SumUp is the card reader many UK small businesses start with. It is cheap to buy, has no monthly fee on its basic plan, and turns up at market stalls, coffee carts and cafés across the country. As a business grows, SumUp offers a full till system too, called Point of Sale Pro.
Café QR is a UK cloud EPOS for independent cafés, restaurants, bars, takeaways and food trucks. It runs on tablets and phones you already own and bundles the till, kitchen display and QR table ordering into a fixed monthly price.
This article compares the two for a typical independent café. SumUp figures were checked on SumUp's UK pricing pages at time of writing (October 2026). Prices change, so confirm them before you commit.
Two different starting points
SumUp began as a card reader company. You can take payments with just a reader and the free app, then add software as you need it. Its full hospitality till, Point of Sale Pro, is an iPad-based system with a monthly subscription and optional modules.
Café QR begins with the software. The till, kitchen screen and customer ordering all run in a browser. Card payments go through your own Stripe account, and Café QR adds no fee of its own on top of Stripe's.
So the question is usually not "which is cheaper?" but "which costs less for the setup I actually need?"
SumUp pricing (at time of writing)
Card payments:
- Pay-as-you-go: 1.69% per transaction, no monthly fee
- Payments Plus: £19 a month (or £189 a year) for lower transaction fees
- Custom pricing for businesses processing £10,000 or more a month
Card readers (excluding VAT): Solo Lite £25, Solo £79, Terminal £135. Tap to Pay on a phone is listed at £0.
Point of Sale Pro (excluding VAT):
- £49 a month, £0 onboarding fee
- Optional modules at £19 a month each, including Kitchen Display Screen (per terminal), Hospitality, Advanced Stock, Advanced Loyalty, Advanced Promotions and Business Intelligence
- Goodeats online ordering: 1.7% + 12p per table order, 2.7% + 12p per delivery or collection order
- Offline mode included
- No long-term contracts
Café QR pricing
- Order & Pay: £9.99 per venue a month (QR ordering, kitchen screen, menu and allergens)
- Order & Pay + Delivery: £14.99 (adds your own collection and delivery page)
- POS: £39 (till with cash and card readers, tabs and floor plan, table bookings, self-order kiosk, cash-up, food safety tools, 10 staff logins)
- Multi-site: £59 for the first venue, then £29 per extra venue (adds stock and recipes, Xero and QuickBooks export)
- £0 setup, 0% commission, no contract, first month free without a card
- Card fees are Stripe's: 1.5% + 20p online for standard UK cards, in-person from 1.4% + 10p
Full details are on Café QR's plans and pricing page.
Comparison table
| SumUp (POS Pro) | Café QR (POS plan) | |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly software | £49 + VAT | £39 |
| Basic option | Card reader + free app, no monthly fee | Order & Pay from £9.99 |
| In-person card fee | 1.69% pay-as-you-go, lower on Payments Plus | Stripe's rate, from 1.4% + 10p |
| Kitchen display | £19 per terminal a month | Included on every plan |
| QR table ordering | Goodeats, 1.7% + 12p per table order | Included; 0% Café QR commission (Stripe's online fee applies) |
| Online delivery/collection | Goodeats, 2.7% + 12p per order | £14.99 plan or above; 0% commission |
| Table bookings | Reservations listed as a feature (confirm with SumUp) | Included on POS plan |
| Stock | Advanced Stock module £19 a month | Multi-site plan or £12 add-on |
| Own card readers | Yes, from £25 + VAT | No; uses Stripe readers |
| Offline mode | Included | Cash and own payment types only |
| Contract | None | None |
Where SumUp is stronger
Cheapest way to start taking cards. If you run a coffee cart or a pop-up and only need to accept payments, a SumUp reader and the pay-as-you-go plan is hard to beat. There is no monthly fee, and a reader costs less than a decent stock order.
A simple percentage card fee. SumUp's 1.69% has no fixed pence per transaction. On a £3 espresso that is about 5p. Stripe's in-person rate includes a fixed 10p, so the same sale costs roughly 14p. For high-volume, low-ticket coffee trade, that difference can outweigh any saving on software.
Its own hardware. SumUp makes its readers and terminals, and they are designed to work with its apps. Café QR does not connect to SumUp readers; you would use Stripe's readers instead.
Offline mode. SumUp lists offline mode on POS Pro. Café QR's till keeps selling for cash offline but cannot take cards until the connection returns.
Wider business tools. SumUp also offers a business account, invoices and other small-business products, which is useful if you want one provider for payments and banking.
Pay only for modules you use. If you don't need a kitchen screen or advanced stock, you don't pay for them.
Where Café QR is stronger
More included in the base price. A busy café on POS Pro that wants a kitchen screen and the Hospitality module pays £49 + £19 + £19 = £87 a month plus VAT before card fees. Café QR's £39 POS plan includes a kitchen screen and a full till, tabs, floor plan, bookings and a self-order kiosk.
No platform commission on orders. Goodeats charges a per-order fee for table, delivery and collection orders. Café QR takes 0% on any order. You still pay Stripe's card fee, but nothing goes to Café QR on top.
Your own payment account. Money lands in your own Stripe account, and you are not tied to one provider's readers.
Built for food service. Food safety records (HACCP and Safer Food Better Business), cash-up reports, CRM and loyalty, and a Claude AI connector for asking questions about your sales are part of the package. Café QR also has a page on running it as a café POS system if you want more detail.
Low-cost QR ordering. If all you want is customers ordering and paying from their table, the £9.99 Order & Pay plan does that without a full till.
Café QR's own gaps: no offline card payments, no cash-drawer kick yet, and stock and recipes cost extra unless you are on Multi-site.
A worked example
Take a café with £10,000 a month in card takings and an average transaction of £8 (1,250 transactions). Software and card fees only, before hardware and VAT:
- SumUp, reader only (pay-as-you-go): 1.69% = about £169
- SumUp POS Pro, no modules: £169 + £49 = about £218
- SumUp POS Pro + Kitchen Display + Hospitality: £218 + £38 = about £256
- Café QR POS: Stripe fees of about £140 + £125 (fixed 10p × 1,250) = £265, + £39 = about £304
At this average spend, SumUp is cheaper on card-taking alone, because of Stripe's fixed fee per transaction. With a higher average spend, say a lunch café at £18 a head, the fixed fee matters less and the gap narrows. If you want QR ordering, compare Goodeats' per-order fee with Stripe's online rate on your own order volumes.
The point is not that one is always cheaper. It is that card fees usually outweigh the subscription, so model your own takings before you choose.
Who should pick which
SumUp is likely the better fit if:
- You mainly need to take card payments, possibly on the move
- You want the lowest possible start-up cost, with no monthly fee
- Your average transaction is small and you serve a high volume
- Card payments must keep working without internet
- You want payments, a business account and invoicing from one company
Café QR is likely the better fit if:
- You want a till, kitchen screen, QR table ordering and bookings in one price
- You want customers to order and pay from their table without per-order commission
- You would rather run on tablets you already own
- You want your card payments in your own Stripe account
- You want food safety records and cash-up alongside your sales
For a wider view, Café QR publishes a comparison of UK POS systems covering Square, SumUp, Lightspeed, Epos Now and Toast.
Conclusion
SumUp is a strong choice for venues that mainly want to take cards cheaply. It has its own readers, no monthly fee on the basic plan, a simple percentage rate and offline mode. As you add a kitchen screen, hospitality features and online ordering, the modules and per-order fees build up.
Café QR suits cafés that want a fuller hospitality system at a fixed price, with QR ordering and a kitchen screen included and no commission on orders. Its trade-offs are no offline card payments and Stripe's fixed per-transaction fee, which matters most on small tickets.
Work out your monthly card takings, your average transaction and the features you would actually use. Then price both. SumUp's pay-as-you-go plan and Café QR's free first month both let you try before you commit.
SumUp figures were taken from sumup.com/en-gb at time of writing (October 2026). Café QR figures are from cafeqr.app. Check current pricing with each provider before you decide.