Which pickup for a retrofit?

I’m thinking of retrofitting a cheap pickup to a cheap ukulele. I can’t decide between a bridge-mount pickup with a pre-amp that will require cutting into the side, and a soundboard pickup with endpin jack.

I’m confident that I can cut the hole to install the pre-amp. Having that extra access hole would seem to make all of the inside work easier to access. But I’ve heard that bridge pickups are fiddly to install and that getting it wrong can decrease acoustic sound quality as well as provide poor electric sound.

On the other hand, it seems like most of the work of installing the soundboard pickup and jack have to happen on the inside. Since this is a retrofit, access through the sound hole would seem to make that difficult with my large-ish hands. While perhaps more logistically difficult, it seems the risk of screwing something up would be smaller.

Can anyone who has installed both types as a retrofit give some experiential feedback and advice? Since we’re talking cheap uke and cheap pickup, “have a luthier do it for you” isn’t the direction I’m looking to go.

I fitted a very cheap "Mahalo" bridge mount pickup with preamp to an extremely cheap (both in terms of cost and build quality) soprano uke once. It worked ok, but my woodworking skills aren't great and I didn't have the right tools so the endpin jack that came with the preamp is a bit wobbly, and it's not a neat job but it works very well all things considered. I have to say I wouldn't repeat the experience. The soprano was just a little too small for the preamp unit, so I had to hack away at the bracing to make it fit. I was too lazy to neaten everything up so there are splinters in there which buzz a bit!

Otherwise I have ukes with either undersaddle and soundboard passive (no preamp) pickups. I can't hear any noticeable difference between the two, although I think the undersaddle one (same manufacturer) gives a little more output level than the soundboard one. If I imagine the difficulty of fitting them, then the endpin jack is the same, but obviously the soundboard pickup is only glued in to place so super easy. If I didn't have a local luthier who charges very little for such work and I wanted an easy and cheap life I'd go for the soundboard mounted passive pickup with endpin jack. That sort of setup does really need a preamp unless you have an acoustic amp designed for a passive pickup. I use the Behringer ADI-21 for that. It does the job fine.

The undersaddle and soundboard pickups I have are both from 'Shadow'. They don't seem to have passive-only pickups in their online store any more though unfortunately. I'm sure there are various other brands (and no-brand options) available cheaply.

The under-saddle Pono-brand passive piezo pickup that was mounted in my Pono tenor was not working correctly. It did not affect the acoustic quality of the uke at all. So long as the saddle is adjusted for the thickness of the pichup, it shouldn't affect the acoustic qualities of the uke.

BTW, I talked to the tech at the store I bought it from. He suggested that the strip was not seated completely. He sent me a video about how to fix it. You thump the top of the saddle a couple of times with your thumb! It worked a charm. I told him he was a genius. He did not disagree.