“How much does a restaurant POS cost?” usually has an unsatisfying answer: it depends. But the way it depends is predictable. Once you know the moving parts, you can spot a fair deal — or a trap — in about five minutes.
The parts of POS pricing
Most restaurant POS pricing is built from some mix of:
- A monthly software fee — per venue, or sometimes per terminal.
- Per-terminal charges — each extra tablet or till adds to the bill.
- Hardware — tablets, printers, cash drawers, card readers; either you buy them or the vendor bundles (and marks up) a locked-in terminal.
- Payment processing — a percentage of card sales, sometimes baked in, sometimes separate.
- Add-ons — a QR menu, gift cards, loyalty, extra reporting, integrations — each potentially its own line item.
The headline price usually only covers the first of these. Your real monthly cost is the sum.
The costs that hide
A few things quietly inflate the bill:
- Per-terminal fees punish you for getting busier — the opposite of what you want.
- Setup or onboarding fees to load your own menu.
- Long lock-in contracts that keep charging after the POS stops fitting.
- Locked-in hardware you can’t replace without buying the vendor’s.
None of these make the software better. They make leaving harder.
What a fair deal looks like
You don’t have to accept any of that. Fair, modern POS pricing tends to:
- let you try it free first, on a real service, before you pay;
- run on hardware you already own, so there’s no forced terminal purchase;
- charge no setup fee for loading your menu;
- avoid long lock-in, so you can leave if it isn’t working;
- let you add terminals and venues as you grow, without punitive per-device pricing.
How to compare offers
Put every quote on the same footing: total monthly cost for your number of venues and terminals, including the add-ons you’ll actually use, any processing cut, and anything you’d have to buy upfront. Then weigh that against the one thing a spreadsheet can’t show — how it feels on a busy night. A slightly higher fee on a restaurant POS your team trusts often beats a cheap one they fight every shift.
Our take
We don’t force a single one-size price, because venues aren’t one size. Garivio POS is free to try for 1 month with no card, runs in the browser on devices you already own, has no setup fee and no long lock-in, and includes the QR menu — then pricing is tailored to your venues and terminals. Tell us about your venue and we’ll put together a plan, or explore Garivio POS first.