Renting or buying a card terminal: what the sum over 60 months really produces

The short answer

Over short periods renting is cheaper, over long ones buying — but the break-even comes much later than most merchants assume, because a monthly service flat fee carries on after a purchase. And the more expensive decision is rarely the device anyway: with almost no classic provider does buying shorten the contract term.

What a terminal costs either way

The only German providers publishing the rental and purchase price for the same device side by side are CCV and the fintech providers. All figures as at 1 August 2026.

Device	Rental/month	Purchase price	Running costs when buying
CCV Base Next (countertop)	€12.90 (promotion), regular €15.90	€376.50	€7.00/month service
CCV Compact A77 (mobile)	€17.90	€326.50	not stated
SumUp Solo Lite / Solo / Terminal	—	€34 / €79 / €169	none, 1.39 % per payment
PayPal Reader / Terminal	—	from €29 / from €199 (plus VAT)	no base fee
myPOS Flex / Ultra GC	—	€69 / €179	payout charges depending on the plan

With the CCV rental model there is a one-off stability surcharge or setup fee of 27.50 euros on top. CCV quotes the per-transaction fee of 0.06 euros for both procurement routes — so it drops out of the comparison. An affiliate comparison portal gives a market range of 0 to 79 euros for mobile and 300 to 600 euros for countertop devices; that is a second-hand order of magnitude, not a documented set of terms.

The sum over 12, 36 and 60 months

CCV Base Next, calculated with the terms given above:

Useful life	Rental (promotion €12.90)	Rental (regular €15.90)	Purchase (€376.50 + €7.00)
12 months	€182.30	€218.30	€460.50
36 months	€491.90	€599.90	€628.50
60 months	€801.50	€981.50	€796.50

The break-even against the promotional price comes at around 59 months, and against the regular rental price at around 39 months. So anyone signing a terminal contract over four years in the belief that buying saves money saves nothing in this constellation. With the mobile Compact A77 it looks different: with no service flat fee, buying would be cheaper after a good 18 months; with a flat fee at the level of the Base Next rate, after around 30. Which of the two figures applies is not on the product page — and that is exactly the point at which you have to ask.

What fixed costs do on small tickets

Terminal rental and the service flat fee are fixed costs and therefore act like a second merchant discount rate, one that rises as turnover falls. A bakery with 1,500 card payments a month at an average ticket of 6.80 euros does 10,200 euros of card turnover; 12.90 euros of rental is 0.13 per cent of that. A kiosk with 300 card payments at the same ticket size comes to 2,040 euros — the same rental is 0.63 per cent there, that is more than the entire girocard authorisation fee, which CCV puts at 0.18 per cent. Where card turnover is low, the model with no fixed costs therefore regularly wins, even when its percentage looks high.

What the rental actually buys

Not hardware, but the transfer of risk. For the rental model CCV advertises full service in the event of a fault and integrated advance replacement; that is the real value in return. On top of that comes a point almost no quotation spells out: terminals age in regulatory terms. PCI PTS POI v7 replaces v6 for new device approvals, and for SoftPOS the old SPoC and CPoC standards expire during 2026. Anyone who buys bears that replacement risk themselves — on a purchase, REA Card grants twelve months' warranty under its contract partner terms, and after that it is the merchant's affair.

The catch that costs more than the device

The terminal contract and the network operation contract are two levels, and buying affects only the first. The figures from the publicly available contract documents:

• VR Payment, terms and conditions for terminal provision and network operation, clause 11.1: minimum term of 48 months from activation, automatic renewal for one year at a time, three months' notice.
• REA Card, contract partner terms as at 04/2025: 60 months' initial term, renewal for twelve months at a time, three months' notice. The documented purchase model runs over the same 60 months — buying shortens nothing here. The tariff with 0 euros terminal rental instead costs 1 per cent of card turnover with a minimum turnover of 2,500 euros a month, otherwise 25 euros a month on top.
• CCV, online rental contract: 12 months with one month's notice — the exception in the classic camp.

Why four- and five-year commitments are permissible at all: section 309 no. 9 BGB, which limits terms in standard-form contracts to two years, does not apply vis-à-vis businesses under section 310(1) BGB. As a merchant you are therefore not under the consumer protection you know from a gym contract. All that is examined is general reasonableness under section 307 BGB — a considerably weaker limit.

For tax purposes, buying is simpler than it looks

Low-value assets may be written off in full in the year of acquisition under section 6(2) EStG (German income tax act); the threshold is 800 euros net. Every one of the purchase devices named above is below it. The purchase price is therefore not a depreciation running over years but a fully deductible business expense in the year of acquisition. That is a general rule, not advice for an individual case — the treatment in your specific accounts is a matter for your tax adviser.

What to do now

1. Estimate the useful life honestly. Under three years, renting is almost always cheaper; over five years, buying almost always is.
2. Ask about the service flat fee on a purchase, in writing, with an amount or the words “not applicable”. It decides the comparison, not the device price.
3. Ask for both terms separately: that of the terminal and that of the acceptance or network operation contract. Only the second really binds you.
4. Settle the replacement and certification question: who replaces a faulty device, within what period, and who pays when the device approval expires?
5. On purchased devices, check portability: may the device be initialised to another payment network operator once the contract ends?
6. Convert fixed costs into a percentage of your own card turnover and look at them together with the merchant discount rate. Only that total is the price.