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A POS system is often a program to process and record transactions in retail stores. Modern POSs provide a simple way to accept payments, keep track of sales and inventory, and manage employees in real time. Therefore, more and more small business owners use POS to understand their store operations and customer trends to stay competitive in the digital age and stay afloat during the Covid 19 pandemic.

A recent Grand View Research revealed that the POS system market size was $9.3 billion in 2020 and is predicted to reach $18.1 billion in 2027. Choosing a best-fit point of sale system can be a daunting and challenging task for retailers as there’re many options in the market. We researched, compared, and shortlisted the 6 best POS systems for small businesses based on their simplicity, features, and pricing.

6 best POS systems for small business in 2022

  • Square: Best overall POS software for small business
  • Shopify: Best for eCommerce retailers
  • Vend: Best retail POS for brick-and-mortar business
  • Magestore POS: Best small business POS system for omnichannel
  • Toast: Best restaurant POS system
  • Lightspeed Retail: Best value for Inventory Management feature

Comparison table

Square

Shopify

Vend

Magestore POS

Toast

Lightspeed Retail

Industries

Retail, restaurant, professional services

Retail

Retail

Retail

Restaurants

Retail

Minimum monthly fee

$0

$39

$99

$0

$0

$69

Free trial

30 days for paid plans and add-ons

14 days

14 days

No

No

14 days

eCommerce POS integration

No (require third-party)

Payment processing

Built-in only

Built-in or third-party

Third-party only

Third-party only

Built-in only

Built-in or third-party

Overall score

4.48/5.0

4.47/5.0

3.96/5.0

4.27/5.0

4.44/5.0

4.13/5.0

The overall score is based on features, ease of use, and affordable price.

Square: Best overall POS software for small business

square-best-overall-POS

Square is a payment service company based in California, USA. Entering the POS market is a big step for Square to compete with other financial competitors. Square is the best overall POS system for small business because of its price point and ease of use with options designed for general-purpose, retail, restaurants, and appointment-based businesses. In addition, each option has a free plan that includes unlimited sales and products on the online store. Here are some outstanding features of Square POS:

  • Work great on phones, Android devices, or iPads
  • Accept contactless payments
  • Have no interruption of payment when your internet is lost
  • Connect with Square hardware (cash drawers, receipt printers, and scales)
  • Provide curbside pickup
  • Come with inventory management and loyalty program

Pros

  • Easy-to-use

  • Affordable for new businesses

  • No subscription fees, monthly fees, and PCI compliance fees

Cons

  • Locked in Square payments: quite expensive if your business has a large volume and value of transactions

  • Unable to be customized so limited features

  • No inventory management

Pricing

Although Square POS is free, you need to pay a payment processing fee for each transaction (2.6% + 10¢ per tap, swipe, and dip).

Shopify: Best POS for eCommerce retailers

shopify-best-pos-for-ecommerce-retailers

Shopify is an eCommerce platform company of the same name, based in Ontario, Canada. Shopify POS was released in 2013, helping their retailers run both physical and online retail stores on their Shopify platform. Shopify POS is the perfect choice for small and medium businesses in any industry. Free POS software to sell on the go or at events. Shopify plans all store sales, inventory, and customer data in one place, making it the best choice for sellers using Shopify as an eCommerce platform. The features this POS offers include:

  • Provide in-store or curbside pickup and local delivery for social distance during COVID-19
  • Manage inventory across all channels
  • Include mobile POS application to help staff flexibly serve customers anywhere in the store
  • Provide store performance and reporting via Shopify POS mobile app

Pros

  • Smoothly integrated with Shopify platform

  • Easy-to-use, so require minimal training

Cons

  • Required Shopify registration to use POS

  • Unable to work on desktop

  • Expensive

Pricing

The cost that retailers pay depends on the POS and Shopify plans you use.

  • Shopify POS Lite: free if you sign up for at least one of Shopify’s plans. You only need to pay for each transaction processed (starts at 2.4% + 0 ¢ USD).

  • Shopify POS Pro: $89 per month for one location and credit card processing fees.

Vend by Lightspeed: Best retail POS for brick-and-mortar business

vend-by-lightspeed-best retail-pos-for-brick-and-mortar-business

Vend POS is a cloud solution located in New Zealand. Vend is a simple POS system designed strictly for brick-and-mortar retailers. Aside from Magestore POS, Vend is one of the few best small business POS systems that come with loyalty programs, store credits, sorting tools, offline processing, and product catalog management. In addition, Vend integrates with many different payment processors and payment options like PayPal to suit your financial ability. It provides an excellent direct point of sale software for small business thanks to the following notable features:

  • Include a duo-display for customers to increase transaction transparency
  • Accept partial and split payment methods, including cash, bank cards, gift cards, mobile contactless payments.
  • Support a wide range of devices including Mac or PC at the same time (you can use one to consult the customer and the other for the customer to enter their email and receive the goods)
  • Provide inventory management functionality
  • Integrate sales, product, and employee reports

Pros

  • User-friendly so minimize training

  • Easy to integrate with popular eCommerce platforms like WooCommerce, Shopify, and BigCommerce and accounting software like Xero

Cons

  • Expensive if you open more stores

  • Limited customization with invoices or receipts

  • No eCommerce features

  • Not supported for serial number

Pricing

In terms of pricing, there are 3 plans: Lite, Pro, and Enterprise, depending on the service you use.

  • Lite: $99 per month and capped at $20,000 monthly revenue.

  • Pro: $129 per month. If you exceed revenue three times in 12 months, you’ll have to upgrade to Pro.

  • Enterprise: Not published prices, and you need to leave contact information for a quote.

Magestore POS: Best small business POS system for omnichannel

magestore-pos-best-small-business-pos-system-for-omnichannel

Magestore was founded in 2009 and has served more than 10,000 retailers globally. The leading industries using Magestore solution include fashion, sports, outdoor, hobby and toys, home appliances, furniture, food, and beverage. Magestore POS is the perfect choice for businesses that want to expand online to offline, drive sales, and maintain smooth operations with an omnichannel strategy. It extends the power of Magento to your brick-and-mortar stores, streamlines your business, and delivers a better customer experience. Notable features of this retail Magestore POS include:

  • Work well on all browsers, and the interface is responsive to different devices
  • Accept all popular forms of payment
  • Manage orders of online websites and offline stores right on the POS screen
  • Provide store pickup and curbside pickup
  • Offer offline mode for uninterrupted retail operations with unstable internet
  • Sync and run promotions, rewards points, gift cards, and credits both live and offline
  • Visualize real-time POS reports on sales, inventory, and employee performance

In addition, Magestore also provides Operation Service to maintain the system and ensure your POS and website are continuously operating stably with the highest performance. As a result, store owners can focus on growing business.

Pros

  • Simple user interface

  • Seamless eCommerce integration with Magento

  • One-time fee so cheapest option in the long run

  • 365-days money back policy for POS license

  • Open source for developing unlimited features

  • Onboard and supported by a dedicated professional team

Cons

  • A complex system with many functions and settings

  • High starting price

Pricing

You only pay once for Magestore POS to get a lifetime license for a domain address. You'll need to contact a Magestore business consultant for a free consultation. After that, you’ll get a quote for a tailor-made solution for your business for a highly customizable Magento POS.

Toast: Best restaurant POS system

magestore pos screen - web pos system

Toast is one of the best restaurant POS software specifically designed for food service and industry-specific hardware. With Toast’s wired-connected terminals, you’ll no longer worry about Wi-fi and internet connection drops. Most importantly, Toast has some of the best customer service with a thorough onboarding and training process that guides you through every setup step, and it doesn’t end there. Even after you’re up and running, Toast customer support is available 24/7/365 via chat, email, or call. Therefore, it becomes the best POS system for most restaurants. Outstanding features of Toast POS include:

  • Offer contactless solutions, including mobile ordering and payments, mobile and touch wallets, and QR codes
  • Enable table-side ordering and payment with portable, pocket-sized terminals
  • Map and manage tables, collect real-time customer feedback
  • Send tickets to kitchen screens and order notifications automatically
  • Provide detailed menu management with ingredient level tracking, recipe costs, waste and COGS reports, payroll management, sales data, and performance
  • Integrate with online ordering and delivery
  • Come with automated payroll and recruiting features, including HR paperwork, employee scheduling, in-depth labor reporting

Pros

  • Easy-to-use

  • Flexibly priced

  • 24/7 support

Cons

  • No free trial, 2-year contract

  • Expensive with add-ons

  • Only available for Android

Pricing

Toast POS software fees are $0–340 monthly for one machine, and payment processing fees vary by plan. You’ll need additional subscriptions as the number of POSs in the store increases.

Lightspeed Retail: Best value for Inventory Management feature

magestore pos screen - web pos system

Lightspeed is a retail POS system provider based in Canada. The Lightspeed POS system focuses on many retail industries such as groceries, toys, and hobbies with small to medium scale. It includes the following salient features:

  • Accept all popular payment methods
  • Integrate customer retention features such as membership fees and rewards
  • Create and manage store pickup orders
  • Provide inventory tracking and vendor management portal right on POS
  • Offer 50 built-in retail reports on sales, inventory, and employee performance

Pros

  • Good reporting and analysis system

  • 24/7 technical support

Cons

  • Hard-to-navigate user interface

  • Hard-to-navigate user interface

Pricing

There are 5 POS plans priced from $69 per month. If you open more points of sale, you have to pay an additional $29 per month per location.

Final thoughts

Those are the 6 best POS systems for small business that we would like to recommend to you. We understand that it’s never easy to decide which POS is suitable for your business. However, remember, the best POS combines ease of use and an affordable price. 

  • Square POS and Magestore POS both have free versions. Their core features are powerful enough so you don’t need optional add-ons to build a retail POS system. If you choose to include inventory management, loyalty programs, and employee management, you may still pay less than other POS systems.
  • However, Square can’t handle the complex problems of multi-location retailers, high-volume omnichannel sellers, and businesses with large amounts of complex inventory. In that case, you should consider Magestore system, LightSpeed ​​Retail, or Shopify.
  • Also, if you don’t sell online and are looking for a retail POS that doesn’t require an eCommerce registration, then Vend and Magestore are better simple POS systems.

Best Retail POS System

Optimize your business operations with our complete POS for Magento

  • Sell online or in your physical stores seamlessly with real-time data synchronization.
  • Sell everywhere from one platform with desktop or iPad devices, even without internet connection.
  • All data stay safely on your Magento website, and your POS doesn’t have to rely on third-party servers to work.
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Jackie Tran

Author Jackie Tran

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Join the discussion 2 Comments

  • Ridha Fathima says:

    Thanks for the article on 6 best POS systems for small business to thrive in 2022.Looking forward for more articles like this.

  • Autumn Swan says:

    I like how you pointed out the importance of having a POS that gives you cloud-based access to various devices from anywhere in your shop or the house.

    We are looking for a POS for our small business and want to ensure we choose the right one.
    I’m glad I came across this article and learned some tips about POS machines for small business and how it works.

    Let me share this article with my partner and see how this can help us with our company.

Leave a Reply

Best POS (Point of Sale) System

A complete omnichannel POS for Magento retailers
Sell online or in your physical stores seamlessly with real-time data synchronization.

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POS Demo

Admin/Backend Demo

There is no customization or advanced features on the demo version. Remember that Magestore POS is customizable for even complex business requirements. You can request a personalized demo with our consultants at any time.

What is Magento POS

A Magento POS (point of sale) system is software integrated with the Magento platform to synchronize data between your online and offline stores and facilitate retail operations. Magestore POS is a web-based and Magento-native POS which requires at least one Magento website to work.

Who needs Magento POS system

The Magento POS system is developed for retailers with both Magento eCommerce websites and physical stores, and want to use the Magento website as a centralized place to manage all sales data and sell both online and offline.

Some features of Magento POS system

A basic Magento POS can work as a cash register to create orders, add discounts and taxes, print receipts, and manage sales. But a complete Magento POS system can assist you with more advanced tasks, such as inventory control, supplier management, loyalty programs, etc.

Why use Magento POS

  • Magestore POS is native to Magento and is installed directly on your Magento backend without third-party plugins, to inherit all Magento's power.
  • You can use our Magento POS on multiple devices, web browsers and create unlimited accounts without extra fees.
  • All data stay safely on your side, and your POS doesn't have to rely on third-party servers to work.
  • You only need to pay once for the POS license and get full ownership of the solution.

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1. Where we'll discuss

We do screen sharing, so the demo will be conducted using Google Meet.

2. What we'll do

Our specialists will guide you through the POS solution and answer any questions you have. All to see if our POS system fits your business requirements.

3. What you'll get

  • A LIVE demo session to see how Magestore POS works
  • A FREE demo site to explore every product feature
  • A FREE consultation with our expert to discuss the best-fit solution for your business.

4. Additional information

  • A demo typically lasts for 45 minutes, but we can adjust the duration based on your needs
  • No preparation required but it's nice to have your requirements clear
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  • If you want to see how Magestore POS works in reality, you can contact one of our customers and ask for their experience
  • Magestore doesn't do cold-calling, we only contact you on request.

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About the Magento platform

1. What is Magento?

Magento is an open-source platform that helps retailers create eCommerce websites, released on March 31, 2008, by Varien and developed on Zend Framework. In 2018, Adobe acquired Magento with a price of $1.68 billion. There are currently about 270,000 eCommerce websites running on Magento in 2022.

2. Why do retailers choose Magento?

Most of our customers say Magento is speedy and more customizable than others; it is suitable for medium and large enterprises or fast-growing businesses with complex requirements/customizations.

Not sure if you're using Magento, check your website here!

3. What to do next?

  • If you are new to Magento or searching for eCommerce platforms, you can explore more about Magento in this article.
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