A curated list of point-of-sale (POS) systems for retail, restaurants, and service businesses — with honest notes on pricing, contracts, and fit.
Most "best POS" lists are affiliate farms that omit contract length, hidden fees, and reseller markups. This list is maintained by operators who've priced every vendor in April 2026 and flags the gotchas most comparison pages hide.
For the full head-to-head comparison with 3-year TCO math, see posbull.com.
- Universal POS
- Restaurant-first POS
- Retail-first POS
- Omnichannel POS
- Further reading
- Contributing
- License
POS systems that serve small retail, quick-service restaurants, and service businesses with one product.
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Square POS — Transparent no-contract POS with a free plan. Most-distinctive feature: genuine $0 tier with full POS functionality; the only major POS where month-to-month is the default, not the exception. In-person rate 2.6%+15¢ (free) to 2.4%+15¢ (Premium). Read our comparison →
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Clover POS — Modular POS with a large hardware ecosystem sold via banks, direct, and resellers. Most-distinctive feature: hardware variety (Go, Flex, Mini, Station, Kiosk) is the widest in the category — but 36-month contracts are common and reseller-sold Clover routinely adds $100–200/mo in statement/PCI/platform fees not shown upfront. Buy direct from Clover.com, never from a bank sales rep. Read our comparison →
POS systems purpose-built for full-service, quick-service, bars, and multi-location restaurants.
- Toast POS — Restaurant-first POS with deep features for full-service, QSR, bars, and multi-location. Most-distinctive feature: native Kitchen Display System (KDS) + tableside ordering depth that no universal POS matches. 1–3 year contracts required and you must use Toast hardware + payment processor. Read our comparison →
POS systems built for specialty retail with complex inventory.
- Lightspeed Retail — Feature-dense retail POS with industry-leading inventory management. Most-distinctive feature: purchase-order + vendor-catalog + matrix-SKU + serial tracking depth that Square and Shopify can't match at any tier — the only pick for specialty retail with thousands of SKUs. $109–$339/mo per location. Read our comparison →
POS systems tightly coupled to an ecommerce platform for brands selling online + in-person.
- Shopify POS — POS tightly integrated with Shopify ecommerce. Most-distinctive feature: real-time inventory sync between online store and physical register — the strongest choice when one catalog must be correct across channels. Requires an active Shopify plan ($39+/mo); POS Pro is $89/mo per location. Read our comparison →
Head-to-head comparisons with real 2026 pricing and 3-year total-cost-of-ownership math:
- Best POS Systems 2026 — full ranking
- Square vs Toast
- Square vs Clover
- Toast vs Clover
- Square vs Shopify POS
- Shopify POS vs Lightspeed
- Square vs Lightspeed
- POS Cost Calculator (3-year TCO)
See CONTRIBUTING.md. PRs adding a POS vendor are welcome when the vendor meets all of: (1) public pricing page with at-least one transparent rate, (2) 1,000+ merchants verifiable, (3) first-party hardware or genuinely-first-class third-party hardware support, (4) not a reseller of an existing system on this list.
MIT — list content is MIT-licensed. Individual vendor trademarks belong to their respective owners.