Best POS Systems For Bars

Square offers a completely free plan, which includes all core POS features and a free online ordering website builder. In fact, it’s one of the best free restaurant POS systems around.

Square’s free restaurant POS allows for one location and an unlimited number of POS software licenses.

If you expand to multiple locations or need more inventory management/purchase ordering capabilities, Square’s paid subscription plans are affordable and include advanced features.

You may also want to add Square Marketing, which includes text and email marketing and can be used to announce new arrivals, food and drink specials, etc.

Smaller bars that need to generate more revenue and reduce wastage will benefit from these features:

• Online Ordering: Create a free online ordering site (with an age verification popup for ordering drinks) and take orders for pickup or delivery. If you don’t have a delivery fleet, use Square’s built-in DoorDash integration to get orders out the door.
• Order With Google: Integrate your online ordering menu with your Google Business profile so people can find your bar on Google and easily order from there.
• Time-Based Discounts: Create discounts such as happy hour drink specials and combo meal deals in advance to get people in the door.
• Kitchen Display System: Reduce server errors and customer dissatisfaction by employing Square kitchen display system software in your kitchens. Cook and expo screens allow kitchen staff to see items and modifiers, while expeditors can check to make sure all order items are ready before sending them out.
• Auto 86-ing: With inventory tracking turned on, your bar POS system will automatically 86 items that require an ingredient that you no longer have in stock. By offering a substitute before customers order, you’ll increase customer satisfaction and comp fewer items.
• Third-Party Integrations: While Square doesn’t have built-in perishable and liquid inventory tracking, the company does integrate with software such as Digital Pour so you can track inventory, set reordering optimization levels, and reduce wastage.

Complete hardware kits are sold by Square. You can also purchase individual items, such as the Square Terminal and the proprietary all-in-one Square Register.

Payment processing is provided by Square Payments at the following rates:

• Card-present Transactions:2.4% – 2.6% + $0.15
• Card-not-present Transactions: 2.9% – 3.3% + $0.30 (includes Square Online orders and QR code orders)

Square contracts are all month-to-month with no early termination fees.

Square hardware is sold upfront but also offers no-interest financing. The company also has a great hardware warranty that applies whether you purchase your POS hardware from Square or a third-party retailer.

Toast offers three pricing plans. The $0 upfront Pay-As-You-Go plan is only available for restaurant owners who only need one to two POS devices.

Since Toast is best suited for midsize restaurants, most Toast users will need to sign up for the Standard Plan or higher.

Toast also offers a custom plan for larger/multilocation restaurant owners who want to build a custom hardware and software plan.

Toast’s best features for a busy restaurant with a bar menu include:

• Menu Builder: Toast’s menu builder allows you to create custom drink menus, schedule drink menu specials in advance, and vary pricing across restaurant locations. You can create drinks as a composite of individual ingredients to help with liquid inventory tracking and drink prep.
• Tableside QR Code Ordering: Customers can get their food and drink orders faster with tableside ordering and payments. Once a customer is seated, they scan a QR code for a full (or special drink) menu, place their order, and then pay all without having to wait for a server to run back and forth.
• Tab Management: Toast POS allows servers to combine and split tabs, shift them from the bar section to a table, and place tabs on a house account all from handheld and countertop POS systems. If someone buys a new companion a drink, it’s easy to merge that drink with their existing tab.
• Kitchen Display System: Toast has one of the best kitchen display systems, allowing you to route only alcoholic drink orders to bartenders or drink stations instead of having to sift through entire orders to find drinks. Since drinks are shown as a buildup of ingredients, bartenders won’t have to remember how to make every drink off the top of their heads.
• Loyalty Program: Toast has a fantastic loyalty program that allows customers to sign up automatically when they pay. Allow customers to collect points on restaurant items, drink items, or both, and restrict how they can redeem points.
• Scheduling Software: This is especially useful when bar employees want to swap shifts or pick up extra ones.

Toast offers a Starter Kit for individuals on the free Pay-As-You-Go plan and the paid Standard plan. You are required to purchase a Starter Kit if you’re on the Pay-As-You-Go plan.

If you need more POS hardware than the 1-2 POS terminal Starter Kit, you must sign up for the Standard plan or higher.

The Starter Kit includes a handheld POS or countertop POS, plus a router and card reader. You can add on other hardware, like a KDS or guest-facing display, at a reduced price if you bundle them all together.

Note that Toast KDS and Toast Go have additional monthly service charges.  

Optionally, you can get a free starter kit if you pay a higher payment processing fee. However, we generally recommend that if you can afford it, purchase your POS hardware upfront. The lower payment processing fees will save you money in the long run.

You are required to use Toast’s in-house payment processing no matter what software plan you’re on. Payment processing varies according to your plan.

If you sign up for a free plan, your transaction fees will be higher to make up for no monthly fees or hardware costs. And if you can afford to buy your hardware upfront, you will receive significantly cheaper processing.

If you’re on a custom plan, you’ll get a custom payment processing rate. That rate will depend on your business’s time in business, average transaction amount, and sales volumes.

The standard Toast contract is a minimum of two years. If you leave your contract early for any reason, you will likely have to pay an early termination fee.

Though we don’t normally recommend systems with long-term contracts, Toast POS is such a high-quality system that we believe most businesses will not regret committing to Toast for two years.

TouchBistro starts at $69/month for one POS if you sign up for annual billing. You’ll have to contact TouchBistro for a quote on a plan with more than one POS system.

TouchBistro also offers add-ons such as:

• Online Ordering: $50/month; includes your own online ordering web-based app for all your restaurant locations
• Reservations: $229/month; includes reservations app that integrates with your online ordering site and Google business profile
• Gift Cards: $25/month includes physical and digital gift card sales
• Loyalty: $99/month; includes customizable loyalty account builder that integrates with your online ordering site
• Marketing: $99/month; includes promotion, email marketing, and customer engagement reports

TouchBistro’s best bar POS system features (besides being very server and cook-friendly) are its excellent reservation system, upselling capabilities, and catering management.

Upscale bars that accept reservations will find these unique TouchBistro features useful:

• Reservations App: TouchBistro’s Apple-based reservations app allows you to add a customizable reservation system to an existing website — or you can use it as a standalone app. Set up how far in advance someone can make a reservation, reservation time slots, when you’ll stop taking reservations, and more.
• Google Reservations Widget: People who are searching for bars and restaurants around them will be able to reserve a table at your location(s) directly from your Google business profile page.
• Waitlist Management: TouchBistro’s built-in waitlist management function allows customers to add themselves to a waitlist. It also allows servers to monitor table turnover times, send customers a text when their table is available, and balance between reserved parties and walk-in patrons.
• Customer Reminders: When a customer has an upcoming reservation, you can send them a text reminder so they don’t forget and you don’t end up reserving tables that sit empty.
• VIP Customer Settings: When making reservations, customers can specify their dining preferences, including any allergies or food aversions, so that servers can give a great customer experience from the moment they walk in the door.
• Upselling Features: When a customer orders one item (such as a glass of Chardonnay), ideal pairings pop up for servers to suggest.
• Catering Features: Bars that cater can have customers create their own accounts, pre-authorize their cards, charge a catering deposit, and create custom delivery zone fees with associated delivery fees.

TouchBistro’s POS software, kitchen display system, and customer-facing display software run on iPads. Most models, including iPad Minis, are supported.

TouchBistro offers custom-quoted hardware bundles, or you may source your iPads, cash drawers, and card readers on your own.

TouchBistro integrates with several payment processors, including Square and Worldpay.

The company also offers its own in-house payment processor, TouchBistro Payments (powered by Chase), which offers cost-plus pricing.

TouchBistro does not state on its website whether its contracts are month-to-month or if there is an annual or multi-year commitment. Usually, this means a long-term commitment.

Check your TouchBistro quote to see your contract length and to verify if it is possible to leave your contract early if you are not satisfied. Always start with a monthly plan when possible.

TouchBistro does charge an early termination fee, so try to negotiate for a short-term plan or make extensive use of demos before signing on with this software provider. You may also be able to get the fee written out of your contract before signing.

Revel no longer lists its monthly pricing on its website but you will likely need to sign up for a two or three-year processing contract with Revel Advantage, Revel’s in-house payment processor for the best rates.

Revel’s most unique features for bars that are also specialty drink distributors (whether they’re distributing smaller quantities to restaurants or larger quantities to stores) include:

• B2B Customer Accounts: Restaurants and stores may be assigned to their own B2B account that you can invoice, ship to, and take returns from. Define B2B customer groups so you can offer different pricing tiers, custom pricing, and bulk discounts.
• Online Sales: From your Revel-powered website, you can sell both food and retail items for pickup and delivery. Create custom ordering workflows for different types of orders.
• Alcohol Delivery: Create custom shipping settings for compliant alcohol shipping, offer delivery tracking, monitor delivery drivers (when doing local delivery), and require a signature upon delivery to ensure that your B2B customers get their packages and you remain compliant with local liquor laws.
• Purchase Order/Invoicing: Revel makes it very easy to import vendors, turn purchase orders into invoices, and choose preferred vendors to send automated purchase orders to when stock levels get below par levels.
• Inventory Management: Revel has built-in perishable, liquid, and retail item inventory management that syncs across multiple locations. You can send bottles between locations with transportation tracking, measure liquid inventory wastage, and more.
• Appointment Booking: Set up an appointment booking system with blocked-off reservation times.
• Integrations: Revel integrates with wine club management software, Vine OS.
• Multilocation Support: Duplicate locations and edit things like pricing, stock levels, and menu offerings in bulk.

All Revel software runs on most iPads.

You may source these, as well as card readers, barcode scanners, iPad stands, and cash drawers, from Revel with a custom quote.

Alternatively, you may get these items on your own if you get written permission from Revel to do so.

Revel’s in-house payment processing service, Revel Advantage, requires bar owners to get a personalized payment processing quote.

You also have your choice of a compatible payment processor, usually for an added monthly fee, so you can shop around for the lowest rates. Larger businesses can benefit from finding a customized payment processing rate (ideally not flat-rate but another credit card processing model) that works for their sales volumes.

Your Revel contract will likely be at least one year long, and three years if you want the lowest monthly price.

Fortunately, it is possible to purchase Revel without a long-term contract. Make sure you read the fine details of your contract so you know how long you are committing. If you decide you like Revel, you can sign on for a longer contract and get better monthly pricing.

Third-party integrations (such as hotel management software) and Lightspeed add-ons (such as Lightspeed eCommerce and Lightspeed Kitchen) cost an added monthly fee.

For hotels that have one or multiple restaurants or bars, we highly recommend using Lightspeed Restaurant hotel property management software (hotel PMS). With a hotel PMS integration such as StayNTouch or WebRezPro, hotels can:

• Allow guests to reserve a room on your hotel’s website, check themselves in, and upgrade their room if they want
• Associate a group of guests with one company or family account and bill that single account
• Have restaurant and bar tabs follow a customer and get all their order items billed to their room
• Create custom menus for dine-in, takeout, room service, poolside, and any other ordering touchpoint
• Manage multiple hotel bars and restaurants, either within a single hotel location or several different locations

All Lightspeed Restaurant software runs on iPads.

You may purchase these, plus other hardware, such as card readers, cash drawers, and barcode scanners, from Lightspeed (at a custom price) or integrate your own hardware with the software.

Lightspeed Restaurants comes integrated with Lightspeed Payments, which offers flat-rate processing at 2.6% + $0.10 for in-person payments and 2.9% + $0.30 for online payments to users on the Essentials plan.

If you are on the Premium plan, you’ll get a custom payment processing rate.

Lightspeed advertises monthly pricing but asks all users to get a custom quote. This usually means that you’ll get a custom contract length, which may be monthly, annual, or longer. The company does charge an early termination fee, so until you’ve felt the system out and decided Lightspeed Restaurant is right for you, don’t spring for a long-term commitment.

To qualify for Lightspeed’s hardware warranty (14 days for Apple products and 30 days for other products), you must verify that you have received your hardware within five business days.

The above pricing plans apply only to business owners who purchase their hardware and software plans upfront from Clover.com.

Note: You do have the option to purchase your hardware and software from a Clover reseller, which may change the price of your hardware and monthly software fees.

Read our Clover POS pricing guide for more information on how Clover pricing works and how to get the best deal on your POS.

Most of Clover’s best features come in the form of an add-on app from the Clover app market, but some of Clover’s best built-in features include:

• Online ordering website builder
• Free loyalty program
• Gift cards
• Loyalty programs
• Built-in ID scanner
• Social media automation apps
• Customer engagement tools
• Reservations
• Service fees for large parties
• Auto-gratuity rules

Clover offers several hardware devices that you can mix and match to create your perfect setup. This includes the Clover Flex handheld POS, the Clover Mini, and the all-in-one Clover Station.

We recommend at least a countertop register for a small bar and that you add a handheld POS system for larger neighborhood bars with a lot of seating.

Note: You may pay a different price for your Clover hardware depending on which Clover merchant account provider you work with. Be careful about who you choose.

If you purchase your system from Clover directly, you will pay a flat rate of 2.3% – 2.6% + $0.10 per transaction on all card-present transactions, depending on which software plan you purchase, and 3.5% + $0.10 per transaction for all card-not-present transactions.

Clover resellers may have different payment processing rates and structures, some of them predatory. This is one of many reasons why we recommend researching different Clover providers to get the best rates for your bar. It’s safest if you go with one of these best Clover resellers.

Clover is sold by numerous providers, and not all of them are high-quality. Some of them may charge sneaky hidden fees, encourage you to sign an expensive equipment lease, or provide horrible (even nonexistent) customer service.

Make sure to avoid Clover POS scams when purchasing your Clover POS setup.