A card terminal used to be the price of admission for taking anything other than cash. In the first half of 2026, QR Ph was 55% of payment volume on PayMongo and cards were 19%. In-store QR Ph transactions more than tripled in the same period. For a lot of Philippine businesses the terminal has become optional, and for some it was never worth the rental.
Below: what a terminal costs, when you still need one, and how to take cards and QR Ph without any hardware.
What a credit card machine actually costs in the Philippines
A POS terminal is the handheld or countertop device that reads a card. Banks and acquirers like BDO, Maya, and HitPay issue them. The device is only part of the cost; the other part is the MDR, the percentage taken off every card sale, which we covered in detail in our card fees explainer.
Figures from each provider's public pages as of 9 November 2026, exclusive of VAT. "From" is Maya's own wording. AUB is in the table because it's the one bank that publishes its terminal terms. BDO, BPI and Metrobank don't; Metrobank's merchant agreement sets the rental fee and the card rate "as agreed in the Letter of Offer", so with the big banks you find out the price after you apply.
On a ₱949 monthly rental, a terminal costs ₱11,388 a year before a single sale goes through, and the card fee still applies on top. The hardware doesn't make the card fee go away. It's a second cost next to it.
Why most Filipino customers don't need you to have a terminal
The terminal made sense when a card was the only alternative to cash. That's not the country we're in now.
In the first half of 2026, QR Ph was 55% of payment volume on PayMongo, up from 16% a year earlier. Cards were 19%, and e-wallets 21%. In-store QR Ph transactions more than tripled in the same period. Among our retail merchants during 10.10 week, QR Ph was 92% of transactions.
Customers didn't switch because merchants pushed them. They switched because every bank and wallet app in the country can scan the same code, it's free for them, and it's faster than tapping a card and waiting for a receipt. If your customers are walking in with GCash, Maya, or a bank app open, a card terminal is solving a problem most of them don't have.
Cards haven't gone away. They still carry a disproportionate share of value, because people reach for a card on big tickets and when they want to pay on credit. If you’re selling big-ticket items, it would still make sense to have a POS.
The QR Ph standee: what it is and how to get one
For walk-in payments, the thing most of our in-store merchants actually use is a QR Ph standee: a printed, static QR code on a small stand that sits at the counter. Customers scan it with any QR Ph-enabled bank or wallet app, type the amount, and pay. You get an SMS the moment the money lands.
Setting one up takes a few minutes:
- Log in to your dashboard and go to Payment Channels, then In-store QR Ph.
- Create a QR code. Give it a display name (your store or branch name is the sensible choice) and the mobile number that should receive payment alerts. There's an optional note field for your own reference.
- Choose how you want it: request a PayMongo standee delivered to your address, or download the QR image and print it yourself.
- Put it where customers pay. Counter, cashier, table.
The standee is free. Delivery covers Metro Manila and a growing list of areas; if yours isn't covered yet, self-print works exactly the same way, and any print shop can laminate an A5 for a few pesos. Only the account owner can create and manage in-store QR codes, so if you have a manager running the dashboard, the owner needs to do this step.
If you run more than one location, create one QR code per branch. Name them after the branch. That's the whole trick to the next section.
One caveat: a QR Ph payment comes from the customer's bank account or wallet, not from a credit card. The exception is Home Credit, whose app lets customers pay any QR Ph code on their Home Credit Card or Qwarta line, and it lands with you as an ordinary QR Ph payment.
If a customer insists on a physical card at the counter, you show them a Payment Link QR on your phone instead, which they scan and pay with their card. In practice our in-store merchants tell us this comes up rarely, because the customers who want to use a card are the same customers who are comfortable paying on a phone.
Other ways to accept card payments without a POS terminal
There are four ways to take a card from a customer standing in front of you, none of which involve hardware.
- Payment Link: Create a link from the dashboard or the app, send it by text or Messenger, or show the QR version on your phone. The customer opens it and pays with a card, QR Ph, GCash, Maya or online banking. Good for one-off sales, market stalls, home-based businesses and anyone who closes deals over chat.
- Order & Pay: A QR code on the table or counter that opens your menu. Customers order and pay from their phone, with cards among the options. Built for restaurants and cafés; it replaces the terminal and the queue at the same time.
- Invoices: For services and B2B. Send a branded invoice with a pay-now button; the client pays by card or transfer.
How to track in-store payments on the PayMongo dashboard
This is the part a terminal doesn't give you, or gives you only on a paper roll.
Every payment that comes through a QR Ph standee, a Payment Link, Order & Pay or an Invoice lands in the Payments module of your dashboard, with the amount, the method, the time and the status. For in-store QR Ph specifically, each payment carries the QR code ID it came through. Search or filter by that ID and you get a per-counter or per-branch view: which location took what, when, without anyone keying it into a spreadsheet.
The SMS alert does the real-time job. The dashboard does the reconciliation job. Between the two you can confirm a sale on the spot (a payment counts when it shows up in your dashboard or your phone, not when a customer shows you a screenshot) and close the day without counting a cash drawer.
For businesses with several stores, this is usually the bigger reason to go standee-first rather than terminal-first. A bank terminal reports to the bank's own portal. Your online sales report somewhere else. With everything on PayMongo, online and in-store sit in one list, settle to one balance, and export to one CSV for your accountant.
When a POS terminal still makes sense
We'd be overselling if we said never.
Get a terminal if a large share of your customers pay with physical cards and expect to tap: hotels, car dealerships, appliance stores, higher-end restaurants with a foreign or corporate clientele, anywhere a company card is the norm. Get one if your average ticket is high and card share is high, because at that point the monthly rental is a rounding error. And get one if you need to accept cards with zero dependence on the customer's phone, battery or data.
For a sari-sari store, a café, a salon, a market stall, a clinic, a tutoring centre or most retail in the Philippines right now, the standee plus a Payment Link for the occasional card customer covers it, at no hardware cost and with better records.
What our in-store merchants look like
In-store QR Ph merchants grew 13x year-on-year as of October. The merchants requesting standees are overwhelmingly food: bakeries, bagnet houses, sinigang places, pizza shops, cafés, convenience stores, plus a few schools and clinics. Most request one or two standees; multi-branch chains request one per location.
Getting started
Get a PayMongo account, and request a standee in your dashboard under Payment Channels today. Rates for every payment method are on the pricing page.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need a POS terminal to accept credit cards in the Philippines?
No. Cards can be accepted through a Payment Link, an online checkout, Order & Pay or an Invoice, with no hardware. A terminal is only necessary if most of your customers want to tap a physical card at the counter.
How much does a credit card machine cost in the Philippines?
Maya Terminal lists ₱949 per month for Maya Business account holders. HitPay's terminal is ₱10,500 one-off. Most banks quote terminal fees only on application. AUB, which publishes its terms, charges ₱950 per terminal per month unless you process ₱350,000 in card sales on it that month. On top of the device you pay an MDR on each card sale, typically 3% to 3.5% for local cards.
Is the PayMongo QR Ph standee free?
Yes. Request it from Payment Channels in your dashboard, or download the QR image and print your own.
Can customers pay by card using a QR Ph standee?
No. A static QR Ph code is paid through a bank or e-wallet app. For a card payment at the counter, show the customer a Payment Link QR from your phone; they scan it and pay by card.
How do I track which branch a payment came from?
Create one in-store QR code per branch and name it after the branch. Every payment carries its QR code ID, so you can filter the Payments module by branch.
Do customers pay a fee for QR Ph?
No. BSP designed QR Ph P2M so the customer pays nothing; the merchant pays the processing fee (1.34% on PayMongo).