You have finished the job. The customer says, “Can I pay by card?” You have your phone in your pocket, but no card reader in the van, bag or kitchen drawer.
That no longer means you have to fall back to cash or ask them to find your bank details. UK businesses can now take card payments in several ways without carrying a dedicated card machine.
The quickest way to choose: is the customer with you?
Start with the payment moment rather than the technology. The same business may use more than one method depending on whether the customer is physically there and whether the payment needs to happen now.
Customer is with you
Tap to Pay on your phone
Best for an in-person customer who wants to tap a contactless card or digital wallet there and then. A supported payment app uses the phone’s NFC hardware, so there is no separate reader to carry.
Customer is remote or paying later
Send a payment link
Best when the customer is not beside you, has already left, or wants to pay later. You send a secure checkout link and the customer enters their own payment details on the provider’s payment page.
Taking payment during a phone call
Use a virtual terminal
Some providers let you enter a customer’s card details into an approved browser-based terminal while speaking to them. This is a different workflow from sending the customer a link to complete themselves.
Regular face-to-face checkout
Use a physical card reader
A reader can still make sense for frequent in-person payments, chip-and-PIN workflows or business setups where dedicated checkout hardware is more convenient than using a personal phone.
If the customer is standing in front of you: Tap to Pay
Tap to Pay is the closest replacement for a traditional contactless card reader. A compatible phone becomes the payment terminal: you enter the amount in the payment app and the customer taps a contactless card or digital wallet against your phone.
Current UK examples include Square Tap to Pay and SumUp Tap to Pay. Both providers document phone-only contactless payments without a separate card reader. Device, software and connectivity requirements vary, so check the provider’s current compatibility information before relying on it at a job or event.
Tap to Pay makes sense when
- The customer is physically with you.
- They want to pay immediately.
- You have a compatible NFC phone.
- Your payment provider supports Tap to Pay.
- You have the internet connection the provider requires.
- You are happy using your phone as the checkout device.
If your work is mostly face to face — for example markets, pop-ups, salon appointments or customers paying before you leave — Tap to Pay may be all you need.
If the customer is remote or paying later: use a payment link
A payment link solves a different problem. Instead of turning your phone into a terminal, it gives the customer a secure checkout page they can open on their device.
This is useful when the work is already finished, the customer has left, you work remotely, or the conversation is already happening over WhatsApp, text or email. Providers including Stripe, Square and SumUp currently offer payment-link products.
If you only need to understand the mechanics, our guide to creating a payment link walks through that process. If you already have the link and the awkward bit is what to write around it, the free payment-link message tool can prepare the wording.
Hi Sarah, thanks again for today. The £85 balance for the garden work is ready here: [payment link]. Give me a shout if anything looks wrong.
The payment link does the checkout work; the message only needs to make the request clear.
Payment link or Tap to Pay?
They can both remove the need for a traditional card machine, but they solve different moments.
Paying now
Choose Tap to Pay
The customer is in front of you, has a contactless card or wallet and wants to complete the payment before either of you moves on.
Paying remotely or later
Choose a payment link
The customer is elsewhere, the job is already finished, you are requesting a deposit before the work, or you need something you can send and come back to later.
Some businesses sensibly use both. A mobile cleaner might use Tap to Pay when a customer is home, then use a payment link when another customer says, “send it over and I’ll sort it tonight.” There is no prize for forcing every payment through one method.
What about taking card payments over the phone?
If a customer is reading their card details to you during a phone call, use a payment provider’s approved virtual-terminal or telephone-payment workflow. For example, Square describes its Virtual Terminal as a browser-based way to take credit and debit card payments remotely or over the phone.
Do I need a website to accept card payments?
Short answer
No. Tap to Pay runs through a supported payment app, virtual terminals run through the provider’s interface, and payment links open a provider-hosted checkout page. None of those requires you to build an ecommerce website first.
If that is the bit you are trying to solve, see our fuller guide to accepting payments online without a website.
Is taking card payments without a machine cheaper?
Cost answer
It can remove the upfront cost of buying or renting dedicated hardware, but it does not remove card-processing fees. The fee structure depends on the provider and whether the transaction is in person or online.
For that reason, “no card machine” should not automatically mean “cheapest”. Compare the transaction method, fees, settlement, hardware and workflow you actually need. Our UK payment-link comparison is useful if remote payment links are the route you are considering.
How card payments without a machine work in Simply Link
Where Simply Link fits
Simply Link is for the remote or later-payment part of the journey — not for turning your phone into a contactless terminal.
Simply Link does not turn your phone into a Tap to Pay terminal. Its job starts when you need to request a payment and keep track of what happens afterwards.
You create a Payment Request for the customer and work, preview it, make it live, then share the secure payment page. The customer chooses to pay by card through Stripe, while Simply Link keeps the request, amount, due date, payment state and follow-up together.
The Simply Link payment workflow
One Payment Request stays with the payment from setup to paid.
- 1
CREATE
Choose the Customer, amount, due date and payment setup.
- 2
PREVIEW
Check what the customer will see before anything is sent.
- 3
MAKE LIVE
Turn the draft into a real Payment Request.
- 4
SHARE
Send the secure payment page by the channel that suits the job.
- 5
TRACK
See what is waiting, overdue, partly paid or complete.
- 6
PAID
Keep the payment and Activity history with the request.
That makes it a better fit for situations such as “the customer has gone home”, “I need a deposit before I start”, or “they said they would pay tonight” than for somebody physically tapping their card against your phone.
You can also share a live Payment Request through WhatsApp, email or by copying the payment link. Our guide to sending a payment link in a message covers that part in more detail.
What if I send the link and they still do not pay?
The next job
That is the point where the problem stops being “how do I take a card payment?” and becomes “how do I follow this payment up without carrying it around in my head?”
For a one-off message, use the free payment reminder message tool. If follow-up is becoming a repeated admin problem, read the guide to automatic payment reminders.
A simple rule for choosing
Choose by the payment moment
Four questions are usually enough
Is the customer standing in front of you?
Will they pay remotely or later?
Are you taking the card details during a phone call?
Do you also need to remember what is still unpaid?
The card machine is only one way to complete a payment. Choose the method that fits the moment, then choose the system that makes the rest of the payment admin easier to live with.