7 Best Tablet POS Systems

Paid plans include inventory management features like vendor management, inventory counts, automated purchase ordering, and barcode printing. You can also accept cross-location returns and exchanges.

Paid plans also include full-service restaurant features like seat and course management, plus operations management features like menu reports, section reports, and the ability to duplicate one tablet’s settings across all devices.

Square also offers appointment booking features for service businesses.

Note: All free plans apply to single-location businesses only. If you open up multiple locations, you must upgrade to a paid plan.

Popular add-ons include the following:

Square has software features for retail, restaurant, and service businesses, including:

• Square Online: Free Square online store builder that allows you to sell retail items, take restaurant orders, and/or schedule appointments
• Square Invoices: Free invoice builder to send estimates, charge deposits, and charge cards on file for things like catering orders, multi-stage home improvement projects, or B2B retail orders
• Unlimited Devices: On the free plan, you can use an unlimited number of tablets at your location
• Square Checkout Links: Accept payments via QR code, hyperlink, email, text, social media profile, or buy button embedded in a website
• Square Dashboard: Manage your inventory, reports, online store, appointments, customer profiles, and your team from anywhere on one tablet dashboard
• Social Media Integrations: Sell on Instagram or TikTok
• Google Product Listing Integration: Sell your products on Google
• Delivery Solutions: Ideal for restaurants, Square lets you manage in-house delivery or partner with DoorDash or other third-party platforms
• Service Business Features: Google appointment integration, customer confirmations, automated reminders, and retail sales capabilities

Square is compatible with just about any tablet, Apple or Android, as well as desktops and smartphones.  You’ll need at least the Square contactless card reader to take payments in person.

The Square Stand features an integrated card reader, turning a basic tablet into a sleek countertop POS solution.

You may only use Square for payment processing, and fees are as follows:

• Card-Present: 2.4% – 2.6% + $0.15
• Online: 2.9% – 3.3% + $0.30
• Manually-Keyed Card: 3.5% + $0.15

Square offers month-to-month contracts with no early cancellation fees, plus an excellent POS hardware warranty if you decide to buy any Square hardware.

Revel’s pricing is quote-based. The lowest pricing is available if you agree to Revel’s standard three-year contract, use Revel’s in-house payment processor, and use a minimum of two POS terminals.

Add-ons will increase your monthly cost.

All plans include online ordering (pickup, delivery, or shipping), a built-in loyalty program, and advanced reporting. Revel’s flexible inventory management covers purchase orders, vendor tracking, and stock transfers between locations.

Other key features include:

• Custom Online Ordering & Delivery: Build your own delivery platform with real-time order updates and driver tracking and no per-order fees.
• Drive-Thru Management: Integrates with Delphi Systems for headsets, timers, and digital signage, plus tablet expo screens to verify orders.
• Customer Order Status Displays: Show customers when their order is ready — perfect for quick-serve spots like cafes, boba shops, or gas station kitchens.
• Service & Custom Product Tools: Create open pricing, rental options, or service packages for custom or event-based businesses.
• B2B Selling Tools: Set up catalogs, volume pricing, and house accounts for wholesale or repeat business customers.

Most Revel software runs exclusively on iPads.

Revel kitchen display system software can work on Android devices, and the company’s customer order-ready monitors only work with Android TVs.

You may purchase your POS hardware directly from Revel or, with the company’s express written permission, source your POS hardware.

Revel offers an in-house payment processing system, Revel Advantage. Each business gets a custom payment processing quote.

Alternatively, you may work with a third-party payment processor such as TSYS, Elavon, or Chase Paymentech for an additional monthly fee.

Revel’s standard contract lasts three years and comes with substantial early termination fees.

We recommend making extensive use of demos and possibly negotiating a shorter contract length until you’re sure Revel is the right tablet POS system for you.

Listed pricing is for one register, billed annually.

The company also charges a nonrefundable setup fee and includes your hardware setup plus software walkthrough.

Optional add-ons include the following:

TouchBistro combines mobile flexibility with powerful restaurant-grade tools, making it a top choice for food trucks, caterers, and quick-serve restaurants. Its offline mode, catering options, and online ordering platform all work seamlessly across multiple locations and service types.

Key features include:

• Offline Mode: Take orders and process payments without Wi-Fi — perfect for mobile operations.
• Online Ordering: Create a unified presence listing all your truck or popup locations, enable pickup orders, and display estimated wait times.
• Loyalty Program: Offer customizable rewards customers can redeem across your restaurant, truck, and events.
• Catering Management: Set delivery zones, fees, and minimums; add automatic responses for out-of-area orders; include prep notes on large orders; sell on-site at events; and manage house accounts for repeat clients.

TouchBistro is an iPad-based system, and you may use several models as POS registers, customer-facing displays, and kitchen display systems. You can purchase iPad cases from TouchBistro or use your own.

You may purchase hardware kits from TouchBistro, or you can source hardware and accessories yourself.

You’ll get a custom quote for any hardware you purchase from TouchBistro.

You can use TouchBistro Payments, the company’s in-house payment processing (powered by Chase), or you can choose from several third-party processors, including Square.

TouchBistro Payments uses an interchange-plus pricing model, which is an excellent pricing model for midsize/large restaurants looking to save money, and TouchBistro will give you a custom payment processing rate quote.

TouchBistro offers monthly and annual contracts, with the best per-month pricing on annual contracts.

TouchBistro will charge an early termination fee for canceled accounts, so consider a short-term contract before committing to anything in the long run.

If you want Lightspeed’s customizable loyalty program builder but don’t need the highest-level plan, you can get a lower-level plan and talk to Lightspeed about a Lightspeed Loyalty add-on.

Lightspeed offers several proprietary add-ons, such as Lightspeed Subscriptions and Lightspeed Workflows. The company also offers third-party integrations like Booxi appointment scheduling software and Hubtiger rental software.

Lightspeed Retail stands out for its robust inventory management, strong loyalty program, and wide range of third-party integrations. Its built-in eCommerce platform connects seamlessly with the full Lightspeed ecosystem for unified in-store and online operations.

Standout features include:

• Multi-Location Inventory: Track, transfer, and manage stock across permanent and temporary locations.
• Automated Reordering: Set reorder points, preferred vendors, and purchase order rules for products or groups.
• B2C & B2B Catalogs: Create customer portals with restricted pricing for wholesale or registered clients.
• Inventory Adjustments: Mark items as used, stolen, or spoiled and generate detailed usage and wastage reports.
• Versatile Product Management: Manage rentals, services, digital goods, and work orders alongside standard products.
• Powerful Integrations: Add quoting tools, warehouse and property management, rental software, marketing platforms, and employee management systems — all optimized for Lightspeed’s tablet POS.

Lightspeed products run exclusively on iPads, and you can use tablets as POS registers, customer-facing displays, and POS dashboards.

You can purchase a Lightspeed Payments-compatible WisePOS E-card reader and an iPad.

Lightspeed also offers accessories such as an iPad stand, a cash drawer, a barcode scanner, a label printer, and a receipt printer.

Lightspeed has its own processing solution, Lightspeed Payments, which qualified business owners are required to use (this includes pretty much everyone in the US and Canada.)

Lightspeed Payments charges 2.6% + $0.10 for card-present transactions and 2.9% + $0.30 for card-not-present transactions for business owners on the Essentials and Plus plans.

Users on the Pro plan will get a custom lower payment processing rate.

Lightspeed requires you to fill out an order form, which will show your custom pricing. You will pay one-time fees upfront and you may (depending on your billing cycle) pay for your software subscription monthly or upfront (in the case of annual or long-term plans.)

In general, the longer your POS subscription is, the less you’ll pay per month. However, Lightspeed charges an early termination fee if you decide to cancel your subscription early, and hardware return windows are short, so consider starting on a monthly plan until you’re sure Lightspeed is the POS for your store.

The best omnichannel sales features come with the POS Pro app, which you can add to one of these pricing plans.

These features include things like in-store returns/exchanges on online purchases, local delivery order fulfillment, and shipping in-store purchases to a customer’s preferred location.

Shopify’s unique features come in the form of its synced online/in-person sales features, which (depending on your version of the POS app) include:

• A modern yet easy-to-use eCommerce store builder with in-store pickup, local delivery, and lots of shipping options
• Exchanges and returns on online items at any of your retail locations
• In-app social media sales through TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, WhatsApp, and more
• Integrations with online marketplaces such as Etsy, Walmart, Amazon, and Wish
• Inventory syncing between all online and offline sales platforms
• App market with over 8,000 apps covering ticket sales, subscriptions, loyalty, appointments, wish lists, and more

To take in-person sales, you need at least the Shopify card reader as well as a tablet (or smartphone). While Shopify works on Apple and Android tablets, Shopify supposedly has more features available on the iOS version of the app.

You can also purchase a retail kit, which includes a tablet stand for Apple or Android devices, a card reader, and a dock for the card reader. You can also purchase accessories like barcode scanners, cash drawers, and label printers from the Shopify website.

Read our Shopify POS hardware guide to learn more about what types of hardware your business may need to run efficiently.

Shopify offers its own in-house payment processor, Shopify Payments, in many countries. Other processors can be used, but you’ll pay an additional fee per transaction.

Shopify Payments charges a payment processing fee between 2.4% – 2.7%. 

The higher your monthly Shopify subscription, the lower your payment processing fees will be.

Shopify has monthly and annual contracts. Annual contracts have better pricing, and Shopify doesn’t charge early termination fees. However, you won’t get a refund on any plan.

Most Shopify POS users get a one-year warranty on Shopify POS hardware. If you sign up for the POS Pro plan, you’ll get an extended two-year warranty.

Helcim started as a merchant services provider and, from there, built free tablet POS software. You’ll only pay payment processing fees.

Helcim combines powerful billing, subscription, and payment tools with secure processing built for service-based and subscription businesses. Every transaction automatically adds customers to your registry, making it easy to manage relationships and recurring payments.

Notable features include:

• Unified Customer Management: Automatically register customers during checkout and manage all activity from one dashboard.
• Flexible Billing Tools: Send invoices, take deposits or partial payments, and add custom products or services directly at the POS.
• Advanced Subscriptions: Offer free trials, prorated or metered billing, add-ons, one-time fees, and automated card expiration reminders.
• Customer Portals: Let customers manage their subscriptions and payment details independently.
• Custom Invoicing: Build quotes, estimates, and recurring invoices using a drag-and-drop template builder, with automated billing and payment reminders.
• Secure B2B & B2G Payments: Accept payments from other businesses and government organizations while benefiting from lower interchange-plus rates.

The Helcim app is compatible with just about all smartphone, tablet, and desktop devices. To take credit and debit card payments in person with lower card-present payment processing rates, you’ll need at least the Helcim card reader.

You may want to upgrade to the Helcim Smart Terminal, a handheld POS system that includes a built-in POS register, card reader, and terminal receipt printer.

There are also a few compatible receipt printers available.

All business owners will get their own custom interchange-plus payment processing rate. For many business owners, interchange-plus processing is much more cost-effective than flat-rate processing.

The company offers a calculator on its website to give you an idea of how much you may pay per transaction based on your industry, total monthly sales volumes, average transaction size, and other factors.

The more money your company makes, and the higher the average transaction size, the better your payment processing rates will be.

Helcim offers flexible month-to-month contracts and charges no early termination fees, making Helcim a low-risk POS provider for you to try out.

Add-ons such as third-party software and Lightspeed Kitchen Display cost an extra monthly fee.

Lightspeed Restaurant combines powerful inventory and menu management with a built-in loyalty program available on every plan. Its flexible integrations let restaurants create a fully customized tablet POS setup tailored to their operations.

Features worth noting include:

• Loyalty Program: Create customer groups, time-based rewards, and custom point systems; run SMS and email campaigns; and support both digital and physical loyalty cards across dine-in, online, and kiosk orders.
• Inventory & Menu Management: Build composite items, flag out-of-stock ingredients, and automate purchase orders. Customize menus by order type or location and duplicate settings across multiple venues.
• Kitchen Display System (KDS): Route orders to the correct prep stations, set up a custom expo screen, and consolidate all in-house and delivery orders onto one display.
• Third-Party Integrations: Add reservation and waitlist tools, property and liquid inventory management, or payroll and employee software — ideal for complex operations like hotel bars or multi-venue restaurants.

Lightspeed Restaurant software runs exclusively on iPads.

You may contact the company for a quote on iPad bundles and accessories.

Alternatively, you may purchase your own Lightspeed-compatible hardware. You can view compatible hardware on Lightspeed’s support page or ask a Lightspeed representative.

Lightspeed has its own processing program, Lightspeed Payments. Its fees are 2.6% + $0.10 for card-present transactions and 2.9% + $0.30 for card-not-present transactions for business owners on the Essentials plan.

Restaurant owners on the Premium plan will get a custom lower payment processing rate for their tablet POS system package.

Lightspeed requires you to fill out a custom order form, which will detail your contract length.

While longer contracts cost less in the long run, Lightspeed does charge an early termination fee if you decide to cancel your subscription early, and hardware return windows are short, so consider starting on a monthly plan until you’re sure Lightspeed is the POS for your restaurant.