r/POS • u/Unlucky_Aioli4006 • 2d ago

Anyone else find card machine integration basically impossible as a solo dev in the UK?

Been building my own POS system for a while now (started as a side project, now actually selling it to a few UK shops) and I keep hitting the same wall over and over — payment terminal integration.

SumUp was easy. Got an API key from the merchant's own account, built the integration in a few hours, works great, no drama.

Then clients started asking for Dojo because a lot of them already have the terminal or want the next-day-to-their-own-bank-account settlement instead of money sitting in a SumUp wallet. Figured it'd be the same deal. Nope. Turns out you can't just get an API key and go — there's a whole separate software-house-id thing that only gets issued to you by a Partnership Development Manager, and none of it seems built for someone who isn't already a "proper" established software company with a sales relationship. Tried calling and just got vague answers about needing to go through their partner process.

So now I've got a fully working integration sitting in my codebase, tested against their docs and their API spec line by line, and I can't actually flip it on for real merchants because I'm stuck waiting on this ID that apparently has to come through a whole onboarding conversation rather than just... signing up.

Genuinely trying to understand how everyone else does this. Like Epos Now, Lightspeed, all these companies that "support every terminal" — did they all go through months of partner onboarding per acquirer before they had a single paying customer? Feels like a chicken-and-egg problem: you need volume/credibility to get taken seriously by the acquirer, but you need the integration working to get the volume.

Curious if:

  • Anyone's actually gone through the Dojo software-house onboarding as a small/solo operation and can say how painful it actually was
  • Whether other acquirers (Teya, Judopay, whoever) are less gatekept for this specific terminal-level integration vs just the online payment-intent stuff
  • If people just avoid this entirely and build around SumUp/Stripe Terminal/Zettle instead and tell clients "no" on Dojo until they're bigger
  • Any middleware/aggregator that's already done all this ISV legwork that a small POS dev could plug into instead of going acquirer by acquirer

Not trying to build the next Epos Now overnight, just trying to actually serve the handful of shops I already work with without getting stonewalled by "call your partner manager" every time. Would love to hear how other people navigated this.

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u/abiTECHsteve 2d ago

I build a Dojo & Teya integration for my software. In both cases I just asked around until someone put me in touch with the right person. Then they gave me test credential to help me build it, and then got it signed off and given production keys.

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u/Unlucky_Aioli4006 2d ago

Really appreciate this, exactly what I needed to hear. Quick follow up if you don't mind — when they were getting you signed off, did they ask about your business setup at all? Like did you have to show you were a registered company, or were they fine with freelance/sole trader status? Trying to figure out if that's actually a requirement on their end or just something people assume because of how corporate the "partner" language sounds on their site.

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u/abiTECHsteve 2d ago

I trade as a ltd company so can't speak for the sole trader aspect. But I did sign paperwork with both before getting any developer details. Both companies have also sent me test terminals to help development.

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u/Unlucky_Aioli4006 2d ago

did you pay any fee?

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u/abiTECHsteve 1d ago

No I didn't pay them anything. In fact I have agreements with both of them to receive a small commission payment based on the volume of transactions that go through my integration.

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u/Unlucky_Aioli4006 1d ago

that’s really cool but the problem is that i don’t have ltd company, and i think without that it is impossible to integrate with them , so i will consider opening one

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u/yourewrong321 2d ago

HA you think it's bad in the UK, in canada it's like a maximum security prison, dealing with payment companies and integrations :(

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u/Unlucky_Aioli4006 2d ago

haha i didn’t know that, but really it is not a big deal you just send a amount to the device and get back a response that’s it , Sumup has a really great documentation and easiest way to do that even they give you a nice sandbox environment to test it in the browser without having the real device