Dojo card machine review 2026

Dojo is a contract card-machine provider, the trading name of Paymentsense Limited, and it prices each business individually rather than publishing one flat rate. It suits shops, restaurants, pubs and salons with steady card turnover that want a terminal with a printer, funds by the end of the next business day, and the option of having a previous provider's exit fee reimbursed. It is a poorer fit for very low card volumes, for anyone who needs to take payments with no connection at all, and for anyone who will not sign a minimum term.

CapExpand is an authorised Dojo partner and Dojo pays us when a business signs up through us, so read this as a partner's review, not an independent one. Every figure below comes either from Dojo's own terms and conditions or from a named review site, and there is a section on who Dojo is wrong for. Figures last verified August 2026.

Dojo at a glance

What Dojo charges

Dojo does not publish a single price list, so the headline rates here come from Dojo's terms and conditions and from named review sites, checked August 2026, and the review sites do not all agree. Treat them as what Dojo has advertised at various points, not as what you will be quoted.

• Dojo has advertised a "Fix" plan at £39.99 a month covering card turnover up to £3,999 a month, with 1% charged on turnover above that, for businesses under £100,000 a year (mobiletransaction.org, reviews dated June 2025 and June 2026).
• Three other review sites (seamlesspos.co.uk, businessexpert.co.uk and merchanthq.co.uk, all August 2026) instead describe a 1.2% blended rate on all cards for businesses under £100,000 a year, plus a 5p "secure transaction" fee on each payment.
• Above £100,000 a year the pricing is custom, and expertmarket.com describes a bespoke tier for businesses above £1m.
• Software: the Essential tier is free and the Plus tier is £11.99 a month per location. Four review sites agree on this figure.
• International cards: mobiletransaction.org reports an extra 0.05% on EEA-issued cards and 0.95% on non-EEA cards. One source only, so confirm it on your quote.

What this means in practice: a business with substantial card takings will often be quoted a rate a flat-rate reader cannot match, while a low-volume business may not be. The quote needs to be set against your current statement to know which you are. Our fee comparison calculator puts the published flat rates against your own turnover, and the Dojo fees page walks through the arithmetic line by line.

The smaller fees

Dojo's terms confirm that a per-refund fee, a per-chargeback fee, a paper-billing charge and a PCI non-compliance charge all exist, but they put the amounts in a separate fees schedule that comes with your quote. The figures below are what review sites report, checked August 2026.

How much does Dojo actually cost a month?

On the advertised structure, the monthly cost is 1.2% of card turnover plus 5p per payment, before any hardware rental. For a business taking £6,500 a month at a £42 average transaction, that is about £86 a month in processing fees. The three examples below run the same arithmetic at different turnovers and transaction sizes, next to what SumUp's and Square's published flat rates cost on identical takings.

To be clear about what this is: arithmetic on the advertised figures, checked August 2026, not a quote. Dojo prices each business individually and any quote is subject to Dojo's approval, so your number can land above or below these.

Two things fall out of the table. The cafe loses on the advertised structure: at a £7 average payment the 5p fee alone adds 0.7%, and a flat-rate reader beats it on fees before you count a contract. The salon and the shop win, by about £24 and £17 a month against SumUp before hardware. Renting a Go Max adds £25 a month, which cancels the salon's saving; buying it outright for £149 keeps it. This is why we keep saying the quote has to be set against your own statement rather than taken on trust, in either direction.

Why the average payment size decides it

The percentage is fixed; the 5p is not, relative to the payment it sits on. On the advertised structure the effective rate falls as transactions get bigger:

Below roughly a £10 average payment, the advertised structure costs more than SumUp's 1.69% flat rate; above it, less. A coffee van and a furniture shop should not be reading the same headline rate and drawing the same conclusion. The fee comparison calculator does this arithmetic on your own figures.

The contract, from Dojo's own terms

The points below are taken from Dojo's terms and conditions (version 1.6), not from marketing copy. Dojo's agreement "may have a minimum term as set out in the application documents", so the length is in the paperwork you sign, not in the general terms. Review sites report 12 months as standard, rolling monthly afterwards, with a 30-day no-commitment period at the start; Dojo states that telling it you want to end within the first 30 days means no early account closure fee, though other fees are still billed.

• You can end the agreement with at least one month's written notice at any time. Dojo needs to give you two months.
• Leaving before the minimum term ends means an early account closure fee, calculated as set out in the fees schedule, plus a charge for any equipment not returned.
• Card machines must go back within 14 days of termination, in good condition and with their accessories.
• If you are coming from another provider, Dojo may agree to reimburse that provider's termination fee up to £3,000, provided you give evidence it was demanded and paid within four months of starting with Dojo.

The full walkthrough, including how the Payment Systems Regulator's 18-month cap on initial terms fits in, is on the Dojo contract and cancellation page. If you are already in a contract elsewhere and weighing up the exit cost, start with stuck in a card machine contract.

Hardware

Dojo sells or rents three terminals and offers Tap to Pay on iPhone through its app. The prices below are the ones four review sites agree on as of August 2026; check whether VAT is included on your own quote, because the review sites do not say.

The Go Max is the one most counters end up with because of the printer; the Pocket is the handheld for paying at the table with digital receipts; the Wired stays on mains. Separate reviews: Dojo Go and Go Max, Dojo Pocket, and the Dojo app; device pages with full specifications: Go, Pocket, Wired. One limit from expertmarket.com: Dojo has no offline mode, so a terminal with no WiFi or 4G signal cannot take a payment. The same site counts more than 600 EPOS integrations.

When Dojo is not the right choice

• Low or occasional card takings. A pay-as-you-go reader with no monthly fee (SumUp charges 1.69% in person with nothing monthly; Square 1.75%; rates checked August 2026) costs very little at a few hundred pounds a month, and there is nothing to cancel. Dojo's minimum monthly charge and contract only pay back once turnover is steady.
• You need to take payments with no signal. Dojo terminals need a connection. Square's Terminal, for example, advertises offline payments for up to 24 hours.
• You will not sign a minimum term. Dojo's terms allow one, and review sites report 12 months as standard below £100,000 a year. The 30-day rolling option is reported only for businesses above that level.
• You want a published rate with no quote. Dojo's pricing is quoted, and the advertised plans above do not agree with each other. If you want a number you can read off a website, the flat-rate providers give you one.

Head-to-head comparisons: SumUp, Square, Worldpay, Zettle, Barclaycard, Takepayments, Clover, Elavon, Teya, Global Payments and Shift4 - each one against Dojo, on the same fee, contract and hardware questions.

What Dojo customers say

Dojo's Trustpilot profile stands at 4.3 out of 5 across roughly 5,500 reviews, checked August 2026. That is a strong score for a contract payments provider, and the positive reviews cluster around setup, settlement speed and the terminals themselves.

The criticisms are worth reading too, because they repeat. Review sites that aggregate Trustpilot feedback report two recurring complaints: sales cold-calling, and rates rising after signup. On the second one, the practical defence is in the paperwork: your fees schedule states the rate you signed at, price changes have to be notified, and notification is your window to renegotiate or give notice. Community threads about card machines, on Reddit and local Facebook groups, run more negative than the professional reviews, usually on support responsiveness; that pattern is common to every contract provider we cover, and it is a fair prompt to test support yourself before the 30-day no-commitment window closes.

Every public rating we could find is collected, with what each one measures, on are Dojo card machines any good. If something has already gone wrong, start with the troubleshooting checks or Dojo's contact routes; the formal routes and timescales are on how to complain about your card machine provider.

Verdict: 4.4 out of 5

Dojo is a sound choice for an established business taking a few thousand pounds or more a month on cards, particularly one that wants a printer terminal, next-business-day funds written into the contract, and help with the cost of leaving an old provider. The things to get in writing before signing are the minimum term, the early closure fee calculation, and whether weekend settlement is included beyond the first year. For a business below roughly £3,000 a month of card sales, or one that cannot rely on a connection, a flat-rate reader is usually the simpler answer.

Where the score comes from: full marks are kept back for the quoted-not-published pricing, the minimum term, and the absence of an offline mode. It scores well on the contract terms being written down and specific, on settlement, on the hardware, and on the buy-out for leavers. We are a Dojo partner, so weigh the score accordingly; the figures above are sourced so you can re-mark it yourself.

Common questions