The Best POS System for Retail 2024 – Pricing & Features

• Virtual Terminal – The Square Virtual Terminal tool allows you to use your computer as a billing system or credit card terminal. I found this to be a good option for online sellers who need to bill customers remotely or over the phone.
• Advanced Inventory Management – Whether in-store or online, Square’s inventory management is excellent. I loved that you can receive daily email updates on stock levels to keep on top of stock levels–and that it’s easy to upload stock levels by importing CSV spreadsheets.
• Scalability – Square POS can easily scale with you as your business grows, whether expanding your online presence or opening new physical locations.
• Loyalty program – You can set up loyalty programs for repeat customers. Unfortunately, this module costs extra. Still, like the rest of Square, it’s very easy to configure.

Square’s basic retail functionality is free–although keep in mind that its POS hardware is not, so there will be initial setup costs to use the platform.

Square’s free plan will undoubtedly be a draw for retailers looking to keep costs down. However, I think this platform comes into its own when you use all of its features, especially the team management and loyalty scheme modules.

While these will raise the cost to $89/month, Square retail POS is still great value for money overall, especially for a platform that is so beautifully designed and easy to use.

Businesses that process over $250K/year can request a custom pricing plan.

Square POS is highly recommended for retailers who need a comprehensive solution with advanced e-commerce integrations.

• B2B Marketplace – eHopper offers users a reliable marketplace to access products, apps, and services from trusted and reliable vendors. Some of the products available on the market are popular POS hardware, website, marketing, etc.
• Digital Signage – One of eHopper’s unique POS features that I like is the digital signage option, which allows you to use in-store TVs to display marketing messages and products without needing to sign up to a third-party provider. This is a thoughtful add-on for small retail businesses and easy to configure.
• Time Clock – Like Square, eHopper has a time clock feature that helps you with employee management from a central interface. While the feature is a little clunky, it’s useful for small teams that want to digitize shift management.
• Inventory management – eHopper’s inventory management comes with the free module, as well as paid plans. I loved the barcode scanner and receipt printer. This meant that I could easily create and print barcodes for our products–although the system does require quite a lot of manual configuration at first.

eHopper’s plans are very cost-effective, especially as you don’t have to pay anything more for hardware.

The free plan is perfect for independent retailers that want to use a POS without any upfront costs.

eHopper has a Surcharges feature that allows you to avoid paying transaction rates. Instead, your customers can pay the equivalent of your merchant fees using a credit card, which is great for keeping monthly fees down.

As an extra, eHopper offers a 30-day money-back guarantee, which helps customers trust the service more.

eHopper is a solid choice for small retailers on a low budget seeking an affordable POS solution to streamline payment transactions.

• Designed for omnichannel – Shopify’s ultra-sleek POS creates a seamless in-store experience that merges the online and physical worlds. For example, if a product isn’t in stock, you can easily see if it’s available online and order it to the store for a customer in minutes.
• Marketing and Promotion Tools – The fantastic marketing tools make it easy for retailers to target customers with personalized marketing messages across channels.
• Website builder – Shopify’s website builder is the best of the bunch, offering countless templates and customization options to build a beautiful, professional-looking ecommerce website.

Shopify is feature-rich and its pricing plans reflect that. Note, too, that on top of your subscription, you’ll also need to pay for hardware.

Shopify additionally offers a Retail plan for $89/month that includes in-person selling tools as well as staff, inventory, and customer loyalty features.

While Shopify POS has no free plan, there is a 3-day free trial. There is also an interesting offer that allows first-time users to access the POS for $1 for the first month.

Shopify is a great option for omnichannel retailers that want a sleek user experience for their staff and customers.

• Inventory management – Lightspeed’s inventory management feature is one of the best. It’s super reliable, fast, and easy to use, making it perfect for retailers with inventory across warehouses and stores. You can even transfer inventory easily across many locations.
• Ecommerce Tools – Lightspeed offers an ecommerce arm for retailers wishing to create online stores. However, the tool isn’t as intuitive to use as the likes of Shopify and Square.
• Integrations – You can easily enhance Lightspeed’s effectiveness by leveraging its integration offer to connect to your business tools. One of the integrations I found fascinating is the Local Inventory on Google, which you can use to optimize the visibility of your in-store products.

Lightspeed is one of the more expensive providers on our list, so I wouldn’t recommend it for independent and small retailers. However, for multi-site organizations, this software can do wonders for accelerating payment processing speed and managing inventory.

Its Basic retail plan is very good for independent retailers needing only basic POS functionalities. Its features include inventory management, access to suppliers’ catalogs, and basic built-in Lightspeed ecommerce. Its Core plan offers more features as it targets retailers seeking more tools to facilitate business growth.

Although Lightspeed is one of the most expensive providers on our list, its business-specific features are outstanding. It doesn’t offer a free plan, but you can request a demo by filling in a form on the website.

Lightspeed is a great choice for established retailers with complex inventory requirements.

• Flexible payments – From credit to debit cards to PayPal and Venmo – even contactless payments. I love that you can accept almost any payment time with Clover’s POS.
• Team management features – The team management feature was one of the best I’ve tested. It’s great for busy retailers that want to better manage staff rotas, overtime, and so forth in an easy, intuitive way.
• Data-driven insights – Clover uses your POS and team data to deliver powerful insights relating to sales, customer loyalty, and inventory, which is extremely useful for informing retail strategies. Though it supports diverse payment solutions, it provides accurate insight into this data so you can see all your transactions per card type.

Clover offers three tiers for its Retail POS System.

Its retail plan is mainly designed to help retailers handle transactions efficiently. Features include dedicated hardware, a receipt printer, a cash drawer, multiple payment options, real-time sales tracking, and more.

Clover is a great choice for a retail business that wants to offer their customers plenty of payment options, as well as unlock next-level team management features.

• Customer Rewards and Automated Marketing – Like Shopify, SumUp is a retail POS system that wants to help your business grow. I thought the customer rewards feature was exceptionally easy to use, and the automated marketing tools are especially handy for growing retailers that don’t yet have an in-house marketing team.
• Great Dashboard – The SumUp dashboard is simple and clean, making it easy for all team members to use, even if they’ve never used a POS before.
• Integrations – SumUp’s range of integrations is excellent, including accounting software like Xero, marketing tools like MailChimp, and talent management apps like PlanDay, all of which help retail businesses streamline operations across different departments.

SumUp’s pricing is competitive, supporting different business needs.

The POS with Connect Lite is mainly for startups that need basic POS software and hardware. However, businesses that need more flexible features with automation can go for the POS with the Connect Plus package. Its features include customer rewards, automated marketing, two standard SMS and email promotions per month, cloud-based POS, etc.

Although SumUp offers a 30-day money-back guarantee, this provider’s plans quickly become expensive as you pay for more features, putting it at almost the same cost as Shopify and LightSpeed. Still, for the powerful marketing tools you get, SumUp is quite cost-effective. You’re essentially paying for a great POS and marketing tool in one.

SumUp is my pick for retailers that are serious about using automated marketing tools to boost sales and customer loyalty.

• Tap to Pay – One of Zettle’s features that supports on-the-go businesses is the contactless card tap-to-pay option. This comes at a no hidden fee and allows you to use your existing smartphones, Android and iPhone.
• Payment Link – This feature also supports remote sales whereby the customer isn’t physically available, for example, sales across social media or on the website. Regardless of the customer’s location, you can generate a one-time link from the Zettle app and send it to the customer by text message, WhatsApp, social media, or email.
• Staff Productivity Tracker – Even when you’re on vacation or at a business conference, you can keep track of your employees’ productivity from your mobile device.

Zettle by PayPal is a free point-of-sale software that allows you to pay only when there’s a transaction. Its transaction fees are based on the mode of payment used by customers to pay.

• Card Transactions: 1.75%
• PayPal QR Codes: 1.75%
• Payment Links: 2.5%
• Zettle Invoice: 2.5%
• Zettle by PayPal POS App: Free

Zettle by Paypal suits businesses that need a free retail POS solution but need top-notch features.

Most retail POS providers operate on a subscription model, with some offering free plans. Choosing an annual payment option often leads to discounts.

Be prepared for transaction fees every time a sale is made. These fees differ based on the provider and plan, so careful review is essential.

While additional features can enhance retail operations, they usually come at an extra cost. Expect to pay a monthly subscription fee for these add-ons.