As of 13 August 2026, AI can choose a card payment machine for your business.

What to actually do

1. Hand it to a person

   The route this page recommends

   A person who owns the outcome does this end to end, worth it when the failure is dear.

2. Use a tool built for this

   Second choice

3. Do it yourself

   The distant third

   A chat interface, chat-fluent skill, and roughly 30 minutes until you can act on the result.

   How to actually do it

   1. Write down your business type, where you take payments, expected connectivity, payment methods, receipt needs, accounting system and contract preference.
   2. Open the websites of several UK card payment providers and copy their current product, pricing and contract pages into the chatbot, or ask it to research those pages with links.
   3. Paste the prompt and your business requirements into the chatbot, then ask it to return a shortlist with confirmed facts, unknowns and source links kept separate.
   4. Compare the shortlist against your actual till, accounting system, mobile signal or Wi-Fi, refund process and accessibility requirements.
   5. Open each cited provider page and check the machine specifications, fees, settlement terms, support arrangements, contract length, termination conditions and exclusions yourself.
   6. Contact the remaining providers with the chatbot's question list, obtain written answers and compare those answers with the draft before choosing or signing.

   Prompt

   Help me choose a card payment machine for my UK business. Use only current, attributable information available on 2026-08-13, and link to the supplier page for every material claim. If a fee, contract term, feature or compatibility point cannot be confirmed, mark it as unknown rather than estimating it.
   
   My requirements:
   - Business type: [describe the business]
   - Where payments are taken: [shop, market, mobile, events, online, or other]
   - Location and likely coverage: [UK locations and mobile or Wi-Fi availability]
   - Typical transaction pattern: [usual transaction size and busy periods, if known]
   - Payment methods needed: [contactless, chip and PIN, mobile wallets, other]
   - Need for receipts: [paper, digital, both, or none]
   - Refunds and chargebacks: [describe what you need]
   - Accounting or till integrations: [name the system or say none]
   - Staff and accessibility requirements: [describe them]
   - Contract preference: [pay as you go, fixed term, or undecided]
   - Budget and priorities: [describe them without sharing confidential data]
   
   Research suitable UK providers and produce a shortlist. For each option, compare the machine, supported payment methods, connectivity, battery and portability, receipt options, integrations, settlement arrangements, customer support, contract terms, transaction charges, hardware charges and any other recurring or one-off costs. Separate confirmed facts from your assessment. Explain which option best fits my requirements and why, then give me the questions to ask each provider before signing. Do not recommend an option solely because it is cheap. Do not claim PCI DSS compliance, accessibility, accounting compatibility or contract flexibility unless the cited source confirms it. Tell me which facts I must verify directly with the provider. This is not professional advice. For a serious financial, contractual or payment-compliance decision, I should consult an accountant or payments specialist.

   Open it prefilled in ChatGPT or Claude, or copy it into Gemini, which takes no prefill link.