The best bakery point-of-sale (POS) system can keep your orders and menus organized and track sales, helping you stay ahead in the increasingly competitive bakery industry in 2024. Additional features like online ordering, wholesale account management, and ingredient tracking might be the special ingredients that keep your bakery successful.
This article breaks down some of the industry-leading POS systems for bakeries to see which is best. Based on our evaluation, these are the best bakery POS systems in 2024:
- KORONA POS: Best overall bakery POS for brick-and-mortar bakeries
- Toast: Best for high-volume bakeries
- Lightspeed: Best for speedy ordering
- BakeSmart: Best for wholesale bakeries
- Square for Restaurants: Best free POS for beginner bakeries needing in-person and online payments
- CakeBoss: Best for home-based bakeries without in-person payments
Grow your business with Square's full suite of products | ||
|
Best Bakery POS Systems Compared
Our Rating | Minimum Monthly Fee | Installation Fees | Contract Length | In-person Processing Fees | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
4.48 out of 5 | $0 | Month to Month | Varies by processor | ||
4.19 out of 5 | $0 | $0–$499+ | 2 years | 2.49% + 15 cents | |
4.08 out of 5 | $69 | $0 | 1 Year | 2.6% + 10 cents | |
3.98 out of 5 | $249 | $1,499–$3,499 | Month to Month | Varies by processor | |
3.83 out of 5 | $0 | $0 | Month to Month | 2.6% + 10 cents | |
3.83 out of 5 | $149 first year/$20 every year after | $0 | 1 Year | ||
Why You Can Trust Our Ratings
Our POS rankings are written by food service professionals with a combined experience of more than two decades using POS systems in bakeries, restaurants, coffee shops, food trucks and professional kitchens. We have personally tested each system and use an impartial scoring system to identify the best bakery POS systems for all types of bakeries.
KORONA: Best Overall Bakery POS for Brick-and-Mortar Bakeries
Toast: Best for High-volume Bakeries
Lightspeed: Best for Speedy Ordering
BakeSmart: Best for Wholesale Bakeries
Square for Restaurants: Best Free POS for Beginner Bakeries Needing In-person & Online Payments
CakeBoss: Best for Home-based Bakeries Without In-person Payments
Methodology—How We Evaluated Bakery POS
We compared a dozen popular bakery POS systems based on the features that best support different types of bakeries. We looked for cost, ease of use, and the inclusion of bakery-supporting functions like inventory tracking and invoicing.
Click through the tabs below for our full scoring criteria:
20% of Overall Score
Low-margin businesses like bakeries need cost-effective tools, so we rewarded free plans, free trials, and low-cost systems. We gave extra points to software that cost under $75 per month. We also looked at whether the baseline includes key bakery features and offers integrated payment processing.
25% of Overall Score
The best bakery POS systems track individual ingredients as they are used and alert owners of low stock. They also store recipes, track costs, manage overall inventory, monitor vendor information, and create, submit, and receive purchase orders.
25% of Overall Score
A reliable POS app should be able to process in-person, online, and advanced orders. We awarded points to software that can accept online and catering orders, as well as those that can handle wholesale and business-to-business (B2B) transactions.
15% of Overall Score
We gave special consideration to software that provides users with mobile and cloud access. We also evaluated what tasks a system can perform while offline. Premium points were also given to those that have digital invoicing, email marketing, and CRM tools, specifically database and loyalty features.
15% of Overall Score
We considered our retail and restaurant experts’ opinions of each system alongside public user reviews. We also looked at each app’s standout bakery-specific features. Each system was also assessed for its value for money and ease of use.
How to Choose a Bakery POS
Choosing a POS system for bakery businesses can feel like a daunting task. If you follow the steps below, you’ll find your ideal POS in no time.
Step 1: Assess Your Bakery’s Needs
The bakery POS you choose will depend entirely on your bakery type and budget. With expanded Cottage Food Laws, running a bakery business from home is a popular micro-business, and using a POS can help home bakers see if they are making money. Brick-and-mortar bakeries benefit from POS tools that speed the in-person ordering process and schedule advance or wholesale orders.
Some popular bakery POS functions include:
- In-person payments
- In-person ordering
- Wholesale order-taking
- Advanced, scheduled orders
- Online ordering
- Online payments
- Invoicing
- Ingredient tracking
- Recipe logs
- Sales reporting
- Delivery management
- Employee timekeeping
- Tip management
Make a list of the tasks you need your bakery POS to perform. Make note of whether these tasks are must-haves or nice-to-haves. For example, a wholesale bakery with many baking employees would list a digital recipe log as a must-have, while a small storefront bakery with a single baker would probably call this a “nice-to-have.”
Step 2: Determine Your Bakery POS Budget
There are great bakery POS systems at every price point, including free options. But be honest about your budget here; if you have money to spend, you should spend it. Free POS tools are great for small and beginning bakeries, but are unlikely to support the robust operation of a wholesale bakery operation.
Break your budget into two parts: upfront costs and ongoing costs. Most bakery POS systems these days come with some initial hardware fees along with ongoing monthly software fees. Your payment processing will also be a monthly fee, but you have little control over exactly what your processing costs will be; most are custom-quoted by the POS brand itself. Though some systems (like KORONA) integrate with many processors so you can shop around for lower processing rates.
Step 3: Try Some Systems
With your list of desired features and your budget in hand, schedule product demonstrations with a few bakery POS brands. Ask to see the functions you need in action—whether it is the employee time clock or the inventory management system. You’ll be using this system every day in your business, so it is important that it is user-friendly. Take notes during each demo so you can accurately recall each system.
During the POS demos, pay close attention to how many buttons you need to press to perform certain tasks. Button presses add time to transactions. If a cashier has to press three buttons to get to a payment screen, this could lead to long lines and frustrated customers in a busy bakery.
Step 4: Compare Systems
After your demo, most POS providers will send you an itemized estimate of your expected upfront and ongoing costs. Now it’s time to sit down with these estimates and your demo notes and determine which bakery POS is the best fit for your business. Bakery POS systems are improving rapidly these days, and it is easy to focus on the most cutting-edge tools like detailed vendor management and ingredient-level inventory. But if you won’t use these tools or they are too expensive, they are not worth the money for your bakery. But they can show you what is possible as your business grows.
My biggest advice for bakeries choosing a POS system is to get the best system you can afford—one that can grow with your business. A baseline subscription with Lightspeed or Toast might make more sense for a bakery that wants to expand into high-volume storefronts, for example. A home bakery that plans to start selling at farmers markets and expand into online orders would likely settle on Square.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Here are some of the most common questions we get about bakery POS systems.
Bakery software is designed to streamline the business operations of different types of bakeries. Depending on the business’ needs, bakery software might include a recipe log, cake design tools, invoicing, advanced ordering, inventory tracking, and payment processing. Some systems also include barcode label printing, online ordering, and delivery management.
Small, home-based bakeries often operate without a POS. Many small brick-and-mortar bakeries may also opt for a cash register rather than a POS. While you don’t need a POS to run a bakery, a POS system helps you grow your business.
With a POS, it is easier to process digital payments and collect customer data to support marketing campaigns. Bakery POS systems help track orders placed in advance for special occasions and can process catering order deposits and send invoices to customers.
It is possible to find free bakery POS software. Both Toast and Square offer a baseline POS system that is completely free to use; all you pay are credit card processing fees. However if you need more advanced functions like wholesale order management or custom cake design tools built into your POS, you can expect to spend closer to $160 to $200 per month, plus payment processing.
Bakery POS systems are designed to make operational, employee management and business management tasks more streamlined and easy to perform. The POS systems listed above all have online trainings, community chat forums and customer support to help utilize your’s to its highest potential.
Bottom Line
A bakery POS system is the backbone of managing your bakery business. You need one that is user-friendly and tracks sales and cost data. We found KORONA POS to be the overall best bakery POS for most types of bakery businesses. With no long-term contracts and a lengthy free trial, users can try this system risk-free. To see if this system can streamline your bakery, contact KORONA for a demo or sign up for a free trial.