates, Square's 2.6% + 15 cents costs about $31.20 plus $6.00 in fixed fees, so around $37 for the month. SumUp's 2.6% + 10 cents comes to $31.20 plus $4.00, about $35. Stripe's 2.7% + 5 cents comes to $32.40 plus $2.00, about $34, before any extra authorization fee. The three come out within a few dollars of each other.
So at this volume the rate is not what decides it. What decides it is whether you want a reader, whether you want inventory and receipts, and whether you already have an account somewhere. Choose the one you will actually use, and revisit the numbers if your volume changes tenfold.
Now add one $1,500 wedding balance on the same month. Percentages dominate: about $39 to $40 on any of the three. A single large invoice costs more in fees than all your small tap payments put together, which is a good reason to look at fees on the invoice side as well.
Questions to ask before you pick
Four questions settle most cases.
Do I sell physical items or only services? Items point toward Square. Services point toward whichever account you already have.
Do I already use one of these for online payments? If so, adding in-person to the same account keeps your records in one place.
How often will I tap a card? A few times a month points to SumUp or a phone-only setup. Daily use points toward a proper reader and a POS.
What does my accountant need? A single export of all income is easier to work with than three. Ask what format they prefer before you split payments across providers.
Payouts and speed
The transaction rate gets the attention, but cash flow depends on when money reaches your bank. SumUp states next-day payouts on all its products. Square and Stripe settle to a linked bank account on standard schedules, and each sells faster payouts for a fee. Stripe's UAE page, for example, lists instant payouts at 1.5% with a minimum. If you take payment at a Saturday market and need the money before Monday, the faster option may be worth the cost. Check current timing and fees before you commit.
When a tap is the wrong tool
Tapping a card suits payments made on the spot: a class, a haircut, a print sale. It does not suit most project work. A designer, consultant or photographer is usually paid in stages, with a deposit, a balance and a document that records what was agreed. A tap at the end of the job has no contract behind it, no sequential invoice for your accountant and no easy way to chase a late payment.
For that kind of work, a quote, a contract and an invoice with a pay button do more. A card payment on an invoice also keeps the money flowing through your own gateway, with a record that links the payment to the work.
How Delivvo fits next to a card reader
Delivvo does not sell card readers and does not process payments. It handles the part of client work that a tap cannot: the quote, the contract, the deposit, the invoice and the delivery. It connects to your own processor, which can be Stripe, PayPal or Square, and takes 0%.
- Send a quote built from packages and add-ons. The client picks, signs and pays the deposit on one page.
- Delivvo creates the client, project, contract and invoice from that quote.
- The invoice has a sequential number, your tax details and a pay button that opens your gateway's checkout. Payment schedules run up to 12 payments for staged work.
- If the invoice is late, reminders go out at 7, 14 and 30 days and stop once it is paid.
- The client sees invoices, files and approvals in one portal, which they open with a one-time code.
Every invoice and receipt also carries a verification code, which helps when a client's accounts team wants proof of what they paid for. You can run both tools side by side. Use a tap reader for the sales that happen on the spot, and Delivvo for the work that needs paperwork. Your Stripe account, if you have one, can serve both: the same account collects the deposit on the quote and the in-person tap, and the money lands in your own balance either way.
See payments for the gateways that work today, including Stripe and PayPal. Some other processors are in the code but have not yet been run with real accounts, so they are not listed here.
This sits inside Delivvo's CRM for service businesses. More on how payments work.
FAQ
Which is cheapest for in-person payments in the US?
On public numbers, SumUp's 2.6% + 10 cents and Square's 2.6% + 15 cents are close, and Stripe's 2.7% + 5 cents wins on very small tickets. Your real cost depends on average ticket size and any plan fees.
Do I need a card reader to take tap payments?
Not always. Many phones can accept contactless cards through a provider's app. Availability depends on your country and device.
Can I use these for invoices?
Square and Stripe both offer invoices, with online card rates that differ from in-person rates. For project work, an invoice linked to a contract is usually the better fit.
What if I do not have a company?
You can often sign up as an individual or sole proprietor. Rules differ by country, so check with your accountant.
Delivvo runs the whole client cycle for service businesses, from the first inquiry to the quote, contract, deposit, invoice and delivery, so project work gets paid through a documented invoice and not a tap at the end. Clients pay you directly through your own gateway, and Delivvo takes 0%. Start free