Compare EFTPOS Deals and Plans

How you should compare EFTPOS deals depends entirely on how you actually take payments. A cafe comparing countertop terminals is looking at a completely different market to a car wash comparing unattended machines, or an online store comparing payment gateways — different providers, different specialists, different things that matter. Get the category wrong and you end up comparing apples to oranges, or worse, asking a provider for something they don’t actually do well.

The five ways businesses take payments

Before you compare anything, work out which of these you actually are:

• Standard terminals — the countertop machine at most retail shops and cafes. Card-present, one device, one transaction at a time.
• Semi-attended kiosks — the self-order screens at places like McDonald’s, KFC, or your local bubble tea shop, with a payment terminal built in or connected.
• Fully unattended — car washes, laundromats, vending machines, car parks. No staff member anywhere near the payment.
• Tap on mobile — turning an Android or iPhone into a payment terminal with its NFC reader, no separate hardware needed.
• Online — e-commerce platforms, custom websites, invoicing.

Each one has different providers who specialise in it, different things worth comparing, and a different level of help you’ll get from your everyday bank.

Standard terminals — the easy comparison

This is the bread and butter of the industry, and the good news is it’s genuinely easy to compare. Ingenico, Verifone and PAX are the three major terminal brands and they’re everywhere. On the provider side you’ve got the banks (ANZ, Westpac, CommBank and so on), specialists like Tyro, Fiserv and Live Payments, and a long tail of resellers and payment facilitators (“payfacs”).

Because there’s so much competition, comparison sites and brokers can get you a decent standard terminal deal without much complexity. If you haven’t compared your terminal rate recently, this is the lowest-effort place to start — see our full terminal comparison for what a good standard terminal deal actually looks like.

Semi-attended kiosks — where it gets specialised

Once you move to kiosks, your everyday bank and most resellers start to shrug. A lot of kiosk businesses end up overpaying simply because they don’t know what else is out there, and they don’t have anyone comparing it for them.

The technical question that decides your options: is the terminal a separate unit connected to the kiosk (like at Maccas), or is it fully integrated into the kiosk hardware itself? Many setups run through middleware like Linkly rather than talking to the terminal directly, and that changes who you can actually use.

What to ask before you compare providers:

• What happens if the equipment breaks — do you own the terminal, or is it rented, and what does that cost?
• Is the terminal genuinely separate from the kiosk, or built in?
• Who actually supports this setup when something goes wrong — your bank, your kiosk vendor, or a specialist?

Fully unattended — car parks, car washes, vending, laundromats

This is the space your bank is worst at, and most resellers won’t touch at all. It’s also where functionality, not just price, decides what you can even use.

Two things matter here that don’t matter anywhere else:

The hardware itself has to survive its environment. A rugged unit like the Quest UT430 — the kind you’ll see at Melbourne train stations — is built to take real abuse. Something like the PAX IM30 is a more feature-rich device with a bigger screen, which is great, but it’s a different trade-off between durability and functionality. Work out what your environment actually needs: waterproofing (IP67 rating), a card slot, a screen, even a camera, before you compare price.

The system behind the terminal has to support your integration. Unattended setups are almost always wired into a point-of-sale system — often a bespoke one — and what matters is the API: can you get matched and unmatched refunds through it, does it support the functionality you need, and can you actually get a bank to give you that level of API access outside a standard countertop setup?

There’s also a simpler end of unattended: pulse-based systems, where the terminal just sends the machine a signal (this many pulses equals this many credits) rather than running through a full point-of-sale integration — think an old arcade machine. There aren’t many specialists in this exact space; Transact for Less and Circumtech are two worth talking to. Volume matters a lot here — understanding it properly can genuinely cut your per-transaction fee.

Tap on mobile

Turning a phone into a terminal with its built-in NFC reader is what a lot of banks now offer, and it has real use cases — a fleet of tradies who need to keep hardware costs down is the obvious one. Compare this the way you’d compare any provider, but weigh it against a standard terminal on total cost, not just the fact that you’re not paying for hardware.

Comparing online payments

Online splits into three genuinely different situations, and what you compare changes for each.

E-commerce platforms — check what you’re actually locked into

If you’re on Shopify, BigCommerce or WooCommerce, your platform’s own payments setup matters more than any comparison you do afterwards. Shopify charges a levy if you use anything other than Shopify Payments, which makes switching providers expensive even when a better deal exists — it’s why I don’t recommend Shopify unless you’re doing serious volume at a high average transaction size, enough to make eating that levy worth it. BigCommerce has recently started doing something similar, restricting third-party providers from coming in and offering a better rate — Nuvei has a connection there, but the fee it now has to pay largely cancels out the benefit.

WooCommerce is the exception: it genuinely allows third parties, and providers like RubyPay and Transact for Less have WooCommerce plugins that can get you a better rate than the platform default.

The pattern is broader than payments — a lot of platforms lock you into their own pricing on multiple services, not just card acceptance. Know what you’re actually free to shop around on before you pick a platform, not after.

Custom websites — API access vs a hosted payment page

With a custom site you’re generally not locked into a platform’s payments, which gives you more real choice — but now the comparison is about service and risk, not just rate.

If you need to fully brand your checkout (colours, layout) you need a hosted payment page that lets you customise it, since a lot of payment gateways don’t allow that. If you’re building against an API directly, compare how easy the provider makes the sandbox, how fast they actually respond when you’re integrating, and what PCI compliance falls on you — tokenising the card properly from the first transaction is what keeps most of that obligation off your plate. Skip that research and default to an off-the-shelf option like Stripe, and you’ll generally pay more for the convenience.

Risk — what actually changes your online rate

Two kinds of risk shape what you’ll be offered online, and they’re worth knowing the names of before you talk to anyone:

Prepayment risk — the gap between taking payment and delivering the goods. If you sell shirts, take payment, and the shirt takes a week to arrive, the bank is on the hook for a chargeback if something goes wrong in that window (a customer disputing the charge through Visa or Mastercard). The longer that gap, the more risk a bank is pricing in.

Industry risk — some industries get flatly declined by mainstream banks regardless of price: adult services, high-value goods like diamonds, FX or trading education, crypto. If you’re in one of these categories, shopping around yourself burns time you don’t need to spend — a broker who already knows which providers will touch your industry saves you the run of rejections.

Invoicing

If you invoice rather than take card payments directly, the question is whether it needs to connect to your accounting platform. With surcharging gone from 1 October, what you were absorbing through Stripe’s convenience is now a straight cost, so it’s worth checking alternatives — RubyPay and Transact for Less both have Xero integrations at a better price than the default.

Some invoicing is simpler than that: a tool like ANZ’s gives you a reference number, the customer enters it on a payment page, and it’s paid — easy to set up, but it doesn’t reconcile into an accounting platform, so you’re trading convenience for manual bookkeeping. If you’re running an ERP rather than Xero, the integration question gets more involved again — make sure whatever you pick actually posts to the right chart of accounts. This is genuinely a place where getting advice pays for itself.

The point-of-sale bundle — where most businesses actually overpay

This is the single biggest opportunity to save, and most businesses never look at it. In the old days, hospitality could surcharge and the point-of-sale provider’s cut didn’t really register. From 1 October, that cost lands on you instead — and if you’re paying 1.5–1.6% on $2 million in card turnover, that’s around $30,000 a year suddenly hitting your margin rather than your customer’s bill.

A new point-of-sale system is genuinely a pain to switch to — new training, a bit of disruption while everyone learns it. But with proper support from the right provider, that short-term hassle can save a restaurant well over $10,000 a year. Shopping this one is worth the discomfort.

The bottom line

Comparing EFTPOS properly isn’t complicated once you know which of these categories you’re actually in — but it does take knowing what you’re doing. Write down your setup and what you actually need before you start comparing, rather than getting quotes first and working out what matters afterwards. And if you don’t want to spend the time, a broker who already knows this market can do it faster than you can.

FAQ

What’s the best way to compare EFTPOS deals?

Work out which category you’re actually in first — standard terminal, kiosk, fully unattended, tap on mobile, or online — because the providers worth comparing and what matters in the comparison are different for each.

Why can’t my bank help me compare unattended payment options?

Unattended setups (car washes, vending, car parks) need specific hardware ratings and API access for things like matched refunds that most mainstream banks and general resellers simply don’t offer. It’s a specialist market.

Does my e-commerce platform affect what I pay for payments?

Yes, significantly. Shopify and increasingly BigCommerce charge extra or restrict third parties if you don’t use their own payments product, which can lock you in even when a cheaper option exists elsewhere. WooCommerce is the exception — it genuinely allows third-party providers.

What’s the biggest opportunity most businesses miss when comparing?

The point-of-sale bundle. With surcharging gone from 1 October, the fees a point-of-sale provider charges land directly on your margin, and shopping that around can save a mid-sized hospitality business well over $10,000 a year.