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Our research found Clover is the best POS for retail stores, thanks to its impressive feature catalog, sleek hardware options, and intuitive interface which makes ordering a breeze. Capabilities Clover may lack can be compensated for with the system’s robust app store, making the POS an especially good fit for large businesses and growing stores. Android Pos System
Clover won’t be a shoo-in for every business, though. Square is the best POS for small businesses like convenience stores and pop-ups as the POS offers just about every feature you need to get started, and lets you sell at no cost with its free Retail plan. Alternatively, Shopify’s unmatched ecommerce features make it the logical choice for any business selling online and in-store, as long as they’re able to front its comparatively steep card processing fees.
The best retail POS providers for 2024 are:
Use the links above to start comparing pricing information directly, or scroll down the page for in-depth reviews and more information on our testing methodology.
POS systems help retail managers maximize their stores’ efficiency in countless ways. But as rising inflation rates drive up the price of goods, finding one at the right price has never been more important. Scroll down for our full rundowns of pros, cons, and pricing. Or, if it’s a quick quote you’re after, use our free comparison tool to find the best POS price to match your business needs.
Best for established retail stores
Best for small retail stores and pop-ups
$14.95 (with transaction fees + no hardware)
Free (but transaction fees apply)
When we tested out Clover, we were really impressed with its overall user experience. Specifically, we loved how easy it was to add different items to an order and carry out slightly more complex tasks like issuing refunds and exchanges.
Its user experience was especially strong compared to Epos Now, as it took us longer to locate certain features with this POS, and its interface was less simple to navigate than Clover’s.
Clover is a versatile POS system that offers just about every retail-focused feature in the book – including advanced tools like multi-site inventory management and in-house customer loyalty capabilities – making it a great choice for established retail stores looking to grow. Its feature-rich software, combined with its state-of-the-art hardware options, and user-friendly software helped it overtake Square since our last round of research, earning it the top position on this list.
However, while Clover’s feature-rich packages and affordable payment processing fees make it a great deal for businesses selling high volumes of goods, its packages are on the pricier side, and it doesn’t offer a free plan like Square, which could be a dealbreaker for smaller sellers looking to avoid start-up fees altogether.
Clover’s retail features are strong across the board, but it really shines when it comes to customer loyalty. The provider’s in-house customer loyalty program, Clover Rewards, lets you customize perks for repeat buyers, issue birthday rewards, and launch win-back campaigns to target inactive customers. Clover loyalty even lets you launch campaigns in your business’s own branding, to broaden your reach, which is a benefit no other provider on this list offers. Clover’s customer-focused app is simple to use too. Alll customers need to do to qualify is enter their first name when transacting.
The POS also includes strong data analytics tools, which allow you to track sales performance in real time and see your sales across different locations. You can also filter your POS reports to view your busiest times and best-selling items, making it easier for businesses to work on their selling strategy, and identify areas for improvement.
Check out our POS data analysis guide for more information
If your business handles large or complex inventories, Clover will be able to meet your needs easily. The provider offers advanced stock management controls like bulk uploads, low stock alerts, and product-level profitability analysis designed to help businesses expand their bottom lines. Clover even offers multi-location inventory tracking, making it a great option for chain retail businesses, and sellers with stock in warehouses or fulfillment centers.
Clover lets you track your sale performance in real-time, and view your best-selling products. Source: Tech.co’s user testing
Clover is also our best-rated POS system for food and beverage businesses. See how it compares to the competition in our best POS systems for restaurants guide.
Clover Rewards lets you issue custom rewards in your business’s own branding. Source: Clover
Clover’s powerful POS toolkit is complemented by its excellent hardware options. The provider gives businesses access to just about any point-of-sale device they could desire, including basics like POS terminals and accessories, to more specialist items like customizable customer-facing displays. This positions the POS well for businesses that run larger and more complex operations and would benefit from a more robust hardware setup.
Clover’s advanced software and hardware packages don’t come at odds with great usability, either. After testing Clover out for ourselves, we were impressed with how easy the front and back end were to navigate. While its interface may not be as customizable as alternatives like Epos Now or Square, the system was extremely beginner-friendly, and its intuitive nature allowed us to log orders and carry out complex functions like discounts and refunds quickly and easily.
Clover’s software and hardware combined packages make getting started with the provider straightforward too. However, the POS doesn’t offer a training mode, and while it does offer help and support via phone and live chat, its response times aren’t as quick as alternatives like Square or Shopify, which could be off-putting for businesses using a POS for the first time.
Read more in our full Clover POS review
Clover offers three combined hardware and software packages for retail businesses. See how they compare in our table below, or learn more in our guide Clover POS pricing.
Mini 8″ touchscreen POS with built-in receipt printer
Station Duo POS, receipt printer and cash drawer
Station Duo POS, Handheld Flex POS, receipt printer and cash drawer
Square is a reliable POS system perfectly suited to small or portable retail vendors, because of its generous free plan and ultra-low learning curve. Don’t be fooled by its simplicity though. Square’s impressive hardware options and raft retail-specific features – from multi-store stock management and email marketing – also lend themselves well to medium-sized retail stores looking for something more elevated than a basic iPad setup.
From powerful customer relationship management (CRM) tools to strong sales reporting features that let you filter findings through items, sales, and team members, Square’s feature offering is impressive. The POS offers most capabilities you’d find in pricier systems like Clover and Lightspeed Retail including multi-level stock controls, and flexible delivery options, making it ideal for small and growing retail stores.
Square lets you select your order furfilment method when logging an order, directly through the POS. Source: SquareUp
Square’s seamless integration with its website builder SquareUp also gives it a leg over other providers for businesses selling online as well as in-store. This is because omnichannel sellers can keep track of sales data through one centralized system, eliminating the need to skip back and forth between platforms. This integration makes Square an attractive choice for omnichannel sellers looking to avoid Shopify’s steep transaction fees, especially if they’ve already got a website set up with SquareUp.
How many retail POS terminals do you need?
Square also offers a Square Subscriptions feature, that allows ecommerce retailers to sell products on a recurring basis. This makes Square even more competitive for cross-channel sellers looking to secure consistent revenue. But Square isn’t just an asset to small or omnichannel sellers. Retail managers with large teams will benefit from the POS’s impressive employee management features. Square lets managers create custom roles for staff, customize these roles to their business, and grant employees full access to the POS – a feature that even Clover lacks.
Shift scheduling is easy with Square too. Managers can view staff availability, gauge labor costs, and allocate shifts all through its central dashboard. The feature also lets you track data across multiple locations, making the POS perfectly suited to chain retail stores.
Square lets you assign shifts and track employee availability easily. Source: Square
After giving Square a try ourselves, we found its software and hardware are easier to use than alternatives like Epos Now and Shopify. The provider has also recently improved the Bluetooth connectivity for its chip and pin Square Reader, making it even easier for small vendors like market stalls and kiosks to take payments on the go.
But while Square’s suite of features will be able to meet the needs of most small and medium retail stores, it does lack a few capabilities offered by our frontrunner Clover, including an inventory profit-cost calculator, and an in-house customer loyalty system. For this reason, Square was unable to maintain its title as the best POS for retail businesses, and may not be the best option out there for large or rapidly expanding retail stores.
Learn more about how Square compares to our POS favorite in our Square vs Clover POS review.
Use our free tool to compare your options, with personalized price quotes and recommendations.
Square is the most affordable retail POS we’ve reviewed — making it ideal for small or temporary vendors like market stalls or pop-up shops.
Square Free lets businesses get up and running at no monthly cost. However, they will need to pay 2.6% + 10 ¢ for each card-present sale. This plan contains access to Square’s retail POS app, basic inventory tools, and a complimentary card reader.
Check out our pricing table below to learn more about Square’s different plans.
Small, mobile food and beverage vendors
Established food and beverage businesses
Large and multi-location food and beverage establishments
You can find out more about Square and its unique pricing structure in our full guide to Square POS pricing.
Shopify POS is a user-friendly point-of-sale system that seamlessly syncs with the provider’s ecommerce platform. Shopify’s industry-leading online selling features and stock controls make it a top choice for omnichannel sellers. Moreover, its straightforward front-end design and $5 per month entry-level plan store also make it a safe bet for smaller stores and retailers getting started with POS systems for the first time – as long as they’re able to go without fairly standard tools like shipping labels.
Omnichannel retail is booming, and research reveals the market is projected to grow a further 13.6% before 2030. If your retail business sells online and in-store, Shopify will be perfectly equipped to meet your needs. The provider lets you run your ecommerce site and up to 1,000 physical stores, all from one unified platform. This makes the POS an asset to large omnichannel franchises, and retail stores looking to branch out into new locations.
Shopify’s reporting features were designed to support cross-channel selling too. Businesses are able to track online and in-person sales data with product reports, cash flow reports, and daily sales reports if they upgrade to the Pro plan. The POS also lets you analyze sales performance across team members, helping you to drive up revenue by identifying and rewarding top sellers in brick-and-mortar stores.
Shopify offers advanced reporting options like returning customer rates, online store conversion rates and more. Source: Shopify
Shopify also offers a great selection of till features, but the POS really shines when it comes to stock control. The provider’s inventory management tools let you create, edit, and review stock levels in a few clicks. Shopify also offers a cost-profit management tool and lets you sync stock between multiple stores, which makes it an attractive option for chain stores looking to improve their profit margins.
Shopify has huge potential and has come a long way since our last round of testing, due to its ever-evolving sales features. However, Shopify doesn’t offer as many hardware options as alternatives like Clover and Square, and many features, like CRM, accounting, or marketing tools, are only available as third-party integrations. This will rule the POS out from being used by a huge pool of stores, preventing it from appearing any higher on this list.
How does Shopify compare to a more traditional POS provider? Find out in our head-to-head comparison of Lightspeed vs Shopify.
Shopify’s POS pricing can seem confusing at first glance . Check out the table below for an overview of its main plans, or read our guide to Shopify POS pricing for more details.
Epos Now is a capable point-of-sale system that offers all the retail-focused features you can find with Square – including granular stock controls and customer loyalty tools – alongside an excellent range of hardware options. Businesses can also pay for their packages upfront, allowing them to bring down their overheads by avoiding monthly costs. Epos Now makes it easy for retailers to add new locations too, which is why we think the POS is one of the best choices out there for businesses that are just starting to expand.
Despite Epos Now’s clear suitability for growing retail stores, it lacks a dedicated training mode and its pricing structure might be a dealbreaker for new stores or pop-up sellers that don’t have lots of capital to invest upfront.
Epos Now packs a good punch when it comes to retail features. From advanced inventory management tools like low stock alerts, and bulk uploads to multiple location stock syncing abilities, the POS should be able to easily meet the needs of retail businesses that handle large, or complex inventories. The POS even offers a cost-profit calculator to help stores price items competitively – a benefit that leading systems like Square currently lack.
For businesses serious about driving up revenue, Epos Now offers its own loyalty app to encourage repeat buying. Epos Now Loyalty lets you create a point-based loyalty scheme that aligns with your business model, and analyze shopper behavior through a Loyalty dashboard. Businesses using the system can also request their own customizable loyalty card that can be scanned via Epos’s swipe and card reader.
Epos Now lets you expand your POS system to accommodate new locations and increasing transaction volumes easily too. All you need to do is go to the Locations & Devices page in your back office, before entering information about your new retail location. Once this is set up, Epos Now’s multi-location management tools let you view data from your entire business – including stock levels and sales performance from one centralized dashboard. This is why we think the POS is the best choice for stores that are planning to expand for the first time.
However, unlike Clover, Epos Loyalty is only available as a paid add-on and the system lacks specialty features like birthday rewards and a customer-facing branding app. This means if expanding your base with a strong customer loyalty system is high on your priorities then you’d be better off using Clover, unless you’re happy to integrate the system with other paid third-party apps like Loyalzoo.
Businesses can integrate Epos Now with a wide range of customer loyalty apps like Loyalzoo. Source: Loyalzoo
Epos Now also lacks a dedicated training mode to help new staff get accustomed to the system without jeopardizing sensitive data. This, combined with the POS’s lackluster knowledge center and lack of help and social support, makes Epos Now less of a competitive option for beginners.
Learn more about important retail-specific capabilities to look out for in point-of-sale systems in our must-have POS features guide.
With an entry price of $499 up-front or $39 per month, Epos Now’s entry price is slightly higher than other providers on this list. Its processing fees are the same as Square and Lightspeed Retail though, so it’ll still be a good value for stores with higher turnovers.
If you’re interested in learning more about Epos Now’s pricing tiers, we break them down in our table below:
Lightspeed Retail is an iPad-based POS system designed for medium to large retail stores. The POS comes packed with advanced stock management capabilities and customer loyalty features aimed at supporting business growth, and its multi-site inventory and employee oversight tools make it especially useful for retailers with multiple locations.
Lightspeed Retail comes with a raft of retail-specific features designed to make selling as easy as possible and encourage business growth. In fact, our research found that its retail features are even more comprehensive than Square and Epos Now, making it a great option for stores that want to rely on in-house capabilities instead of costly software add-ons.
From barcode scanning, and store credit, refund, and exchange options to customizable gift receipts, the POS offers lots of useful features to support in-store selling. When we tested Lightspeed Retail out for ourselves, we were particularly impressed with its built-in gift card creation tool, as the feature lets businesses customize gift cards with their personal branding and customer details. This unique feature isn’t offered by alternatives like Clover or Square, and offers businesses a great opportunity to establish a rapport with their customers.
For businesses serious about expanding their customer base, Lightspeed lets you build customer profiles in a breeze. The POS also gives customers the choice to receive marketing and promotional emails, which is a useful tool for encouraging repeat buying.
Lightspeed Retail lets you create customer profiles and send buyers marketing and promotional emails. Source: Tech.co’s user testing
Lightspeed Retail’s employee management features are perfectly suited to stores with large and dynamic teams. The POS lets you create roles for staff, customize these roles to their business, and enable specific functions for different users. Lightspeed also lets managers give full access to employees of any level – a perk not currently offered by Epos Now of Clover. This capability can be useful for managers needing retail staff to take on certain responsibilities when unavailable.
Lightspeed’s features lend themselves especially well to multi-store retailers, with the POS offering dedicated multi-store management tools that let you easily add new locations and manage activity across branches from one centralized dashboard.
If you’re looking for support with pricing products, the POS may not be for you, however, as Lightspeed doesn’t offer a cost-profit analysis software that helps users calculate the profit margins of their items. If this is a capability your business is after, we’d recommend opting for Clover or Epos Now instead.
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With prices for Lightspeed Retail starting at $89 per month for its Basic plan, the POS isn’t the most budget-friendly option on the market. Lightspeed’s impressive retail features do justify its slightly larger price tag though – making it a worthwhile investment for larger and multi-store retailers.
Check out how Lightspeed Retail’s paid plans compare below:
Overwhelmed with confusing pricing plans? Use our pricing comparison tool to receive tailored POS quotes.
If you’re just getting started with your search for a good POS system, you might not know what to consider when it comes to choosing the right provider. Here are some factors to consider when choosing the right retail POS system for your business.
Cost is always a good place to start when it comes to any business software including POS systems. If your budget is tight, starting with a free plan that only charges transaction fees might be your best bet. On the other hand, paid plans can get you more affordable transaction fees, as well as more features for reporting retail sales and managing sales and discounts.
You’ll need to consider the size of your business carefully when choosing a new POS system. Some are more natural fits with startups and SMBs, while others are designed to be scalable and better suit larger organizations. For instance, our top pick Square is perfect for smaller sellers starting out, but Shopify’s strong ecommerce integration may make it more suitable for bigger businesses.
The best POS systems for small businesses will log the number and value of the sales you’ve made, track your inventory, and let you know when to restock. It’ll also help you analyze sales and refunds so you can maximize profits.
If you’re new to retail-centric POS systems, here are some features to look out for for your store:
Learn more about important store-front capabilities in our POS features guide.
Unless you plan to rely on a simple iPad setup, your business will also need to invest in physical hardware. Here’s an example of some retail-specific devices to consider.
Small business POS system costs normally sit somewhere between $15 and $100 per month for a system with a single cash register. Larger businesses, on the other hand, might be looking at costs between $100 and $300 per month, with additional one-time hardware purchases that typically cost in excess of $2,500 per location. That said, businesses with small margins can always opt for free solutions like Square, which only charges transaction fees.
Industry-specific systems will likely cost more, with major POS providers like Lightspeed and Vend offering plans that start at $69 per month, and more advanced features costing a premium. However, as inflation rates are forcing business owners to be even more mindful of their bottom line, lots of low-cost and free retail-specific systems exist too.
What’s more, retail POS systems will almost always be a better value than general-purpose systems as they’re packed with more industry-specific features and specialist hardware — from inventory and sales tracking to barcode scanners and weighing scales.
Whether you choose a one-size-fits-all POS or a specialized system, the month-to-month pricing, plus the transaction fees, can seem high at first. However, the right system will make your business far more efficient and profitable in the long run, so investing in a top solution really is a no-brainer.
We take our impartial research and analysis seriously, so you can have complete confidence that we’re giving you the clearest, most useful recommendations. After conducting an initial exploration to identify the most relevant, popular, and established POS platforms on the market, we put them through their paces with hands-on testing to gain a detailed overview of their real strengths and weaknesses.
In this case, we focused our investigation on six criteria that matter the most to our audience: hardware, software, help & support, customer satisfaction, pricing, and usability. Then, to assess their suitability for stores, we considered a range of retail-specific factors, including the presence and quality of hardware features like barcode scanners and receipt printers, and software features like gift cards and vouchers, multi-store management tools, and stock handling capabilities.
We then awarded each retail POS an overall score out of ten, to give our readers a clear overview of their potential, and scored them for each subcategory, to demonstrate how they compared side by side.
After hundreds of hours, our process is complete, and the results should ensure you can find the best solution for your needs. You can learn more about our research and testing process here.
After extensively researching and testing the leading POS providers, Clover came out on top because of its bountiful features, versatile hardware options, and ultra-intuitive interface. However, while Clover is our top recommendation for established brick-and-mortar stores, Square’s beginner-friendly software and generous free plan make it a better option for pop-up stores and small stores getting started with POS software for the first time.
If you sell across channels, Shopify will serve you well, as its advanced ecommerce sales tools and seamless online integrations were designed to make omnichannel selling as easy as possible. Lightspeed Retail is another top contender, that offers a dedicated multi-store management system for stores with more than one branch.
There are loads of other credible options on the market, however, so the best fit for you will ultimately be determined by your store’s unique needs and budget. If you want some help getting started with a new provider, you can use our POS comparison tool to receive obligation-free quotes from the biggest POS providers on the market. It’s completely free and only takes a few minutes.
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