2022 Rezku POS Review: Is It Right for Your Restaurant?
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.
This article is part of a larger series on POS Systems.
Rezku is a cloud-based iPad POS tool designed to be a streamlined system for modern restaurants. It includes loyalty, online ordering, delivery management, and inventory in its single, Premium POS plan, in addition to essential POS functions. Bundle together Rezku’s hardware and its payment processing, and this all-in-one POS is an ideal choice for small and startup restaurants looking to quickly expand their customer base, switch over from a cash register, or expand into online ordering.
Rezku POS
What We Like
- Customer service is friendly and responsive
- POS and reporting interfaces are extremely user-friendly
- Cost-effective system includes a wealth of features in the baseline POS
What's Missing
- Reporting has limitations
- Vendor management requires a third-party integration
- Smaller system may have bugs to work out
Deciding Factors:
- Software monthly pricing: $0–$99+ (See detailed pricing below)
- Installation fee: $0
- Contract length: Two years
- Available payment processors: Rezku Payments
- Customer support: Any time, Tue–Sat; 6:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. [Pacific time], Sun–Mon
- Standout Features:
- Baseline POS includes
When To Use Rezku
Rezku is a great entry-level POS for small restaurants, especially those switching from a cash register or cash-only operation. It is also a perfect fit for food and beverage businesses that want to expand into online ordering and customer loyalty without breaking the bank.
In particular, we recommend Rezku for:
- Small restaurants converting from cash-only: Rezku includes cash discounting tools that enable small restaurants to offset the costs of payment processing by passing credit card fees on to their customers.
- Food trucks: Rezku is focused on being a mobile solution and can be networked through a Wi-Fi-enabled LTE router. This mobility, combined with the included customer loyalty and marketing features, makes Rezku one of our top-ranking food truck POS systems.
When To Use An Alternative
- Analytics-heavy restaurants: If locking yourself in the back office and drilling into reports is your favorite pastime, you’ll find Rezku’s reporting functions limiting. Instead, consider Toast or Upserve by Lightspeed.
- Multilocation restaurants: This is still a young system. Even with lots of positive reviews for customer support, it might be too soon to build a restaurant empire on it. If you have more than one location, then consider Revel Systems—a popular, tried and true POS that has been on the market since 2010.
- Restaurants with a preferred payment processor: Rezku’s subscriptions require the use of its native payment processing software. If you have a preferred payment processor, then you may be better served with a POS system that allows you to bring your own. Revel Systems and Lightspeed Restaurant both offer options for integrating third-party payment processors.
Not seeing what you need? Check out our guide to the best POS systems for small businesses to find the tool that’s right for you.
Rezku Pricing
- Competitive subscription plans: Three pricing tiers support various restaurant types.
- All-in-one POS: Subscriptions include loyalty, online ordering, and gift cards in the basic POS.
- Available add-ons: Integrations for accounting, third-party delivery platforms, pour measuring, vendor management, and more are available.
- Two-year contract: Rezku’s software licensing agreements run on two-year terms.
Since our last update:
Rezku has updated its pricing structure to carve out three distinct subscription tiers, including a free Starter POS and a custom-quoted Enterprise POS. Visit Rezku for the most current pricing.
Rezku offers its POS software at three different pricing tiers: Starter, Established, and Enterprise. The baseline Starter POS has no monthly software fees—all you pay for is hardware and payment processing for up to two terminals. Even this baseline level includes a massive number of functions that most POS systems charge extra for.
Plans
Starter | Established | Enterprise | |
|---|---|---|---|
Monthly software fee | $0 | $99 | Custom quote |
Number of supported terminals | Up to 2 | 3+ | Unlimited |
Online ordering | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Loyalty | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Gift cards | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Inventory management | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Open API | ✕ | ✕ | ✓ |
Multilocation restaurant tools | ✕ | ✕ | ✓ |
If you need more than two POS terminals, you’ll need to upgrade to the Established tier at $99 per month. An Established subscription supports unlimited terminals at a single location. If you want to use Rezku across multiple locations, you’ll need an Enterprise subscription, which requires a custom quote from the Rezku sales team.
Aside from multilocation management tools, all Rezku subscriptions include everything, from online ordering tools to gift cards. The only thing that will cost you extra is adding third-party integrations that come with their own monthly fees.
Rezku offers a lot of functionality for your money. Loyalty, online ordering, ingredient-level inventory, and gift cards are included in the baseline POS. The system also features reporting, timekeeping, table management, tab, and check management. Initial service agreements run on a two-year term but shift to month-to-month after your first term is completed.
Rezku Hardware
- Affordable tools: Rezku is designed to operate on iPads alongside its affordable printers and card-readers.
- Pre-built configurations: Rezku offers pre-built hardware packages starting around $550 plus iPad.
- Mobile-friendly: Multiple options for mobile terminals make line busting and tableside orders and payments a breeze.
- Customizable peripherals: Printers, cash drawers, customer-facing displays, and a kitchen display system (KDS) extend Rezku’s functionality.
Like a lot of cloud POS systems, Rezku was designed to operate on iPads and iPad Minis, which keeps the system flexible and affordable. You bring your own compatible iPads (generation 6 or later) and purchase rugged tablet cases and terminal stands from Rezku. Printers are the industry standard Epson and StarMicronics options, and card readers are built into terminal stands.
Rezku can also integrate with barcode scanners and scales, but you’ll need to contact Rezku directly to get a custom quote for those accessories. If you previously used another iPad POS, you can likely use at least some of your preexisting hardware; though if you need a complete system, Rezku has financing options available.
Rezku also offers several hardware-only bundles. These are pre-built hardware configurations that include iPad stands, receipt printers, kitchen printers, and card readers. For more options, you can explore Rezku’s POS hardware builder.
Terminal Options
Accessories
Rezku Payments
- End-to-end (E2E) encryption: PCI-compliant encryption keeps your payment secure.
- Built-in payments: Payment processing is built into the Rezku POS.
- Cash discount option: Offset the cost of accepting credit cards by passing processing fees on to customers.
- Mobile payments: NFC payments, Apple Pay, and Google Pay Send are all supported. Mobile card readers support line busting or curbside payments.
- Gift cards: Rezku is one of the only cloud POS systems that includes gift card processing for free.
Rezku Payments is built into the Rezku system, and includes free gift card processing. It offers two main options for payment processing. The first option is a traditional flat-rate, exchange-plus processing rate that is custom quoted based on your sales volume and a credit application. Rates start at 1.99% + 15 cents per in-person transaction. This listed rate is lower than competitors like Square for Restaurants, but it can change at any time at Rezku’s sole discretion. Established and Enterprise users will get a custom rate quote based on their sales volume and card mix.
The second payment processing option is a bit more daring, and Rezku calls this its “Cash Discount” option. With it, Rezku passes the transaction fees directly to your customers when they opt to pay their tabs with a credit or debit card. The discount comes in because your customers that choose to pay with cash aren’t charged the transaction fees, so they experience this as a discount.
The Cash Discount automatically appears on customer checks, encouraging cash payments.
(Source: Rezku)
The transaction fees for the Cash Discount run from 3.99% to 4.99% for in-person versus online payments. This is substantially higher than typical interchange-plus processing fees. Restaurants that pay tips to their staff would need to pay processing fees on credit card tips (though some states allow employers to pass a portion of these fees on to employees). But it can still be a cost-effective option for businesses that want to shift from a cash-only model to accepting credit and debit card payments.
Rezku Standout Features
Like competitors Square and Toast, Rezku is an all-in-one cloud POS. Users are locked into Rezku payments, and the system endeavors to offer all the tools a restaurant could need. Like those two competitors, Rezku also offers a free baseline POS subscription.
Unlike those other systems, however, Rezku includes virtually every software tool in even the baseline POS. Enterprise users can get API access to build custom integrations to further expand their Rezku POS.
In addition to the reporting, online ordering and delivery, loyalty, and inventory features we explore below, these Rezku features are also worth noting:
- Offline mode: Rezku’s offline mode is robust. In an internet outage, you can still accept payments, print kitchen tickets, and open, adjust, and print checks from any terminal.
- Table, check, and tab management: Floorplans are customizable and support multiple dining room configurations. Rezku also supports credit card pre-authorization and easily transfers tabs to tables. You can split checks by seat or item and accept several forms of payment on a single check.
- Menu management: Forced and optional modifiers make it easy to customize orders. You can attach recipes and item descriptions to POS buttons so that your staff can easily answer customer questions about ingredients and allergies. You can also set time-restricted menus for brunch or happy hour promotions.
- Available add-ons: Built-in reservations and waitlist management are available at custom-quoted prices.
- Integrations: Rezku supports several integrations with third-party delivery platforms (Doordash, Grubhub, Postmates, UberEats), accounting software (Compeat, Ctuit, QuickBooks, Xero, Restaurant365, Sage), employee scheduling (7shifts), and inventory management tools (Digital Pour, Craftable, Yellow Dog) to expand the system’s functionality.
Rezku Reporting
- Pre-built reports: Over 60 built-in reports track sales, costs, labor, and inventory.
- Auto-email: Select reports to automatically email your management team so that everyone stays on the same page.
- Choose your export: Download reports as XLS, CSV, or PDF files.
- Rezku Manager App: This smartphone app puts reports in the palm of your hand.
Rezku’s reporting reminds us a bit of competitor TouchBistro—and that’s not a bad thing. Both systems support a wide range of built-in reports that show your restaurant’s performance with vivid charts. Rezku’s report interface gets extra points for being slightly easier to navigate than TouchBistro’s. You get all the basic reports for sales, comps, voids, discounts, close of shift, and close of day. If you use the inventory tools, you’ll also get low stock reports and reports that show the effectiveness of your email marketing campaigns.
Rezku’s pre-built reports pre-analyze data to create easy-to-read charts and graphs.
(Source: Rezku)
The cloud-based manager dashboard is straightforward for owners and managers to navigate. A sidebar menu also allows you to move between different built-in reports. The reports themselves have all the information you need, but these are not as customizable as with other restaurant POS systems. Depending on your operational style, you may still need to cobble together information from several reports to create your best-fitting end-of-day manager snapshot.
You can access the manager dashboard directly through the POS terminals for flash reports on sales and labor, as well as to print end-of-shift and end-of-day reports. Reports can be exported from the dashboard in XLS, CSV, and PDF files.
In addition to the back-office reporting module, Rezku users can access reports via a smartphone app—Rezku Manager—to keep track of the restaurant’s key performance indicators in real time from anywhere. This is especially useful for owners and managers of multilocation restaurants.
Rezku’s reporting app for smartphones gives you access to real-time reports and performance data.
(Source: Rezku)
For restaurant groups that want to customize reports and drill down for nitty-gritty data to analyze, Rezku’s reporting will feel limited. But for most small and midsize restaurant operations that want easy-to-read reports, Rezku’s reporting will be enough.
Rezku Online Ordering & Delivery
- Included in the baseline system: Online ordering tools have no additional cost.
- No web-hosting fees: A custom online ordering URL is included with your Rezku system.
- Streamlined orders: Online orders from your website feed directly to your POS and print in your kitchen.
- Third-party options: Rezku integrates directly with popular third-party platforms or with middle-man aggregators like ItsaCheckmate.
Rezku’s online ordering is included in all Rezku subscriptions. For a free tool, it is incredibly comprehensive.
With online ordering, your restaurant’s menu is posted online, allowing customers to place orders for pick-up or delivery. Your custom online ordering URL is included in your Rezku subscription; there are no additional web hosting fees to pay. Online payments are secure and accept gift cards alongside credit and debit cards. Back-office settings let you control the pace of online orders so you don’t overwhelm your kitchen.
Rezku’s online ordering website is easy to set up and syncs with your POS in real time.
(Source: Rezku)
Restaurants that have a roster of in-house drivers can set a delivery range in your POS and add custom delivery fees. You can assign orders to in-house drivers through the POS. But Rezku currently does not support tools for full driver dispatch and route management. You’ll need to manage your drivers manually or run dispatch operations through a non-integrated third-party tool like Tookan. You can set delivery zones with custom delivery fees as well.
Once orders are approved in your POS, they print in your kitchen or on your KDS, creating an efficient order stream without juggling extra tablets or creating duplicate tickets. If you use third-party ordering and delivery platforms, you can plug them directly into your POS and KDS order stream via ItsaCheckmate.
Rezku Loyalty & CRM
- Points-based rewards: Reward points can be redeemed as a dollar or percentage discount.
- Multilocation functions: Track and apply rewards for multiple locations.
- Customization options: Support an unlimited number of custom discounts. Allow customers to use points for online purchases as well as in person.
- No extra fees: Loyalty is included in the baseline subscription.
- Analyze as you go: Create custom promotions and track their impact on your restaurant performance.
- Keep an eye on your team: Track which staff member is applying discounts to prevent mishandling.
Unlike many other restaurant POS brands, Rezku includes loyalty and robust customer management functions in its baseline POS. You can choose to track loyal customers by their phone numbers or design and distribute custom-branded, swipeable rewards cards. You can run unlimited coupons and create promotions and track their performance. The system also logs which staff member processes each discount or coupon to ensure that none of your staff are over-discounting.
You can design custom, swipeable loyalty cards via Rezku.
(Source: Rezku)
You can use your customer database to create filtered lists of customers based on birthdays, anniversaries, or number of visits. Rezku includes templates to create custom promotions and discounts that you can email to these customers to drive future business. This is a great tool for small restaurants that want to increase their customer retention efforts without breaking the bank.
Rezku’s customizable email templates make it easy to send professional-looking email offers.
(Source: Rezku)
Rezku Inventory
- Included in the baseline system: Inventory is built into the entry-level POS.
- Ingredient level: Tie raw ingredients to individual recipes to calculate food cost and track supply levels as dishes are ordered in-house or online.
- Low stock alerts: When supplies get low, your Rezku system will send you an email alert.
- Integrations expand functionality: Yellow Dog Inventory works with Rezku to create a comprehensive vendor management and physical inventory count tool.
Rezku developed this POS system to offer affordable software to independent restaurants, so it makes sense that ingredient-level inventory is included in the basic system. You can tie ingredients to recipes to keep track of your supplies in real time as orders are placed. The system will send you an email when supplies are low so you don’t forget to place orders. But If you want to place orders with vendors and manage purchase orders directly through the POS, you’ll need to add a third-party integration with Yellow Dog.
You can update inventory quantities in the Rezku POS or the back office.
(Source: Rezku)
Without additional integrations, Rezku’s inventory functions similarly to that of TouchBistro, which requires a regular amount of manual data entry as new orders arrive. This won’t overwhelm small restaurants or those with streamlined menus, but larger restaurants with multiple revenue streams or frequently changing menus will want to upgrade with integrations to get some time-saving tools.
Rezku Ease of Use
- Familiar tools: iPad terminals, a KDS, and customer-facing screens provide a recognizable ecosystem for servers, cooks, and managers.
- US-based customer service: Highly responsive customer service team is available by phone, email, and webchat, most hours of the day and night.
- Visual navigation: Upload photos to menu items so that staff and customers easily see what they want.
- Color categories: Create custom colors for various menu categories for easier navigation between revenue centers.
When you subscribe to Rezku, you’ll receive a lot of guided support from Rezku’s customer support team. They will guide you through your installation, answer questions about hardware and software, and help you set up your in-house and online menus.
Once your system goes live, the customer support is available at any time, from Tuesday through Saturday, but goes dark for a brief window on Sundays and Mondays when it operates from 6:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. Pacific time, which covers most restaurant businesses on the East Coast.
Rezku’s customer service representatives are US-based and, in our experience, highly responsive. We’ve never waited for more than a couple of minutes for an answer from a Rezku rep.
Rezku’s order screens are streamlined and rely on instinctual swipes, taps, and expand and collapse gestures. You can add menu images to order buttons, or use provided stock images to provide visual variety. You can also keep your servers from running back to the kitchen by adding recipe information to order buttons so your staff has allergy information at their fingertips. Rezku’s online order screens and customer-facing displays are as intuitive and streamlined as the restaurant interface.
Rezku’s ordering screen relies on color-coded menu buttons for speedy navigation from screen to screen.
(Source: Rezku)
Rezku’s KDS screens are as streamlined as the order screens. Cooks can tap dishes as they complete them so that the whole kitchen can see what items are holding up the ticket. The interface is as intuitive in the back of the house as in the front. But, the dark color scheme of the KDS screens may be less than ideal. In a busy kitchen, we’d prefer a wider range of colors for alerts to make it easier to see modifications and special orders at a glance. This is, admittedly, a nitpick, but it may be something you’ll want your kitchen team’s opinion about before opting for the KDS screen.
Rezku’s newly developed touchscreen KDS displays up to 14 tickets on a single screen.
(Source: Rezku)
Rezku Alternatives
Rezku covers a lot of ground for an affordable, iPad restaurant POS. This system’s streamlined tools easily support most small and midsize independent restaurants, but there are instances where you might find a better fit in a different system. The alternatives listed below are all iPad POS systems like Rezku but offer slightly different features.
 |  |  |
Best for: Restaurants that don’t want long-term contracts | Best for: Restaurants that need a more user-friendly KDS | Best for: High-volume restaurants that want customizable reports and driver management |
Pricing: $0 to $60+ per month | Pricing: $39 to $289+ per month | Pricing: $99+ per month |
What Users Think of Rezku
Rezku was developed mostly to support chain restaurants, and there are not a lot of user reviews online. Most available reviews are at least a couple of years old though they rate the system positively. Users give the customer service team exceptionally high marks for their response time and friendliness.
Negative user reviews tend to mention granular issues, like changes to the offline mode that require extra steps to process payments or being unable to cancel a two-year contract after their business unexpectedly closed. But overall customers only mention positives, like the responsive customer support and how Rezku has helped streamline their business.
- Capterra: Rezku earns a rating of 4.5 out of 5 based on 15+ reviews.
- POS USA: Rezku is its No. 5 overall restaurant POS system, and it awards the system a rating of 9 out of 10.
- Finances Online: Rezku earned Great User Experience and a Rising Star award for 2018. The system earned a rating of 8 out of 10.
| PROS | CONS |
|---|---|
| Ease of use | Software updates can sometimes alter favorite features |
| Responsive customer service | Two-year contract cannot be easily canceled if business closes |
| Competitive price | Few pre-built integrations |
| Robust offline mode | |
Bottom Line
Rezku is a streamlined, cost-effective bar and restaurant POS. Its built-in reporting, strong offline functionality, and mobile terminals also make it a good fit for food trucks. With online ordering, loyalty, and inventory built into the baseline software subscription, Rezku is great for small restaurants that want to expand their operations. To get a more in-depth look at its full functions, contact Rezku for a full demo.
