Best Restaurant POS Systems for 2024 | Top 10 Reviewed

With one of the best restaurant POS systems by your side, you’ll be able to streamline your order process, billing, and employee and inventory management. Plus, top cloud-based POS systems let you access your business data from anywhere — so you can track your inventory levels, sales, and other metrics on the move.

You need one, but finding the best of the bunch isn’t easy. To help, we’ve ranked and reviewed the market’s top 10 best restaurant POS systems based on features, value for money, mobile compatibility, and more. Keep reading to discover the one best suited to your needs and budget.

Our Top Pick for the Best Restaurant POS System 2024: Lightspeed 

All 10 POS systems we’ve picked are excellent solutions, but our research found that Lightspeed is clearly the best of the bunch.

The Best Restaurant POS Systems for 2024: A Top 10 List

Although Lightspeed is our top restaurant pick, the competition is solid. Here’s how the market’s best restaurant POS systems fared under stringent review:

1. Lightspeed: Best Restaurant POS System Overall
2. Toast: Perfect for Beginners
3. TouchBistro: Ideal for Boosting Sales 
4. Square: Known for Service Diversity 
5. Clover: Superb for Bookkeeping 
6. Zettle: Must-have for Expanding Your Business
7. Epos Now: Excels in Staff Management 
8. Revel: Creates a Seamless Customer Experience 
9. Upserve: Top Pick for Increasing Profits
10. Talech: Fit for Contactless Dining Solutions 

The Top Restaurant POS Systems for 2024 Reviewed 

Here’s everything you need to know about our top picks for the best POS systems for restaurants:

1. Lightspeed: Best POS for Restaurants

Lightspeed prides itself on being a one-stop POS for restaurants and food outlets. It not only helps you manage in-store orders but also looks after your online orders and food delivery service. 

For better floor management, Lightspeed offers a dedicated feature to manage your table seatings, reservations, and the overall floor plan. This helps your staff understand where to go without you having to inform them every time manually. 

To further help you improve your customer service, Lightspeed allows you to support multiple payment methods. No matter what the customer prefers, you’ll have a payment type suitable for them.

The best part is that your customers won’t even have to make contact with anyone to pay for the meal — the tool offers multiple contactless payment solutions where the guest can pay directly from the table. 

Moreover, Lightspeed is also one of the best POS systems for small businesses. With seamless customer service and food delivery, Lightspeed will supercharge your business.

Best Features

• Get real-time transaction data sent to the system 
• Helps you manage food deliveries and online orders
• Simplifies connecting with apps like Doordash, Ubereats, and Skip The Dishes
• Helps you speed up service with QR payments and automated split payments
• Offers multiple payment methods, including contactless payment solutions 

Pricing

Here are the plans offered by Lightspeed:

• Essentials: $39/month (menu manager, mobile access, takeout)
• Plus: $119/month (reporting, integrated payment, inventory management)
• Pro: $289/month (advanced insights add-on, advanced inventory add-on, table mode)
• Enterprise: Custom (loyalty, 24/7 support, dedicated account manager)

2. Toast: Perfect for Beginners

Unlike Lightspeed, Toast is designed only to serve the food and restaurant industry. The best thing about Toast is that its learning curve is negligible — even if you have no experience with POS systems, it won’t take long for you to learn to use Toast.

Since it’s built for the food industry, it offers customized services for food trucks, bars, cafes, fine dining, pizzeria, and other types of food outlets. 

Along with a standard POS system, it also offers a spill-proof, durable, handheld system with 24-hour battery life so that you can take orders and payments even when you’re not at your desk.

One of Toast’s newest features is contactless ordering, where customers can order and pay for their food without taking too much time from your servers. 

Toast is also available across different devices and is one of the best iPad POS systems out there.

Best Features

• Helps you cater to online orders with fast deliveries
• Ensures that you get more guests in less time with faster service
• Caters to different types of food outlets with custom plans
• Simplifies team management, staff hiring, and payroll management
• Durable, handheld devices to help you take orders from anywhere 

Pricing 

Here are the plans offered by Toast:

• Starter Kit: $0 (cloud-based, hardware configuration with one terminal, engagement tools like email marketing and gift cards)
• Essentials: $165/month (custom hardware configuration, online ordering and delivery, fraud monitoring)
• Custom: Custom pricing (menu management, automatic upgrades, analytics, multiple add-ons)
• Restaurant Basics Package (only for new restaurants): $110/month (Flat rate, table management, menu management. 

3. TouchBistro: Ideal for Boosting Sales

TouchBistro is a popular all-in-one restaurant management solution provider that equips you with all the necessary features you’ll need to run your business. 

Catering to 29,000+ businesses worldwide, TouchBistro is best known for helping you increase your sales while reducing your operational costs. With TouchBistro, you can take and manage reservations so that your important customers get the VIP experience they paid for.

In addition to reserved table management, it also offers a general table management service, wherein you can manage critical factors, like finding out which tables are free and which have been already taken.

A standout feature of TouchBistro is how it lets you customize your POS system with elements that complement your business needs. Some of these add-ons include online delivery, gift cards, marketing support, and more. 

Best Features 

• Detailed insights and analytics 
• Quick table and floor management 
• Lets you add custom add-ons to your POS system
• Custom features and plans for different types of restaurants
• Lets your guests have a VIP experience with table reservations

Pricing 

The basic POS system costs $69 per month. Apart from that, there are several add-ons to choose from:

• Online ordering: Starting at $50/month
• Loyalty: Starting at $99/month
• Marketing: Starting at $99/month
• Gift Cards: Starting at $25/month
• Reservations: Starting at $229/month

4. Square: Known for Service Diversity

Square POS services stand out for their diversity. No matter what hardware you need or the kind of food outlet you have — bars, ghost kitchens, full service, or something else — Square offers a custom plan for everyone. 

Best Features

• Keeps your ticket synced with the kitchen display system
• Creates a comprehensive sales report in real-time
• Offers a free online site for online orders and delivers 
• Table-side ordering and payment solution with mobile POS

Pricing 

Here are the plans offered by Square:

• Free (online ordering, unlimited locations, unlimited countertop devices)
• Plus: $60/month (unlimited handheld device, 24/7 support, unlimited Square KDS devices)
• Premium: Custom pricing only for businesses making $250,000 or more a year.

5. Clover: Superb for Bookkeeping

If you’re looking for an efficient POS system that specializes in finances and bookkeeping, try Clover. For starters, Clovers allows you to accept any kind of payment method — be it cards or online payments.

What’s more, it also has an efficient tracking feature to record every penny that goes in and out of your restaurant. 

Best Features 

• Simplifies online food orders and delivery 
• Keeps your customers happy with faster service
• Gives you access to your entire transaction history with a click
• Mobile app lets you manage your business remotely 
• Helps you accept multiple types of payment methods 

Pricing 

Here are the plans offered by Clover:

Full-Service Dining 

• Starter: $1,349 or 3 payments of $450 + $74.95 monthly plan
• Standard: $1,848 or 3 payments of $616+$84.90 monthly plan 
• Advanced: $3,647 or 3 payments of $1,215+ $94.85 monthly plan

Quick Service Dining 

• Starter: $799 or 3 payments of $266 + $44.95 monthly plan 
• Standard: $1,799 or 3 payments of $599+ $44.95 monthly plan
• Advanced: $2,298 or 3 payments of $765+ $54.90 monthly plan

6. Zettle: Must-have for Expanding Your Business 

If you’re looking for a good software to grow your business and profit, Zettle might be the one for you. Its POS system might not be exclusively designed for the food industry.

Still, with features like secure payment checkout, instant product and sales reports, and seamless inventory management, it can serve your restaurant as impeccably as any other POS system.

Best Features 

• “Tap to Pay” enables contactless payment 
• Terrific real-time inventory management 
• Instant reports on your product sales
• Lets you quickly switch between different user profiles without logging out

Pricing 

Zettle offers a free plan under the name “Zettle Go” with features like payment processing, sales reports, gift cards, refund management, and staff management.

Along with that, it also charges transaction fees

• Card transactions: 1.75% 
• Invoice transactions: 2.5% 
• Payment link transactions: 2.5% 
• PayPal QR code transactions: 1.75%

For custom pricing, you can reach out to the team. 

7. Epos Now: Excels in Staff Management

Epos Now is the best POS system for onboarding and training new staff and managing your existing team. On top of that, you also get instant access to your business insights through any device of your choice. 

Best Features 

• One-on-one onboarding assistance 
• Helps you manage your inventory well
• Manages online orders, deliveries as well as pickups
• Helps you synchronize your online and physical locations 

Pricing

The basic POS hardware is available for free, but the services you choose for the POS system will come at a custom price. Tablet systems are available at $599, and handheld systems come with custom pricing options. 

8. Revel: Creates a Seamless Customer Experience

Revel allows you to create a seamless experience for your customers with diversified revenue streams so that you can scale your business with ease.

Trusted by over 20,000 businesses, its wide range of services helps you with online ordering, delivery, flexible payments, and self-service kiosks. 

Best Features 

• Can directly integrate into your iPad POS
• Speeds up payments with self-service kiosks
• Offers an additional customer display system (CDS)
• Compatible with several payment methods 

Pricing 

Here are the plans offered by Revel:

• POS Software Cost: Starting at $99/month (intuitive POS, inventory management, staff management)
• Processing: Flat Fee (accepts all cards, EMV compatible, Apple Pay ready)
• Implementation: $674 (software onboarding, menu consultation, hardware installation) 

9. Upserve: Top Pick for Increasing Profits

Upserve is a smart restaurant POS system that allows you to increase sales by identifying opportunities for growth and things that are hurting your business.

Along with payment processing, marketing assistance, online ordering, and stock management, it also provides 24/7 support by experts.

Best Features

• Improves your guest retention rate
• Helps you take and keep table reservations 
• Enables you to increase your profit margin 
• Helps you create profitable marketing campaigns 

Pricing 

Here are the plans offered by Upserve 

• Starter: $59 subscription + $60/terminal (logbook, guest trends, training mode) 
• Most Popular: $199 subscription + $50/terminal (offline mode, menu optimization, server performance report)
• Enterprise: $359 subscription + $40/terminal (transaction search, recipe costing, vendor management)

10. Talech: Fit for Contactless Dining Solutions

Talech is best known for its contactless dining service. With features like table-specific QR codes, web orders, and email alerts to customers when the order is ready, it helps you offer a quick dining experience and double your table turnover.

Best Features

• Integrated gift card options
• Automatic triggers for discounts
• Printable QR codes for each table number
• Helps you manage multiple devices in real time

Pricing 

Here are the plans offered by Talech:

• Mobile: No software fee (basic order management, menu management, tax support)
• Starter: $29/month (Multi-level user access, customer management, inventory tracking)
• Standard: $69/month (Automatic discounts, store credit, kitchen printing)
• Premium: $99/month (Gift cards, split and merge order, table management)

Best Restaurant POS Systems Compared

Here’s a quick overview of the best restaurant POS systems 2024:

What is a Restaurant POS System?

A restaurant POS system is a kind of sales system which is used to process the billing and other transactions taking place in a restaurant. The POS system provides a complete management system for restaurants, thanks to cloud technology.

Some management features provided by a restaurant POS system include customer relationship management, report management system, management of inventory, analytics management system, and more. 

These features help restaurants cut down on manual labor and reduce their operations to their simplistic forms. Restaurant POS systems work both online and offline, thereby providing an all-the-time restaurant management system.

They can also be integrated with other applications like e-wallet systems, Table Reservation systems, Online Ordering systems, and more to help manage all restaurant affairs.

Benefits of Having Restaurant POS Software

There are many benefits to having restaurant POS software implemented, such as:

Menu Update

Restaurant POS systems will allow you to seamlessly update the menu from a single dashboard across all your units or delivery centers.

This means you do not have to physically travel to every single location to update their menus, simplifying the introduction of specials and seasonal items to your current offerings. 

Online Order Integration

The pandemic and social distancing have caused an exponential growth in online food ordering. With restaurant POS systems, you can easily integrate third-party online ordering systems with your main restaurant management.

This helps you track orders, deliveries, and payments all from a single dashboard. 

Efficiency Gains

The biggest benefit of restaurant POS systems is the smooth running of your restaurant business. With contactless payments, inventory tracking, timesheet management, and floor management, most of your core business processes are automated.

This means you can focus on higher-value tasks, such as customer service or business development. 

Mobile Restaurant POS & Tablet Restaurant POS systems

Mobile restaurant POS systems are highly flexible — you can carry them anywhere and manage all aspects of your restaurant.

Many restaurant POS systems provide mobile apps that are compatible with either Android or iOS mobile phones and give you the freedom to access restaurant management from anywhere and anytime. 

On the other hand, many complex restaurant POS systems need a bigger screen and may not be available on the mobile platform. In such cases, you can use a tablet version of the regular POS system, which allows a bigger screen for added functionality. 

Ultimately, you’ll have to make the choice depending on your specific requirements. While mobile restaurant POS systems are highly portable, tablet restaurant POS systems provide added functionalities in many cases. 

How to Choose a Restaurant POS Provider

There are several aspects to choosing the perfect restaurant POS system or provider for your restaurant business, such as:

Cloud Systems

Your restaurant POS software must be updated for the future. Older programs are server-based, which means you run the risk of data loss and system downtimes.

Cloud-based systems are simple, flexible, and have higher levels of data security, meaning you never run the risk of losing valuable business information. 

Mobile Analytics

No matter the management software, you must be able to analyze and constantly improve your business. Make sure the restaurant POS provider offers an analytics service to help optimize your business process.

Moreover, it’s important that analytics are delivered on mobile devices for quick access. 

Comprehensive Management

When implementing a restaurant POS system, you should make sure it’s the only solution you will need.

To avoid multiple solutions for multiple tasks, make sure the POS system offers end-to-end management from ordering, inventory, floor management, billing, and even reporting and analytics.

How Much Do Restaurant POS Systems Cost?

The cost of a restaurant POS system depends on the type of system and the structure of pricing for that particular restaurant POS system. That said, a standard POS system software will cost you between $79 to $150 per month. 

The additional costs include hardware, which is a one-time cost starting from $799. Note that each system has its unique hardware and capabilities, making it difficult to compare them.

Conclusion: What is the Best Restaurant POS System 

While there is no dearth of options as far as restaurant POS systems are concerned, we found Lightspeed was the clear top pick. It boasts features like real-time data, third-party integrations, multiple payment portals, a demo to get started, and more.

FAQs