8 Best Restaurant POS for 2024

Countertop Terminal Starter Kit	Self-service Kiosk	Handheld Terminal Starter Kit
Pay upfront: $875 + $69 per month Or Pay-As-You-Go: $0 and 2.99% + 15 cents per in person transaction	Pay upfront: $1,009 + $99 per month Or Pay-as-you-Go: $0 and 2.99% + 15 cents per in-person transaction	Pay upfront: $627 + $69 per month Or Pay-as-You-Go: $0 and 2.99% + 15 cents per in-person transaction
Countertop Terminal, Toast Tap card reader, Router	Touch-screen kiosk with router and card reader	Toast Go 2 order and payment device, Wireless Access Point, Router
Purchase from Toast

If you want handheld tablets for tableside ordering, dynamic kitchen display system (KDS) screens, and self-service kiosks in your POS package, Toast has you covered. Toast’s self-service kiosk and KDS are our top recommendations for those restaurant tools.

• Online Ordering and Delivery
  Toast offers built-in online ordering as part of the Core and Growth packages (Starter Kit and Point of Sale users can add it for $75 per month). This module fully integrates with your loyalty program, and the menu syncs with your inventory. Toast is among our top picks for online ordering systems.
• Marketing and Loyalty
  Create email messages to target specific customer types and send them directly from the POS. Toast supports points-based rewards and includes built-in customer feedback tools, so you’ll catch disappointed guests before they complain on Yelp.
• Workforce Management
  Build staff schedules and block early clock-ins. Onboard new employees entirely digitally, keep their new hire paperwork in a central location, and sync that information immediately with your payroll system. Toast can also manage tip pooling arrangements.
• Reservations
  Toast recently added Toast Tables, a fully integrated, comprehensive reservation system that operates on iOS and Android tablets. Customers can add themselves to your waitlist via your Google listing. Plus, you’ll get detailed guest profiles with two-way messaging, order status synced with your POS, and an automated server roster that ensures fair section seating.
• Catering Management: Toast has the strongest built-in features for managing catering and special event leads, contracts, and banquet event orders (BEOs). If you have a catering and events segment or plan to in the future, Toast can centralize all of your business in a single platform.

• SpotOn Teamwork
  SpotOn acquired staff management tool Dolce in 2021. In 2023, they rebranded this excellent employee scheduling and management app as SpotOn Teamwork. This app enables smart-scheduling to save you admin time (up to 20 hours a week), and helps you stick to your labor budgets. You can also track staff availability, manage shift swaps, and get alerts for local labor regulations like California’s Meal Break Penalties. The only competing system that even comes close to this level of staff management is Toast.
  
• Mobile Ordering
  Your customers can place group orders and split the bill multiple ways directly from their smartphones. SpotOn also integrates with Ordr, an app that allows event attendees to order food to be delivered to their seats in arenas and stadiums. An integrated order-ready display screen shows takeout customers and delivery drivers exactly when their order is ready.
• Contactless Payments
  SpotOn users can accept NFC and mobile wallet payments onsite and online through SpotOn’s integrated mobile ordering system. Processing rates are lower than competitors’ published rates (starting at 1.99% + 20 cents for in-person payments), and custom-rate quotes are available. Handheld terminals operate via Wi-Fi and 4G connections, so you’ll never go offline.
• Automated Upsells and Discounts
  Your mobile and on-site ordering modules can automatically suggest items that are popular pairings or apply discounts when an order meets the promotional criteria.
• Reservations and Bookings
  SpotOn’s built-in reservation module is the most complex of the systems on this list. Beyond simple reservations and waitlists, it includes “experience” bookings for special events like themed parties or add-ons like to-go meals. The system can also accept deposits, so you can easily sell ticket-style events with little administrative hassle.

• Advanced Reporting
  Lightspeed used to require an Essential or Premium subscription to access the excellent reporting tools, but they now include them at every subscription level. With Lightspeed’s Advanced Insights, your reporting is tied to your Lightspeed Payments data, so you get a lot of automated analysis on customer purchasing and attendance behavior. You’ll also get detailed menu reporting with automated recommendations for which dishes need more promotion and which ones you should drop from your menu. Staff productivity and business overview reports are also excellent.
• Quick Order Mode
  Lightspeed Restaurant has a quick order setting that combines ordering and payment options on a single screen. This speeds orders in a quick service environment.
• Automated Vendor Management
  Lightspeed’s built-in Advanced Inventory tracks your inventory at the ingredient level. A smartphone counting app turns any smartphone camera into a barcode scanner to check in deliveries and count inventory quickly. Reports calculate recipe costs and track price fluctuations from your vendors. The “1-click” reordering function allows you to place orders with multiple vendors with the click of a single button.
• Flexible Payments
  You can choose to use the fully built-in Lightspeed Payments (which will increase your POS system’s reporting power), or shop for processing rates. Lightspeed also integrates with Cayan, BridgePay, and Worldpay. Lightspeed may charge a higher monthly fee for using a third-party processor, though, so be sure to contact them for a custom quote.

• Strong Offline Functionality
  Your Revel Systems terminals are networked together on-site. So, if you lose your internet connection, the system still sends orders to your kitchen and processes payments.
• Comprehensive Baseline Features
  The baseline Revel Systems POS includes functions for employee scheduling, customer management, and inventory management. As with Toast, you can preauthorize bar tabs, and create custom floorplans and menu screens.
• Built-in Online Ordering and Delivery
  Like Toast, Revel Systems has a fully integrated online ordering and delivery module—it made our ranking of top food delivery software. Revel’s tools are slightly more robust than Toast’s, featuring much more detailed driver management reports alongside the maps-based driver dispatch tools. Online ordering screens are easy for customers to navigate.
• Multilocation Tools
  Revel hosts centralized reporting and menu controls. At the enterprise level, you can also leverage open application programming interface (API) to build custom integrations through all of your restaurant locations.

• Cash Discount Option
  Lavu’s Cash Discount feature enables restaurants to charge different prices for customers that pay with cash vs credit cards. This offsets the cost of credit and debit card transaction fees, while handily side-stepping laws in 11 states that prohibit passing processing fees onto customers.
• Comprehensive Baseline POS
  Lavu’s baseline POS includes all the basic check splitting, payment splitting, and employee permission features that you’d expect in a restaurant POS. Ingredient-level inventory is included in the entry-level POS as are insightful touches like tip pool tracking and built-in employee scheduling tools.
• Nutritional Information Display
  Lavu prompts you to add nutritional information to your menu items in the POS. This enables the system to display this information seamlessly to customers on the Lavu self-order kiosk, saving time and customer questions. You can also add high-resolution menu images to guide your employees and customers quickly through order screens.
• Robust Integrations
  If you need a software tool that the Lavu POS lacks, you can likely find an integration for it. Lavu integrates with more than 100 third-party tools, covering everything from accounting to specialized inventory and third-party delivery aggregators. For payments, Lavu integrates with Worldpay, BridgePay, Heartland, PayPal, and Square.

• Payment Flexibility
  Like Revel, Lightspeed, and TouchBistro, MICROS Simphony offers built-in payment processing and integrates with several payment processors. With Simphony, the built-in option is Oracle Payments Cloud Service, which, unlike most competitors, has absolutely no long-term contract.
• Workforce Management
  Like Toast and SpotOn, Simphony includes detailed team management, including employee scheduling and onboarding. It also manages time-off requests with a self-serve employee app.
• Offline Functionality
  Simphony’s offline functionality is stronger than any system on this list. Simphony is locally networked and backed up to the cloud. If you lose internet access, your workstations communicate with one another, storing payment and timekeeping information in a central, offline cache. If a workstation disconnects from other workstations, then payment and timekeeping data is stored in the terminal itself until a connection is restored.
• Customized Speed Screens
  Simphony is the king of conversational ordering. Customized speed screens for servers, cocktail servers, bartenders, and cashiers list the most relevant modifiers on a single screen, reducing button presses and screen switching.

• Free Baseline POS
  Square for Restaurants’ baseline POS is free to use. It is best suited to counter service operations that don’t need to ring in orders by course or seat number. But these restaurants are frequently overlooked by higher-priced restaurant POS brands, so the free Square for Restaurants POS plan can be a lifesaver.
• Transparent Pricing
  Square for Restaurants clearly lists subscription prices, transaction fees, and hardware costs on its website. If you have a large-scale restaurant business and think your costs to use Square for Restaurants will be high, reach out to the Square sales team for a custom quote for software and payment processing.
• No Long-term Contract
  You can start with Square for Restaurants and cancel without penalties if it isn’t a fit for your business.
• Flat rate processing
  Initially, Square’s processing fees may seem higher than competitors like SpotOn, but Square’s processing is truly flat rate. You pay one fee that only varies by the payment method (in-person, online, card-not-present, etc.). You won’t pay extra for American Express or rewards cards, and Square won’t ever charge you a chargeback fee if a customer disputes a charge.
• Integrated Square Ecosystem
  You can add integrated online ordering via the free Square Online store and sync your employee time and tip data directly with Square Payroll. If you offer catering or sell foods to businesses that pay monthly, Square Invoices has the tools you need. All of these small business tools working together can save you hours of administrative time; especially if you are an owner-manager.

• Incredible Ease of Use
  TouchBistro uses the familiar iOS layout to intuitively guide you and your team—including managers—through all the POS features.
• Transparent Software Pricing
  TouchBistro lists nearly all of its software pricing publicly. So, while it is a good idea to get a custom quote, you won’t have to worry if you are getting a good deal; you can just check the TouchBistro website. Prices range from $25 per month for gift card functions up to $299 per month for built-in reservations.
• Streamlined All-in-One POS
  You can create custom floor plans and start tabs with a credit card swipe. TouchBistro tracks your employees’ hours and tips for payroll, supports image-based menus, and includes ingredient-level inventory in the baseline system.
• Templatized Reporting
  If report analysis is not your strong suit, you’ll love TouchBistro’s easy-to-read, visually dynamic reports. Most reports are formatted to include bar graphs and pie charts that show your restaurant’s performance at a glance, so you always know if your numbers tell you to increase your staff levels or drop a costly dish from your menu.

Restaurant POS systems offer tons of features, from basic order management to loyalty tracking and online ordering. But if you won’t use certain features, it doesn’t make sense to pay for them. Consider the POS features you’ll need. Most restaurant POS systems include options for:

• Menu modification and combo-building: If your menu features highly modified items like pizza and sandwiches, you’ll want a system that can handle these smoothly.
• Table, seat, and course management: Some restaurants ring in orders assigned to tables and also need to separate orders by seat number and course.
• Speed screens: Quick service restaurants can operate more efficiently when order and payment buttons are on a single screen.
• Inventory management: These tools track your ingredient use in real time and alert you to place orders. The best tools can generate suggested orders and email them directly to your vendors.
• Physical count inventory tools: In modern restaurant POS systems, this is typically a smartphone app that allows you to split the task of counting inventory between several staff members.
• Workforce management: This can be everything from basic employee scheduling to time-off tracking and tip-pool management. The best tools here alert you to potential labor code violations like break penalties and overtime.
• Loyalty: With a loyalty tool, you can reward regular customers and offer discounts or free items when they reach pre-set spending levels.
• Online ordering: Do you want to receive online orders from your own website or via third-party platforms? Make sure your POS suits your needs here.
• Delivery management: Do you need tools to dispatch and track a staff of drivers? Or would you prefer to route deliveries to third-party drivers?

Once you know your must-haves, set a budget. Most modern restaurant POS systems come with a monthly software fee and per-item hardware fees (though some offer free hardware). A few restaurant POS brands still charge installation fees, but these are mostly systems that operate with an on-site server or have tricky networking requirements. Generally, if a system has excellent offline functionality, you’re likely to see an installation fee.

Look carefully at your sales, COGS, and labor and determine what you can afford as a one-time expense and monthly ongoing costs. If you have a bookkeeper, ask them for help here. There’s no sense in looking at systems that you can’t afford.

Once your budget is set, put together a list of POS systems that seem like a fit and schedule demos of each. Ideally, you should consider three to five systems. In the demo, you’re looking for more than simply how easy it is to ring in orders and split checks. Pay attention to how easy it is to schedule the demo and note how helpful and knowledgeable the support staff are. Do they seem like people who can help you figure out why your credit card batch isn’t sending at the end of an exhausting service?

During your demo, ask these questions:

• Can the sales representative give you an idea of ballpark pricing of all the features they cover in the demo?
• Does the baseline POS include all your desired features, or will you need to spend extra on third-party integrations?
• If you already use software for scheduling, online ordering, or delivery, does the POS integrate with it?
• If your needs change, can this system grow with your business?
• Does installation or setup cost extra?
• How long will configuration and installation take? Can you do these steps on your own, or will you require help from the POS provider?

If a system seems like a good fit during the demo, ask the sales representative to connect you with a few of their current customers as references. Ideally, these would be restaurants near you so you can see the system in action in a real-world setting.

In my experience, the restaurant POS brands offer customer references without you needing to ask. And most small, independent restaurant owners are happy to talk about the pros and cons of their POS with other business owners; you’re one of the few people who will understand what they are talking about!

Most POS providers send a detailed estimate of software, hardware, and processing fees after your demo. If the sales rep doesn’t mention this in your demo, you should ask for an itemized estimate. With several estimates from multiple providers, you can truly compare systems head-to-head and make the best decision.

When comparing estimates, remember to also look at the terms and conditions of each contract. Consider installation fees, contract length, and cancellation policies. These may have a big impact on your final choice.

Once you have made your final decision about which POS is the best fit, contact the provider to arrange configuration and installation. It’s nice to notify the brands you opted not to work with so the sales reps stop reaching out to you via phone and email trying to close a sale.

At its most basic level, a point-of-sale (POS) system is a combination of software and hardware that processes sales and payment transactions. A restaurant POS is designed specifically to support food service business models. Restaurants have unique needs like accepting highly modified orders (like build-your-own pizzas), accepting and disbursing tips, and tracking a highly perishable inventory. Most restaurants need a specialized restaurant POS to assist with these granular tasks.

The POS systems that we see most commonly in restaurants are Toast, MICROS Simphony, and Square for Restaurants. Toast shows up in the widest variety of venues, from food trucks to brick-and-mortar full-service restaurants. MICROS Simphony tends to appear mostly in multilocation spots, and Square for Restaurants is most frequently seen in independent restaurants that only need a few terminals.

We see Square mostly in counter-service operations. Though the system has plenty of tools for full-service restaurants, especially at the higher subscription levels.

POS systems come in a wide range of price points, and the total cost varies depending on the features and functionality you need.

POS systems’ costs typically range from $39 to $120 per terminal monthly, and multiple free options are available.

Supporting multiple restaurant locations and/or a large number of terminals can often increase your POS spend significantly, so finding a provider with plans for unlimited terminals, such as Square, can help growing operations.

Free POS systems typically offer much of the same functionality as their pricey counterparts. They provide small operations with powerful software on an accessible, pay-as-you-go basis.

While there may be no monthly subscription fee for free POS systems, users pay higher processing rates and still need to invest in hardware. This model allows companies like Toast to offer free plans that deliver the same robust product.

A POS system isn’t required to start or run a restaurant. Many microbusinesses manage to run smoothly without one.

But, to accept payments and track sales efficiently as your business scales, using a POS system is the best way to save time and money—and increase sales.

The most common types of POS systems differ in the hardware and networking infrastructure they run on. Different types of POS systems include:

• POS apps: These operate on mobile devices and are downloadable from an app store.
• Mobile POS systems: These operate on POS hardware and work with a cellular or Wi-Fi connection.
• Cloud POS systems: These systems are web-based and operate without an on-site server.
• Locally installed POS systems: The POS stations in a locally installed system are networked via a server installed on-site, so they do not connect to the internet or the cloud.
• Touch-screen POS systems: Nowadays, nearly every restaurant POS system is touch-screen. Most non touch-screen POS systems are geared toward retail operations.
• Open-source POS systems: The operating code for these systems is viewable and editable by anyone. So, if you are comfortable with some light coding, you can customize a free POS system using open-source software.
• Multichannel POS systems: These systems support sales via multiple sales channels like in person, online store, social media pages, and multiple store locations.