Every POS vendor leads with a monthly price. That figure is almost never what a restaurant ends up paying. Here is how the bill actually breaks down, and how to work out which parts apply to you.
The four cost lines
1. Software subscription
The advertised number, usually $39–89 per month per location. Two things to check. It is often priced per terminal — two tablets on the floor means two subscriptions. And the features you actually came for (inventory, loyalty, multi-site reporting) tend to sit in a higher tier.
2. Hardware
Terminal, receipt printer, cash drawer, sometimes a kitchen display. Budget $400–1,500 up front, or a monthly rental that stacks on top of the subscription. Free hardware usually means a 36-month contract, and the arithmetic rarely favours you.
3. Card processing commission
The line restaurants underestimate most. Between 1.5% and 2.9% of everything taken by card, plus a few cents per transaction. On $30,000 of monthly card revenue at 1.8%, that is $540 a month — several times the subscription.
4. Contract and extras
Installation, training, data migration, priority support, and the commitment period: 12, 24 or 36 months. Leaving early usually means paying the balance.
A worked example
A 30-cover bistro, two tablets on the floor, $25,000 monthly revenue with 70% taken by card:
- Subscription: 2 × $49 = $98
- Rented hardware: $45
- Card commission: $17,500 × 1.8% = $315
- About $458 a month, or roughly $5,500 a year.
That is a fair price for a system that takes payment, prints compliant receipts and tracks stock. The real question is whether you need all of it.
Separating payment from order taking
Plenty of restaurants buy a full POS because they have an organisation problem, not a payment problem. They already take payment perfectly well — a card reader, cash, an existing register. What they lack is knowing who ordered what, at which table, and where the kitchen has got to.
Those are two different problems, and they can be solved separately. Payment stays where it is. Order taking, the kitchen screen and the floor plan can run on a tablet you already own, for nothing.
That is the whole scope of Modern Resto: tablet order taking and the kitchen screen are free, with no commission, because we never touch the money. There is also a direct comparison with a full POS if you want to see what you would still be missing.
Questions to ask before signing
- Is the price per location or per terminal?
- What is the all-in rate on a $30 card transaction?
- How long is the contract and what does early exit cost?
- Is the hardware sold, rented, or tied to the contract?
- What happens to my data if I leave?
When a full POS is worth it
If you need card payments in the same tool, compliant printed receipts, stock control or an accounting export, buy a real POS — Square, SumUp and Lightspeed do that job properly. If your need stops at "I want my servers and my kitchen working from the same information", start with the free half. You can always add a register later, without having signed three years in advance.