5 Best Pizza POS Systems 2020

Whether you call your operation a pizzeria, pizza shop, or slice shop, your point-of-sale (POS) needs are vastly different from other food and beverage businesses. A pizza POS system must handle a wide range of customer modifications and delivery expectations. The best pizza POS systems include customer relationship management (CRM) features that enable you to track past orders, include detailed delivery instructions, and reach customers directly with tailored deals.

Top 5 Pizza POS Systems 2020

To find the POS that is best for your pizzeria, you can read our individual evaluations below. Or you can start your search by taking this quick quiz. It is only four questions, takes less than a minute, and we’ll provide a result without redirecting you to another page. 

Which POS is Right for your Pizzeria?

How We Evaluated Pizza POS Systems

To identify the best POS systems for pizza shops, we considered functionality as the highest priority. Considering the amount of turnover that pizza shops can experience, we also prioritized ease of use, ease of setup, as well as what training and customer support options each system provides. Cost was another primary concern. We also considered what online ordering and delivery options were available.

All of our top five pizza POS systems have intuitive user interfaces and positive customer reviews. They all have in-built online ordering capabilities, and options to deliver your pizza using an in-house team of drivers or independent contractors through third-party delivery platforms.

Based on the above criteria, Revel Systems is our top choice for pizza POS. Revel Systems includes tons of pizza-specific features at a mid-level price. It is a highly customizable system that has built-in management features like ingredient-level inventory tracking, vendor management, and customizable reports to help pizzeria owners run a profitable business.

Revel: Best Overall Pizza POS for Small Business

Revel Systems is a hybrid iPad POS that operates on a locally installed server with a cloud backup. In addition to basic features like multiple modification screens, Revel has built-in delivery driver management, with a full suite of navigational tools to track your team when they are out of the shop. Revel also offers a diverse suite of hardware including self-order kiosks, and kitchen display systems (KDS) that make it a good fit for high-volume, delivery-heavy pizzerias.

Revel Systems Pricing

Revel Systems starts at $99 per month, per register, which puts it in the middle of the other restaurant POS systems on this list. The baseline Revel system, however, includes features like customer relationship management and employee management. In most POS systems, these are additional modules with an additional monthly price tag.

Revel Systems operates on iPads, which can be purchased through Revel Systems along with accessories like iPad stands, cash drawers, receipt printers, and kitchen printers. Revel allows restaurant clients to choose their own payment processor or use the built-in Revel Advantage Payment Processing. Pricing for Revel’s proprietary payment processing solution varies based on business type and sales volume; restaurants will need to contact Revel for a custom quote.

Revel Systems Fees and Add-Ons

Revel Systems POS Features:

• Baseline POS: Hybrid iPad-based POS with inventory tracking, employee management, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), and customizable reports included in the entry-level package.
• Available Add-On Modules: Online ordering, delivery, inventory counting smartphone app, self-service kiosks, gift cards, customer loyalty.
• Standout FOH Features: Revel’s delivery module is the best available in a cloud-based POS. Dispatching and managing drivers is as easy as managing servers. Once a driver is on the road, Revel enables you to track your drivers’ check-ins, cash on hand, and plotted delivery routes.
• Standout BOH Features: Revel Systems’ inventory management functions are robust, and the integrated KDS is easy to add to your system and keep your kitchen running efficiently.
• Back Office and Reporting: Highly customizable reports allow you to narrow your focus and get a detailed look at what costs and revenue centers you want to track.
• Available Hardware: Digital menu boards, kitchen display screens, iPad based registers, self-service kiosks, mobile ordering tablets, chip, swipe and contactless payments, mobile and Ethernet connected printers.

What Makes Revel Systems Great for Pizza?

If your pizza shop is a single, busy location Revel Systems POS offers a robust suite of functions at a reasonable price. If your plans involve growing your pizzeria to multiple locations Revel systems POS is scalable. Since this system is so customizable, it can take some time to learn all its functions so you make the most of the back office management tools, but your serving and kitchen staff will find the user interface intuitive and easy to navigate on Day One.

For a full spectrum look at Revel Systems, see our full review.

SpeedLine: Best for Traditional Pizza Shops

Founded in 1990, SpeedLine has been in the pizza POS business for a long time. And it has stuck around for a reason; its customers swear by them as a streamlined, all-in-one solution for pizza ordering and delivery management. SpeedLine is different from others on this list, as it operates on a closed internal network that stores all of your shop’s data on location. This is sometimes called a “traditional” or “legacy” POS.

It is a very different POS model from the cloud and tablet based systems. While legacy systems are less prone to crashes that come from internet outages than cloud-based POS, they usually come at a higher upfront cost. A system like SpeedLine typically costs between $10,000 to $15,000 to get off the ground.

SpeedLine Pricing

SpeedLine is an all-in-one system that is priced per restaurant, based on your needs, so pricing can vary widely. For a system like SpeedLine, a single shop should expect to pay between $10,000 to $15,000 all in. This is the highest base cost than most of the other restaurant POS systems on our list. The base SpeedLine system, however, includes detailed driver dispatch functions, customer loyalty, and heat-map reporting. Other POS systems either do not have these features, or only offer as add additional modules with an additional monthly price tag.

SpeedLine also supports a wide range of payment processors, including First Data, Heartland, Global Payments, and WorldPay. Some pizza shops may be able to offset SpeedLine’s higher upfront costs by negotiating lower transaction fees with a payment processor.

SpeedLine Fees and Add-Ons

SpeedLine POS Features:

• Baseline POS: SpeedLine POS is an all-inclusive tool that includes delivery management and online ordering features with live driver mapping in the entry-level POS.
• Available Add-On Modules: SpeedLine offers the option to turn your online ordering system into a full-blown, custom built app using its SpeedDine platform. SpeedDine allows you to give customers the same streamlined ordering experience they get on your SpeedDine website, and like your website, the app’s menu syncs with your in-house menu in real time.
• Standout FOH Features: Having all of your ingredients and current promotions available at the click of a button is a real lifesaver for shops that process a lot of custom orders and regularly run coupons.
• Standout BOH Features: No matter what order a customer states their preferred modifiers, SpeedLine will organize the information so it displays the way your kitchen team prefers. This saves a lot of headaches and potential miscommunications.
• Back Office and Reporting: Reports are robust, especially the heat-map style sale reporting that shows you on a city map where your promotions are having the biggest impact.
• Available Hardware: SpeedLine runs on industry-specific hardware like Elo touchscreen tablets and Epson printers. These must be purchased from a POS vendor, or via SpeedLine themselves, and are single-use equipment. They are, however, designed to withstand the wear and tear of a high-volume restaurant environment.

What Makes SpeedLine Great for Pizza?

SpeedLine’s order screens show nutritional information, allergens, or recipes at the touch of a button, so your cashiers can answer any question a customer asks without slowing down your operation. SpeedLine’s Directed Order Entry walks servers through modifier prompts to make sure things like salad dressings or crust choices are never forgotten. You can also add pop-up screens for item-specific upsells and lists of currently running coupons so anyone ringing in an order has all the information at their fingertips.

The truly impressive function is the way SpeedLine combines navigational tools with sales tools. For example, you can pull sales reports that show what specific items are selling (or not) in specific areas of your city. This will tell you immediately where a game day promotion or discounted delivery offer will have the most impact.

Toast: Best for Sit-Down, Artisan Pizzerias

Cloud-based POS Toast has long been a favorite in the restaurant community because it caters to all types of businesses. For pizzerias that operate more like full service restaurants without delivery, Toast is an easy to use system with lots of management features. If, however, you want to add online ordering and delivery, toast offers in-built modules for both. Delivery functions enable you to use your own driving team, or route delivery orders to independent contractors via a partnership with DoorDash.

Toast Pricing

Software for one Toast terminal starts at $79 per month. Add-on features are $25 to $50, and hardware is available at a reasonable price. Installation fees are high, starting at $499 for remote installation or $1,500 for on-site installation. This makes it less expensive than Revel and SpeedLine, but pricier than Square for Restaurants.

Toast Fees & Add-Ons

*These fees are based on three separate quotes, but fees can vary based on type of card and at Toast’s discretion.

Toast POS Features

• Included in Baseline POS: User-friendly, Android-based cloud POS with recipe and food costing tools, menu management, tableside ordering, table and order management, and light customer relationship management (CRM).
• Additional Modules: Integrated online ordering and delivery, scheduling, digital gift cards, customer loyalty, payroll and team management.
• Standout FOH features: Incredibly intuitive and easy to use interface, encyclopedic online training resources.
• Standout Back of House Features: Menu analysis reports are the best in class, showing at-a-glance which dishes should be removed from the menu.
• Reporting and Back-Office: Detailed menu management with ingredient-level tracking, recipe costing, waste and COGS reports, payroll administration, sales and performance data, all with real-time data.
• Available Hardware: Standard terminals with flip screens, customer-facing displays, tableside/mobile ordering, kitchen display screens, and self-order kiosks are all available on this system.

What Makes Toast Great for Pizza

Toast is a great POS for a restaurant of any kind. Artisan-style pizzerias that operate more like a traditional full-service restaurant will appreciate Toast’s comprehensive features that support the health of their overall business. Currently Toast’s driver management features are not as robust as Revel or SpeedLine. With Toast, if you use your own drivers, you can assign a cash bank, and assign deliveries to drivers with a couple clicks. Once the driver is out of your shop, however, you lose the ability to track them.

If your shop processes 50 or more deliveries a day, you’ll probably want a system that allows you to see where your drivers are, allows remote card-present payments, and prompts you to group the most logical deliveries together. Toast is working on developing all of these functions. But currently they are not part of the system.

This system is best suited to relying on third-party delivery drivers, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that your restaurant will be stuck paying high commission fees. Toast offers Toast Delivery Services, which allows you to dispatch independent local drivers through an on-demand network.

For a more comprehensive look at Toast, you can read our full Toast POS Review.

Square for Restaurants: Best for Pizza by the Slice Shops

Square created a cloud-based restaurant POS system called Square for Restaurants that’s different from basic Square. It’s more affordable than most other POS options, and it has payment processing built-in, so it’s a good choice for new restaurateurs on a budget. The entry-level Square for Restaurants subscription is free and requires no long-term contract. Modifications and inventory tracking are limited, but these hurdles won’t hold back an operation like a slice shop where modifications are not typical.

Square for Restaurants Pricing

Square for Restaurants is one of the most affordable POS options for restaurants. The baseline Square for Restaurants POS is free, with higher level subscriptions with more bells and whistles start at $60 per month. Square also offers a 30-day free trial, so you can test drive the software before committing.

Square for Restaurants operates on iPads, so if you have a couple laying around, you can get started with Square for very little upfront cost. You can, however, also buy full Square hardware bundles that include a cash drawer, receipt printer, and kitchen printer for around $1,000 without an iPad; $1,500 with an iPad. There are also add-on features you can get for extra monthly fees, as you’ll see in the chart below.

Square for Restaurants Fees & Add-Ons

Square POS Features:

• Baseline POS: User-friendly app that can be installed on iPads or Square registers.
• Additional Add-On Modules: Online ordering and delivery, Marketing, Loyalty, and Payroll Modules are available at additional monthly costs.
• Standout FOH Features: Conversational ordering reflects the way customers speak when they place orders, allowing servers to easily modify items on the fly.
• Standout BOH Features: Integration with Chowly feeds orders placed via third-party platforms directly into the POS order stream.
• Back Office and Reporting: Basic reporting is easy to navigate. Inventory module is not ingredient-level, however. Square will alert when you are out of a dish, but not out of an ingredient.
• Available Hardware: Full registers with cash drawers, various styles of iPad stands, dedicated customer display screens, contactless payment terminals, payment-enabled iPhone cases for tableside payments, Bluetooth enabled wireless printers.

What Makes Square for Restaurants Great for Pizza

Pizza shops are a tight margin business. Slice shops are especially so. Small pizza shops can get started with the baseline Square for Restaurants POS practically for free. An iPad and Square credit card reader is all you need to start taking your first orders with Square for Restaurants. The Free subscription also comes with Caviar online ordering and delivery services fully integrated, so you can start setting up a delivery system as your business grows.

For more about this system, see our full Square for Restaurant review.

HungerRush: Best for Takeout & Delivery Only

HungerRush is a hybrid POS that evolved out of the Revention legacy POS. Revention is worth mentioning because that system, founded in 2003, was designed specifically to support pizza restaurants. In 2020, Revention rebranded as HungerRush, with the mission to develop a lighter, cloud-based POS that pulls together all the ordering channels and makes customer data easy to own, analyze, and put into action.

HungerRush is still refining the flexible, subscription-based mobile POS they have carved from their legacy model, so some pricing and features are in flux. But the system offers so many great pizza-specific features, that its worth considering even while some kinks are getting worked out, especially if you need tools to manage a team of in-house drivers at a competitive price.

HungerRush Pricing

HungerRush Fees and Add-Ons

*based on a quote received with 36-month payment processing contract; your costs may vary depending on your business type.

HungerRush POS Features:

• Baseline POS: HungerRush includes digital ordering, loyalty and rewards, delivery management and support, takeout and curbside communications, no contact capabilities, and reporting and management hub in the baseline POS.
• Standout FOH Features: Integrated loyalty program that gives invaluable insight into who your customers are and their spending habits, message notes can be saved to a customer’s profile for future orders and to promote offers.
• Standout BOH Features: HungerRush’s driver dispatch system includes pop-up prompts that alert you when a driver is late back to your shop. This can help you be proactive, rather than reactive when an issue arises.
• Back Office and Reporting: HungerRush comes with Integrated Google Analytics so you know how many people went to your ordering page, even if they don’t place an order.
• Available Hardware: HungerRush operates on industry-specific monitors and tablets like the iRUGGY G10s Mobile Tablet, Elo touchscreen tables, and Epson printers. HungerRush does not list their hardware pricing publicly; interested restaurant owners will need to reach out for a custom quote. Though you may be able to purchase compatible equipment from third-party sellers.

What Makes HungerRush Good at Pizza?

HungerRush’s order screen highlights item ingredients with red lights and green lights so it is easy to make modifications at a glance. The system also allows your order takers to edit items without deletions or re-entries and allows an unlimited number of customer order types.

Like SpeedLine and Revel, HungerRush has robust driver dispatch functions for pizza shops that run their own teams of drivers. HungerRush’s driver management integrates with Google Maps which provides real-time mapping updates. HungerRush also shares Revel’s ability to shift some delivery orders to DoorDash drivers if your restaurant is experiencing a rush. The system works for pizza shops of any size, though those that operate solely as takeout and delivery operations will really benefit from HungerRush’s streamlined focus on optimized delivery functions.

Bottom Line

No matter how you serve your pizzas or what budget you have to work with, there are great Pizza-optimized POS options available to support your business. Small slice shops will love Square for Restaurant’s low cost. Pizzerias with more dine-in than carryout orders will enjoy Toast’s wide range of features. If your shop is primarily a delivery operation, SpeedLine or HungerRush can work well. We found that Revel Systems is a great POS for pizza shops of any kind.

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