4 Best Gas Station POS Systems for 2023
Meaghan has provided content and guidance for indie retailers as the editor for a number of retail publications and a speaker at trade shows. She is Fit Small Business’s authority on retail and ecommerce.
Karina Fabian writes and reviews business software, services, and topics for starting a business, startups, and small businesses. She has more than seven years of business writing experience.
This article is part of a larger series on POS Systems.
Gas station owners have unique needs for their point-of-sale (POS) systems. Gas station POS systems should be able to handle fuel pumps, in-store retail and food items, kitchen- or fresh-made items, and even car washes. Plus, of course, a gas station POS needs to have basic POS functions like reliable payment processing and reporting tools.
Based on those criteria, the best gas station POS systems are:
- NCR: Best overall gas station POS
- Verifone: Best gas station POS for travel stops and multiple locations
- LS Retail: Best gas station software for large, high-volume gas stations
- Petrosoft SmartPOS: Best for analytics, employee management, and loss prevention
Best Gas Station POS Systems Compared
Provider | Integrated Payment Processor | Forecourt Functions (including integrations) | Lottery Sales | Customer Support Hours |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | NCR Payments | Order food at the pump, car wash, marketing programming at the pumps | ✓ | Unspecified |
 | Verifone Flex, Alias Payments First Data, Heartland, National Payments, PayPal, Worldpay, more | 64 pumps, signage, car wash | With integration | 24/7 |
 | Ayden, Valitor, PayEx, Worldpay, Moneris, Nets, Verifone | Pump control, automatic fuel replenishing | With integration | Via account (no hours listed) |
 | 50 + payment processors | Track fuel, prepay only mode, car wash | ✓ | 24/7 (charges for support plans) |
Note: Because there is such a variety of equipment and needs for gas stations, all the services offer custom pricing.
Not quite what you need?
Check out our lists of the best overall POS systems and best retail POS systems for other options.
NCR: Best Overall Gas Station POS System
Overall Score:
4.58 / 5
Pros
- Mobile, EMV, and contactless payment at the pump
- Accepts credit, debit, loyalty, and fleet cards
- Marketing programming for pumps
- Self-checkouts
- Accept food orders from the pump
Cons
- Customers say it’s more expensive than other systems
- Limited phone support hours
- Lots of resellers; potential for inconsistent experiences and pricing
- Long-term contracts
What We Like:
NCR takes first place for best gas station POS because it’s a single software system for forecourt and convenience store. In addition to the POS, back-office, and business intelligence tools, it can handle vendors and staff, allows program marketing at the pumps, and even lets customers order food from the pumps.
It has two gas station and convenience store products—NCR StorePoint and NCR RPOS.
StorePoint covers your commercial fuel operations: fuel management, pump POS integration, wet stock management, inventory, reporting, loyalty programs, employee management, food service, and retail.
RPOS integrates your convenience store operations with the rest of your gas station touchpoints. It allows you to accept food orders at the pump, offer mobile ordering and payments, promote engagement-enabled loyalty programs, provide delivery service, verify age for restricted products, and ensure cash flow security.
Since Our Last Update:
NCR says its StorePoint software works with any hardware with a touch screen and Microsoft Windows.
NCR for gas stations and convenience stores requires custom pricing depending on the hardware and features you need. In our evaluation, NCR lost points mainly for its undisclosed pricing, making the POS system’s affordability difficult to gauge.
In addition to POS software, NCR also provides an end-to-end payment processing solution, which may be included in the price. You will likely need to purchase NCR’s integrated hardware for POS terminals and pump POS. And while all-in-one subscriptions are likely available (for example, another NCR POS solution, NCR Silver, bundles software and hardware in its payment plan), expect to be tied to long-term contracts.
- POS features: NCR allows your cashiers to manage pumps from their stations and even handles car wash stations. You can set up self-service kiosks for restaurants or a coffee bar.
- POS configuration manager: This back-office feature allows you to remotely manage fuel items and prices and customize pump prompts, menu defaults, and receipt texts for multiple gas station sites.
- NCR site management: A back-office module allows you to manage your retail items catalog for updates in pricing, coupons, and promotions, plus offers optional add-on tools for inventory and vendor portals.
- Payment options: Accepts credit, debit, loyalty, and fleet cards. Outdoor pumps can handle EMV, mobile, and contactless payments.
- Forecourt consumer engagement: NCR’s pump POS systems have highly customizable video functions that you can use for promoting products, loyalty programs, sales, or other items.
- Mobile checkout: Customers can use their smartphones to scan items as they shop and pay via smartphone with a stored payment method or via a self-checkout kiosk.
- Real-time sales reports: Monitor your sales with NCR analytics, which gives near real-time insights, predictive insights, and alerts. Reports include sales, fuel, end-of-day, and more.
- Mobile management: Access your gas and c-store real-time insights from any mobile device.
Verifone: Best Gas Station Management Software for Travel Stops & Multiple Locations
Overall Score:
4.48 / 5
Pros
- Sell lottery tickets at the pump
- Manages up to 64 pumps
- Process RFID payments
- 35+ years’ experience in C-store
- Car wash management (through partners)
- 24/7 customer support
Cons
- Lacks built-in loyalty and marketing feature
- Support for other than hardware issues can be slow
- Complaints of touch-screen malfunctions
- Contract required for its payment processing
What we like:
Verifone earns a top spot because of its purpose-built solutions that cover all your gas pump and convenience store needs. If you own a travel stop with gas pumps, souvenirs, and food to order, or you have multiple gas stations, then Verifone is worth considering.
In addition to handling up to 64 pumps, it can manage store sales and even food service and self-serve kiosks. It also handles age-dependent sales like tobacco, and you can sell lottery tickets at the pump. Verifone lists several integration partners for loyalty management, fleet cards, tank level monitoring, and electric fuel signage.
Like most forecourt or c-store POS systems, Verifone will customize to your needs, including self-service kiosks and controllers in addition to countertop POS systems. The pricing is similarly customized. Contact Verifone for more information.
Verifone offers card processing services but does not list prices online. Third-party sources list rates at 2.7%, with the chance to decrease it to 1.95% for a monthly subscription fee. However, it has an annual contract. Check with its partners to see if you can get better rates.
- Verifone site controllers: Supports up to 64 fueling positions of a single dispenser type and can integrate up to 36 workstations.
- Forecourt POS: Aside from fuel, sell lottery tickets at the pump. It also tracks cash fueling and cash handling when a full-service attendant completes sales.
- Kitchen management system: Food-service and self-service kiosks have a built-in kitchen management system, so orders are directly sent to the kitchen.
- Payment options: Accepts mobile payments, RFID payments, and credit, debit, loyalty, and fleet cards. It also has a coupon scanning feature at the pump.
- Car wash management: This allows your customers to pay for their car wash service through a POS terminal if they are paying with a card or through a pay point device if they are paying in cash.
- Money order selling: Verifone integrates with Western Union and MoneyGram Delta, which allows it to sell money orders from the c-store POS terminal.
- Additional integrations: Verifone integrates with security cameras, tank level monitors, and electronic fuel sign partners to give you full control of your station on one gas station management software system.
LS Retail: Best for Busy Gas Stations With Multiple Pumps
Overall Score:
4.44 / 5
Pros
- All-in-one system
- Excellent fuel monitoring features
- Automatic wet stock (fuel) replenishing capability
- Control pumps from your POS
- Manage restaurant, pump, C-store purchases on one system
Cons
- Needs LS Retail hardware
- Customer support only available through online portal
- May require an additional subscription fee for payment processing
- Requires third-party payment processor
What we like:
LS Retail is the best gas station POS system for fuel management. The system makes it easy for cashiers to manage pumps, from approval to shutdowns, and calculate wet inventory levels using the built-in tank gauge tracking system so that you know what fuel to reorder and when. The backend is powered by Microsoft Dynamics 365 for customer resource management and inventory.
It offers two gas station POS systems, LS Central and LS First, plus business intelligence, payment processing, and other programs for different business sizes.
You’ll need to contact LS Retail about pricing, but its website shows that the system offers two plans that work for gas stations. LS Central is an all-in-one POS and ERP software solution and LS First is for large-scale businesses.
LS Retail also has a payment software solution called LS Pay that you can easily link to your LS Retail account to manage payment types, provide security, and track multichannel transactions. This may require a separate subscription. You’ll need a separate merchant account, so shop for the best rates among its list of partner payment service providers.
Since Our Last Update:
In January 2023, LS Retail released an updated version of LS Central. It includes a new Single Shipment field to the franchise model, improvements to Shopify integration, new settings for the self-service kiosk currency mode, and other enhancements (many of which, however, do not apply to C-store management).
- Central pump control: Cashiers have complete control of the pumps. They can authorize, pause, stop, and lock/unlock pumps. You can log drive-aways and refund money if customers don’t use their full prepay.
- Wet inventory control: Includes an automatic reading of tank gauge information and deliveries. You can manually add data that is not automated, such as tank dip readings or delivery notes.
- Automatic stock replenishment: The system can automatically replenish wet stock based on sales history and stock levels.
- Microsoft-based solution: LS Retail is a hybrid POS that can run on Microsoft Dynamics ERP if you want a system that’s fully deployed on-premises or as Software as a Service (SaaS) with Microsoft Dynamics 365 for finance and operations.
- Real-time performance monitoring: Get a real-time overview of your inventory and merchandising system. Analyze sales distribution according to POS, total income, number of customers, number of items, or average purchase amount at any given time.
- Loyalty management: LS Retail allows you to set up in-store, online, and mobile loyalty schemes and offers with a click of a button.
- Full food service functions: You can manage the kitchen, menus, ingredients, and meal deals from the POS.
Petrosoft: Best Gas Station POS for Analytics, Employee Management & Loss Prevention
Overall Score:
4.27 / 5
Pros
- Lottery, beer, and tobacco sales functions
- Over 200 reports
- Kitchen and food prep tools
- Mobile apps for back office tools
- Compatible with over 50 card processing services
Cons
- Need CStore Office for fuel inventory management
- Limited customer service hours
- Expensive one-time hardware cost
- Some features are add-ons
What we like:
SmartPOS by Petrosoft is an all-in-one hardware and software solution built for convenience stores. It also coordinates with your pumps. When combined with CStore Office, you get a powerful backend with over 200 customizable reports for optimizing your sales and inventory, including a mobile app so you can access your business data anytime.
Petrosoft also installed processes to manage employee performance. For example, you can create automated workflows for closings or to ensure individual employees get their tasks done. The optional loss prevention analytics system analyzes key sources of information, from transactions to security video, to track down the sources of inventory losses. These are unique to the software on our list.
Petrosoft is the only gas station POS provider on our list that has pricing online, but it does not have a link for it on its website. (We found the marketplace via Google search.) The prices are more expensive than standard retail POS software, but may be comparable to the others on this list. You may get a discount for bundling. Contact Petrosoft for a quote. You can also ask Petrosoft for a free trial.
Since Our Last Update: Some prices have increased.
- SmartPOS Apexa G: $2,349
- SmartPOS Apexa Prime: $2,999
- Self-Service Terminal: $1,199
- SmartPOS 129: $799
- CStore Office: $269/month
- Retail 360 (for loss prevention tools): $199/month
- QwickServe: from $99
- Scan Data Subscription: $29/month
- Scan Data Loyalty: $15/month
Since Our Last Update:
Petrosoft has made several changes to its software. In addition to some general improvements to UX and small functional enhancements, you will find more options for daily sales reports and tobacco sales reporting.
- Consent mode for pumps: Signals the cashier when a customer makes an authorization request.
- POS screen customization: Cashiers can customize their screen with their favorite or most used buttons for quicker checkouts.
- POS system safeguards: If you limit the amount of cash in your registers as a theft deterrent, the system can signal you when it’s time to do a safe drop.
- Lottery management safeguards: SmartPOS includes early theft detection for instant lottery sales.
- Price book manager: Allows you to add, update, and push price changes to your POS system.
- Electronic journal: Comes with event tagging and bookmarking that helps highlight suspicious transactions.
- Staff training options: Available for on-terminal, online, and in-person training.
How We Evaluated Gas Station POS Systems
The best gas station POS systems should let you handle all your business needs from a single register without having to integrate several POS software programs. We found many POS systems that worked for convenience stores, so our first criterion was the built-in ability to sync with fuel pumps for control and monitoring. Next, we looked for special features needed for tobacco, alcohol, and lottery ticket sales, plus the ability to handle food sales from the register.
Finally, we made sure to only include POS systems that offer fuel, lottery sales, and grocery sales management tools. Age verification is also a requirement to sell alcohol and tobacco.
Based on our evaluation, we found NCR the best overall, scoring a 4.58 out of 5 in our grading system. It’s a highly popular POS system for other uses and offers excellent features for convenience stores and gas stations.
Methodology
Click through the tabs below for our full evaluation criteria.
10%
Pricing
25%
Checkout Features
40%
Fuel & C-Store Management
5%
Ease of Use
20%
Expert Score
10% of Overall Score
Nearly all the POS companies on our list have custom pricing, which can depend on hardware, software, and payment processing. We gave premium points for products that offer affordable subscriptions and integrated payment processing, while also making note of those that offer volume discounts. Petrosoft had the highest score with 3.7 out of 5 because it posts prices online.
25% of Overall Score
A customer’s checkout experience is crucial for gas stations to build a customer base. We gave weight to loyalty programs and the availability of gift cards as a payment option. We also gave high marks for age verification tools to facilitate the sale of alcohol or tobacco. LS Retail and NCR had perfect scores.
40% of Overall Score
We chose only those POS systems that explicitly included fuel management for tracking and pricing as well as controlling and monitoring the pumps. We also looked at management features for lottery sales and food inventory sold in convenience stores. NCR and Verifone had perfect scores here.
5% of Overall Score
Gas stations typically don’t follow business hours. So, we gave favor to 24-hour phone support, as well as installation and training in person or online. We also gave premium points for gas stations that can support offline transaction processing through a hybrid or cloud POS setup. Verifone had the only score of 5 out of 5.
20% of Overall Score
We considered ease of use and overall feature set, plus any standout features, user reviews, and customer support, to determine the value for your dollar. Verifone and LS Retail had the highest scores, with 4.38 out of 5.
*Percentages of overall score
 | Meaghan Brophy has a decade of retail experience and over four years of experience reviewing point-of-sale systems and software. |
 | Karina Fabian has nearly a decade of experience reviewing business products and software. She’s been reviewing POS systems since 2013. |
Best Gas Station POS Systems Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
A gas station POS system includes fuel management tools, such as the ability to control the pump, read fuel levels, and even order more fuel.
The main reason is convenience. By running all your gas station sales in one system—from gas to food, car washes to tchotchkes—you streamline operations for faster checkout. You can also better track where you’re making money, where your resources could be better allocated and more.
We’ve only covered the basics in our review. When you are selecting a gas station software, you should ask how easily it integrates into your fuel pumps, what lottery programs it can run, what gas loyalty cards it can accept, and other questions specific to your business.
Depending on the system, you may have to. Most on our list sell hardware but say their system is compatible with other hardware. Changing payment processors can also cause issues with hardware.
Bottom Line
A POS system that addresses the needs of a gas station, from pumps to hot snacks, can improve the efficiency of your checkout and help customer satisfaction. It also makes it easier for cashiers and managers to handle varied sales and inventory, plus keep up with regulations like legal age limits. We found NCR to be the best overall for gas stations. Visit NCR for a quote and get started.
