How we review terminals and acquirers

How a terminal review is put together

1. Pricing is taken from the provider's own published rate pages and dated when read.
2. Contract terms, fees and settlement times come from the provider's published terms.
3. Hardware details (connectivity, battery, printer, card types) come from the manufacturer's and provider's specifications.
4. Software and support notes come from provider documentation and recent customer reviews, weighted to the last 12 months.
5. We do not run our own test transactions, so reviews do not claim first-hand results.

Acquirer scoring

1. True effective rate. Headline rate plus all standard fees (PCI, terminal rental, chargeback, monthly minimum, statement fee) for a representative SMB profile.
2. Contract terms. Length, exit fees, automatic renewal, notice period required.
3. Settlement speed. Days from transaction to bank credit.
4. Sector acceptance. Which trades are explicitly welcomed, which require additional underwriting, which are declined outright.
5. Customer track record. Trustpilot and Google reviews weighted to the last 12 months. FCA complaints data where the acquirer is a regulated payment institution.

"Best for [trade]" rankings

For a per-trade lander we weight criteria specifically. For example, "best card machine for restaurants" weights split-bill support and table-side terminals; "best for mobile traders" weights battery life and mobile-data resilience; "best for high-risk merchants" weights category acceptance and dispute-handling depth. Every "best for" listicle shows its last-reviewed date and links back to this methodology.

High-risk vertical methodology

For high-risk categories (CBD, vape, adult, firearms, gambling) we score on: explicit category acceptance in the acquirer's published criteria, chargeback ratio tolerance, settlement-reserve policy, monthly volume cap, and dispute-handling support. We only list acquirers that publicly accept the category; we do not "test the limits" of mainstream acquirer underwriting on the reader's behalf.

Review cadence

Active terminal reviews are revisited at least every six months, or sooner on:

• A hardware revision shipping (e.g. new firmware, new model variant).
• An acquirer pricing change.
• A material complaints flow on Trustpilot or industry forums.
• A regulatory change affecting payments (Strong Customer Authentication updates, PSR rulings, PCI standard revisions).

Conflict checks

Before publishing, the author confirms no commercial conversation has influenced the verdict, no payment or in-kind benefit was offered or accepted, and the methodology weights for any listicle the review feeds were set before the candidate pool was scored.

How we are funded

MerchantHQ does not charge applicants. Enquiries through our lead form at /get-quotes/ go to one card-payments broker, Merchant Advice Service (peptide businesses go to Fena instead), which works to return 2 to 3 matched quotes and pays us a fee for each introduction. That fee is paid by the broker, not by you; acquirers do not pay us commission on quote enquiries. Full detail: how we are funded.

Editorial scoring is independent. Reviews and best-of recommendations are set against the methodology criteria above. An acquirer being listed in the Card Acquirer Index does not influence the score awarded to the terminal or the merchant-account verdict. Providers are listed on whether they actually onboard UK SMBs in the categories we cover, not on any payment to us.

Read the full commercial disclosure on the editorial policy and how we are funded pages.