Card machine fees for Irish hair salons: what you really pay

Every guide to salon software eventually points at one line and says "and then there are the card fees". This article is that line, opened up for a hair salon in the Republic of Ireland. If your salon takes €18,000 a month on cards, a blended 1.7% is about €306 a month and roughly €3,670 a year, quietly the largest technology cost in the business, bigger than any booking subscription you will ever pay. And because EU rules stop you surcharging consumer cards, every one of those euros comes straight out of your margin.

One thing to be clear about before any comparison, because this blog belongs to ViteUneCoupe: ViteUneCoupe processes no payments at all. It is a free online booking system for hair salons with 0% commission, it manages your diary and your client list, bookings cost you nothing per appointment, and payment happens at your till on whatever machine you choose. Nothing here is a sales pitch for our own processing; there is none.

Every rate below was checked in October 2026 on the provider's own current Irish page, in euro. Where we could not verify a figure at the source, we say so instead of guessing, and where a vendor quotes a rate "plus VAT" we say that too, because it changes the real number.

What a card payment actually costs your salon

A card payment's cost has three layers, and knowing them is what lets you read a quote:

1. Interchange: the fee paid to the client's bank. For consumer cards issued in the EEA it is capped by the EU Interchange Fee Regulation at 0.2% for debit and 0.3% for credit (Regulation (EU) 2015/751 on EUR-Lex, checked in October 2026). That is the wholesale floor under every quote you will ever receive.
2. Scheme fees and provider margin: what Visa or Mastercard and your payment provider add on top to earn their living.
3. Fixed costs: the machine itself (bought outright or rented monthly), any plan or account fee, a fixed cent amount per transaction where one applies, and incident fees such as chargebacks.

Providers package those layers in two ways. Published flat rates (SumUp, Square, Stripe) quote one percentage, sometimes with a fixed cent fee, that already includes everything, so a premium credit card and a basic debit card usually cost you the same. Quote-based plans (the bank-linked acquirers behind most traditional terminals) pass the layers through with a negotiated margin, which can beat the flat rates at volume but means your only real number is the written quote.

Two details that matter more than the headline percentage. First, a fixed cent fee is brutal on small amounts: €0.25 on a €10 booking deposit is 2.5 extra points before the percentage even starts. Second, check whether the quoted rate is before or after VAT: Square's Irish page quotes rates "plus VAT" while SumUp's Irish page quotes a plain percentage, and comparing one against the other without adjusting is the most common mistake in this market. Count the processing line inside the full software bill too; our guide to the real cost of salon software in Ireland breaks that budget down line by line.

The providers with published Irish rates

All figures were seen in October 2026 on each company's own Irish pages, in euro. "Not verified" means exactly that: we state it rather than copying a number we could not check at the source.

A few notes the table cannot hold:

• SumUp publishes the simplest Irish grid: 1.69% per transaction on the pay-as-you-go plan, in person and online alike, with no monthly fee, and a Payments Plus plan at €19 a month that drops domestic consumer cards to 0.95% while non-EU, commercial and American Express cards stay at 1.69%. Hardware is bought outright: Solo Lite at €25, Solo at €79, the full Terminal at €135, and a free Tap to Pay option on a phone (sumup.com/en-ie, checked in October 2026).
• Square quotes 1.75% plus VAT for in-person payments on EU and EEA cards, with an extra 1.5% plus VAT for non-EEA cards; online payments are 1.4% plus €0.25 plus VAT on EEA cards (2.9% plus €0.25 on non-EEA), manually keyed payments 2% plus VAT, and card-on-file, virtual terminal and invoice payments 2.5% plus VAT, all with no monthly fee on the free plan (squareup.com/ie/en/payments/our-fees, checked in October 2026). Note the VAT: at the standard 23% rate, 1.75% plus VAT is about 2.15% all-in, which reorders the comparison with SumUp. If your salon is VAT-registered you may be able to reclaim VAT charged on fees as an input credit; our VAT guide for Irish hair salons covers how the registered and unregistered positions differ.
• Stripe is the benchmark for online payments rather than the front desk: 1.5% plus €0.25 per transaction on standard EEA consumer cards, 2.8% plus €0.25 on premium EEA cards, 2.5% plus €0.25 on UK cards and 3.15% plus €0.25 on other international cards, plus 2% where currency conversion applies (stripe.com/ie/pricing, checked in October 2026). The fixed €0.25 is why Stripe suits full online payments better than small deposits.
• Revolut sells a card reader and terminal to Irish businesses, but its Irish pricing and fee pages would not load for our checks in October 2026 (the site blocks automated access), so we will not print its rates as fact. Third-party Irish comparisons current in October 2026 describe low published rates on EEA consumer cards with a small fixed cent fee; treat that as a direction, not a quote, and read the current grid on revolut.com's Irish business pages yourself before deciding.

Bank terminals: AIB Merchant Services and BOI Payment Acceptance

The terminals you see on most established Irish counters come from the bank-linked acquirers: AIB Merchant Services (Clover terminals) and BOI Payment Acceptance. Neither published a per-transaction rate card we could read in October 2026: aibms.com routes every pricing question to "contact us", and BOIPA's site was equally quote-based on our checks. That is not a criticism of the rates themselves, which can undercut the flat-rate challengers once your volume is interesting, but it changes how you shop: your only real numbers are the written quote and the contract, so get the percentage per card type, the fixed fee per transaction, the monthly terminal rental, the contract length and the early-exit amount in euro, in writing, and compare the total against the published grids above on your own turnover. A rented terminal at €20 to €30 a month is €240 to €360 a year before a single percentage point, which a bought-outright €25 to €135 reader never costs you again.

What booking platforms charge when payments run through them

If your booking software also moves the money, its processing line belongs in this comparison, because that is where payment-integrated platforms earn much of their revenue. Figures below were checked in October 2026 on each vendor's own pages:

• Fresha charges 0.59% plus €0.15 per in-person transaction through its card solution, with an extra €0.10 per tap-to-pay authorisation and terminals sold from €119, and 1.29% plus €0.15 on online prepayments. One caveat from our own checks: Fresha's pricing page localises by country and the copy served to us carried another country's tax wording, so confirm the euro grid from Ireland before relying on it. The subscription and marketplace fees that sit around those rates are dissected in our guide to Fresha's real fees for Irish salons.
• Treatwell charges 2.5% plus VAT processing on online prepayments through its partner platform, alongside its marketplace commission model, per treatwell.ie's partner pricing page. Its in-person product, Treatwell Pay, advertises 0.89% plus €0.10 per transaction with a €199 terminal and no monthly payments fee (treatwell.ie partner resources, both checked in October 2026). The wider trade-offs are in our guide to Treatwell alternatives for Irish hair salons.
• Booksy lists mobile payment processing at 2.6% plus VAT on its Irish pricing page (biz.booksy.com/en-ie, checked in October 2026), on top of its monthly subscription.
• Square Appointments uses Square's processing grid above; the booking tool and the card machine come as one account, a bundle we weigh properly in our guide to Square Appointments alternatives for Irish hair salons.

The structural question is the same every time: would you choose this processor's rates on their own merits, and can you leave the booking tool without ripping out your payments, or the reverse? Bundling is only good when both halves suit you. The tool-by-tool picture is in our comparison of hair salon booking software for Ireland.

A worked month: €18,000 of card turnover

A deliberately hypothetical salon, so you can swap in your own numbers: €18,000 a month taken on cards at the desk, an average ticket of €55, so about 327 card payments, all in-person, all EEA consumer cards. On the published Irish rates above:

• SumUp pay-as-you-go at 1.69%: about €304 a month.
• SumUp Payments Plus at 0.95% plus €19: about €190 a month, if every card is a domestic consumer card. On these assumptions the €19 plan pays for itself from roughly €2,600 a month of card turnover; run your own mix, because commercial and non-EU cards stay at 1.69%.
• Square at 1.75% plus VAT: €315 before VAT, about €387 with VAT at 23% (less if you reclaim it).
• Treatwell Pay at 0.89% plus €0.10: about €193 a month on 327 payments.
• Fresha in-person at 0.59% plus €0.15: about €155 a month, plus up to €33 of tap-to-pay authorisation fees, and only inside Fresha's wider subscription and marketplace model.

That is a spread of roughly €2,400 a year between the dearest and cheapest realistic options, for identical revenue. None of this is a ranking: the cheapest percentage attached to a platform you would not otherwise choose is not cheap, and a bank acquirer's written quote may beat all of it at your volume. It is a method: your turnover, each provider's full published grid, VAT treatment included, once a year.

Deposits deserve their own arithmetic, because fixed fees bite hardest there: a €20 colour deposit costs about €0.55 through Stripe's standard rate (2.75% effective), €0.41 through Fresha's online rate, and €0.50 plus VAT through Treatwell's online prepayment processing at 2.5%. Whether to take deposits at all, and what Irish consumer law lets you keep when a client cancels, is covered in our guide to cancellation policies and deposits for Irish salons.

Can you pass the fee on as a surcharge? No

Since the EU's second Payment Services Directive was transposed into Irish law (European Union (Payment Services) Regulations 2018, S.I. No. 6 of 2018), businesses cannot add a surcharge for paying by consumer debit or credit card. Citizens Information states it plainly: "Retailers cannot charge consumers an extra fee or surcharge for paying by debit or credit card, either online or in shops" (citizensinformation.ie on PSD2, checked in October 2026). The ban covers the consumer cards whose interchange is capped by the EU regulation, which in a hair salon is virtually every card you will ever see; commercial cards sit outside those caps, but building a salon pricing policy on that exception is not realistic.

The practical consequence is the same as everywhere else in the EU: card costs are a cost of doing business, built into your service prices like rent and colour stock. If your menu has not moved while your card mix has, that is a pricing review, not a surcharge.

Cash still matters, and so do card tips

Cash has no percentage attached, and plenty of Irish clients, particularly older regulars, still prefer it. It is not free either: lodging it costs bank fees and a trip to a branch that is further away than it used to be, and it carries counting and security time. The honest position is that cash is a useful second channel, not a strategy: the card machine is where most of your revenue will arrive, so the card rate is the number to manage.

One more thing rides on that machine: tips. When the terminal asks "would you like to add a tip?", the money that follows is governed by the Payment of Wages (Amendment) (Tips and Gratuities) Act 2022, which makes card tips your team's money, requires a displayed tips notice and treats cash and card tips differently. The full picture, notice, fair split, 10 day statement and WRC inspections included, is in our guide to the tips law for Irish hair salons. When you compare card machines, check how each handles tip prompts and tip reporting: a terminal that itemises tips per transaction makes the Act's record-keeping far easier.

Where your booking system fits, and where it does not

ViteUneCoupe sits entirely outside the money flow, by design. It handles appointments, not payments: the free plan gives you unlimited online bookings 24/7 with 0% commission, permanently, your own booking page, a service catalogue, per-stylist schedules, the calendar and your client database. The Standard plan, from 29 € per month excluding VAT with no commitment, adds automatic confirmation, reminder and thank-you emails plus ICS calendar sync with Apple, Google or Outlook; reminders are email only, there is no SMS on any plan, and the subscription is billed in euro. There is no payment processing, no card on file, no terminal integration and no online deposits; an anti no-show protection by bank imprint is coming soon in the Standard + Anti No-Show plan at 49 € per month excluding VAT.

In practice that means the two decisions stay separate, which is the point: you pick your card machine on pure processing merit, keep whatever rate you negotiate, switch provider whenever a better grid appears, and your booking system neither adds a basis point nor takes one.

The questions to get in writing before you sign

Copy these into an email to any provider and keep the answers:

1. My exact rates per payment method: in-person, online, keyed and card on file, in euro, and is each rate before or after VAT?
2. Any fixed cent fee per transaction, and the rate on non-EEA, commercial and American Express cards?
3. The machine: purchase price, or rental over a full year, and the early-termination amount in euro?
4. Any monthly account fee, minimum monthly charge, PCI or statement fee?
5. Chargeback fee, and is it refunded if I win the dispute? Is the original processing fee returned when I refund a client?
6. How fast do funds reach my account, and what does a faster payout cost?
7. Contract length, auto-renewal and notice period?

Frequently asked questions

What is the cheapest card machine for a hair salon in Ireland?

Among published Irish rates checked in October 2026, SumUp charged 1.69% pay-as-you-go (0.95% on domestic consumer cards with its €19 a month Payments Plus plan), Square 1.75% plus VAT in person, and the platform-tied options ranged from Fresha's 0.59% plus €0.15 to Booksy's 2.6% plus VAT. There is no single cheapest answer: the winner depends on your monthly card turnover, your card mix and whether you want the processor bundled with booking software. Run your own month through each full grid, VAT included.

Can my salon charge clients extra for paying by card?

No. Under the EU payment services rules transposed into Irish law in 2018, retailers cannot surcharge consumers for paying by debit or credit card, online or in the salon. Card costs have to live inside your service prices, which makes choosing a competitive rate worth real money every month.

Is SumUp or Square better for an Irish hair salon?

On the grids both published in October 2026, SumUp's 1.69% flat rate undercuts Square's 1.75% plus VAT (about 2.15% all-in) for in-person payments, and SumUp's Payments Plus drops domestic consumer cards to 0.95% for €19 a month. Square's strength is the ecosystem: its free POS tools and Square Appointments bundle booking and payments in one account, and its online rate of 1.4% plus €0.25 plus VAT on EEA cards is sharper than its in-person rate. Pure per-tap cost favours SumUp at typical salon volumes; integrated tooling favours Square. Check both current pages before deciding, rates move.

Do booking platforms charge their own payment fees?

Yes, when payments run through them. Checked in October 2026 on their own pages: Fresha charged 0.59% plus €0.15 in person and 1.29% plus €0.15 online, Treatwell 2.5% plus VAT on online prepayments (0.89% plus €0.10 through Treatwell Pay in person), and Booksy listed 2.6% plus VAT for mobile payments. Those fees sit on top of each platform's subscription or commission model, so count the whole stack, not just the processing line.

Does ViteUneCoupe process payments or take a commission?

Neither. ViteUneCoupe manages online bookings, schedules and your client database, with 0% commission permanently on its free plan, and it does not process cards, store card details, integrate with terminals or take online deposits. Payment happens at your till on the machine you chose, at the rate you negotiated; the booking system adds nothing to the processing line.