5 Best Garden Center POS Systems In 2023

We love how detailed inventory management can be with Lightspeed Retail. Small garden centers can easily upload and categorize items and service offerings, while larger ones can do even more, including wholesale orders and B2B customer management. You can also create purchase orders and automatically complete them across multiple vendors, which will help midsize to large retailers save a lot of time on ordering.

Lightspeed also has built-in eCommerce functionalities so you can sell online, a fairly advanced Lightspeed loyalty functionality, and has lots of third-party integrations including rental item management integrations so you can rent out tools, and repair/labor management integrations so you can service items. All these tools help to manage all the different services your garden center has to offer.

Note: Lightspeed Retail offers a 14-day free trial, no credit card required.

If you want to add extra POS register licenses to your subscription, you’ll pay an additional $59/register/month.

Additionally, any third-party integrations will cost an added monthly fee.

Lightspeed Retail allows you to offer several ways for customers to shop, including purchasing nursery plants and garden necessities online for in-store pickup or local delivery, purchasing wholesale or by individual item, and shopping garden kits/bundles for a discount. Shoppers can also fill out inquiry forms to get a custom quote and log into a wholesaler account for a bulk discount.

Lightspeed’s best inventory management features for garden center owners including:

• Item Bundling: Bundle together individual items such as individual flowers in flat cells into new larger items such as a flat of flowers for purchase to keep all inventory accurate while also creating deals.
• Inventory Adjustments: Designate whether products are dead, damaged, or returned and adjust stock as needed. Complete manual product counts with the Lightspeed scanner app for smartphones.
• Sales By Weight: Sell items such as soil amendments or gravel by weight with unique sales units and a weight scale integration.
• Rental & Service Inventory: Create quotes, invoices, require deposits, and accept payments in increments for both rental items and services such as garden maintenance. Charge for services on a recurring basis via client accounts.
• Subscriptions & Workshop Charges: Create recurring membership subscriptions (great for lending libraries and garden supply depots) and ticket items for things like workshops (great for providing education and community-building).
• Multi-Store Management: Transfer stock between locations and monitor where stock is in transit.

Lightspeed Retail schedule service.

One of Lightspeed’s best third-party integrations is Booxi, an appointment scheduling and rental management app that is a more accurate time-based rental management software as well as an appointment booking system that’s great for florists doing weddings and other special occasions.

With Booxi, florists can conduct phone, email, or in-person consultations, manage their calendar to ensure no double booking and to make sure there’s enough time to arrange orders, and the ability to create personal shopper appointments so associates can dedicate themselves to helping customers make their special day a magical scene.

Lightspeed Retail card reader, iPad POS device in case, eCommerce site on PC and smartphone device.

As of 2023, Lightspeed has listed that you can Lightspeed Payments-compatible WisePOS E card reader for $299 and an iPad for $329.

Lightspeed offers accessories such as an iPad stand for $199, a cash drawer for $129, a barcode scanner for $199, a label printer for $124, and a receipt printer for $399.

The company also integrates with the StarMicronics series of scales through the Hyperspace POS app integration. You connect the scale to Lightspeed through this app. This way, shoppers can fill bags or containers with supplies and then put the items on a scale to pay for exactly how much they want, rather than buying a pre-weighed item.

Contact a Lightspeed representative to get the most accurate estimate of a garden center POS hardware bundle.

Lightspeed offers its own payment processing service, Lightspeed Payments, which US and Canadian garden centers are required to use. You are required to purchase your card reader from Lightspeed as well.

The company charges processing fees of 2.6% + $0.10 per card-present transaction and 2.9% + $0.30 per online transaction.

You can sign up for Lightspeed Retail on a month-to-month, annual, or custom contract length. It’s important to note that every Lightspeed user must fill out an order form prior to signup, meaning that users may get custom contracts with custom terms.

Lightspeed charges an early termination fee if you decide to cancel your plan early, so consider getting a monthly plan until you’re sure Lightspeed is the right POS system for you.

If you purchase hardware from Lightspeed, you must confirm that you have received it within five business days. Otherwise, your hardware will not be covered under Lightspeed’s hardware warranty (14 days for Apple products and 30 days for non-Apple products).

While Square does not have a number of niche garden center software features, it is one of the best free POS options available and works perfectly well for smaller garden centers that do not need complex inventory management. It’s extremely easy to use, allows you to sell plants and supplies online for in-store pickup or local delivery, and all you need to get started is an iPad or smartphone and the $49 Square card reader.

Note: Square’s free plan is absolutely free to use, with no special conditions or limitations. Square’s paid plans come with a 30-day free trial.

Square pricing is per location, so you can have an unlimited number of smartphone/iPad/PC or proprietary Square devices at any one location. This is very cost-efficient for larger spaces and for taking POS systems on the go to places like farmers markets or vendor fairs.

Square’s best free features for small garden center owners include:

• Online Store Builder: Build a completely free Square Online store to sell items for pickup or delivery and collect custom order requests.
• Quotes & Invoices: Provide quotes and invoices for services such as landscaping and garden planning. Also, collect split payments over time on large orders.
• Subscription Memberships: Sell multi-tier subscription memberships for garden center members to get special perks.
• Advertising: Create social media posts on platforms like TikTok and Instagram to advertise and even sell your products. Use the built-in blog feature of Square’s website builder to connect with your local crowd, provide important gardening information, and get found in more places online.
• Register & Barcode Scanner: Square’s POS register interface is customizable to make checkout a fast and easy experience for cashiers. There’s also a free barcode scanner app for iPhone users to count inventory, check pricing, and scan items for purchase.

Square POS free online garden center store example.

The free plan offers basic inventory management, which includes the ability to quickly add and edit individual items or in bulk, add variants and sale prices to items, group items into different categories, and sync inventory between online and offline sales.

Paid plans offer more inventory features, such as the ability to link vendors to products in your item catalog, which will make reordering items easier. You can also manage inventory and employees in multiple locations on the Square Plus plan. Square’s marketing and loyalty programs come as separate paid add-ons.

Square POS on iPad, Square Register, and Square contactless card reader.

Square software works on phones and tablets. You get a free magstripe card reader to start, but you should purchase at least the $49 Square Contactless + Chip Reader so you can take chip cards and NFC-based payments such as Google Pay and Apple Pay. A full Square Register bundle, suited for garden centers that accept cash, is $1,329.

Read our guide to Square POS hardware to make an informed POS hardware purchasing decision.

Other hardware, such as receipt printers, does not need to be purchased from Square. Just make sure that the hardware you buy is compatible with Square software.

Square is incredibly affordable because the company makes its money on payment processing fees, which means you can only process payments via Square’s in-house payment processor.

Square charges a payment processing fee of 2.6% plus $0.10 per card-present transaction on the free plan. You’ll pay 2.5% plus $0.10 per transaction on the Plus plan. You are charged a 3.5% plus $0.15 fee for card-not-present transactions.

The fee for online transactions and invoices is 2.9% plus $0.30 per transaction.

You’ll pay 3.5% + $0.15 for card on file payments, which include recurring subscription membership payments.

Square subscriptions are month-to-month, and you can cancel your merchant account anytime without consequences.

If you damage your Square hardware within your hardware warranty period, even if you didn’t purchase the hardware directly from Square, the company will send you new equipment. Don’t forget to send old pieces back to Square within 14 days of getting your new hardware, or you will be charged for the new equipment.

We appreciate that Revel is a highly customizable POS system that makes it possible for midsize and larger garden center businesses (especially ones with multiple locations) to manage stock, customer orders, and marketing efforts within one system.

Revel’s reporting suite helps you keep your production timeline in mind, cater to your best customers, and determine how much inventory you are moving and what to keep stocked on the shelves. Multi-location businesses can transfer inventory and employees across locations so every place is covered in terms of items and labor. Larger businesses can also offer wholesale pricing and wholesale accounts, plus product catalogs, to their customer base and maintain retail consumer operations.

If you agree to Revel’s three-year, two-terminal minimum requirements, you will pay $99/month/terminal, billed annually. With this deal, you also have to commit to Revel for your payment processing needs for three years.

Most businesses will require more than Revel’s basic POS offering, though, as they will want to add on products like multilocation management, online ordering, and local delivery/shipping management. This means that every retail and niche business owner will get a custom quote.

Revel also charges a one-time implementation fee that starts at $674 and covers onsite hardware installation and a detailed software setup.

Revel’s best features, especially for larger garden center businesses, are the system’s business reporting, inventory management, and customization capabilities.

Revel’s unmatched reporting features include the ability to generate reports based on pre-built templates with different filtering options, as well as the ability to create and save your own report templates. This could be very useful for garden centers that want to build reports based on specific factors such as blooming times or growth from propagations.

Some of Revel’s most useful pre-built reports include:

• Product Summary: Get detailed information on your best-selling products to inform future stocking decisions. Filter by dates, discounts/promotions offered, and ranking to find out what sells best and when. Also, view item damages and losses, and hopefully learn about how to avoid losses in the future.
• Product Forecasts: Previous sales and inventory data are funneled into the product forecast report. This report will help you figure out what, when, and how much to plant to produce an adequate amount of product you’ll need at any given time. You can also flag irregular transactions (e.g. a large one-time wholesale order) and remove them from the data used to generate forecasts.
• Customer Analysis: Find out what customers are most interested in, whether they engage with any marketing or promotions you offer, whether they’re part of a loyalty program, and use all this information to create targeted marketing efforts.
• House Account Analysis: This report will help you keep track of wholesale/B2B customer orders, payment status, and complete actions like adjusting an account balance or adding new payment methods.
• Multi-Location Reports: Multi-location reports show you how successful each location is in terms of sales, inventory movement, product loss, and employee performance. If you franchise your garden center business, you’ll also see royalty payment reports.

When it comes to inventory management, you get to decide how to classify items, which ones are available for wholesale and how to charge wholesale items, work out different pricing tiers, and how to adjust inventory when it comes to things like large backorders and future orders. Choose to create inventory items and information (such as weight unit pricing) from a template or create your own. You can move inventory between locations and monitor inventory in transit.

Revel Systems wholesale account discount pricing.

Revel’s highly customizable setup includes open API (application program interface) access, which means that you can build out or link to any accompanying software to streamline your business. You can also have cloud-based and locally installed setup options, which allow you to sell completely offline or anywhere on your center’s property (or off the property altogether).

Revel iPad POS register, iPad stand, iPad customer-facing display, cash drawer, receipt printer, and card reader.

Revel offers bundles through its website that come with everything you need to get set up. It also offers individual items for purchase, but you will need to call for a quote.

Revel offers its own in-house payment processing solution, Revel Advantage. Revel no longer advertises a definitive flat rate fee, meaning that you’ll get a custom quoted fee based on order volume, average transaction size, and mix of payment methods.

If you choose to work with a third-party payment processor (which you cannot do on the three-year plan), you will likely pay a higher monthly subscription fee.

Revel requires a three-year processing agreement and a two-terminal minimum if you want the most cost-effective pricing.

However, the company charges a high early termination fee if you cancel early, so it might be worth it to pay a higher monthly price in case you’re not sure whether Revel POS is right for you. You can switch to a long-term plan later on for lower fees.

The Shopify eCommerce store builder dominates the small business online store builder space, and we believe that the Shopify POS app, included with every Shopify online store, gives garden center owners a simple yet innovative way to sell online in several places and do things such as offering fundraising opportunities, sell live plants or decorations on places like Etsy, and advertise on places like Pinterest.

We also like that Shopify is a highly customizable solution.

The software offers numerous online store templates, a customizable POS register interface, and 8,000+ third-party software apps on the Shopify app store. Plus, like Square, Shopify works on tablets and smartphones and requires only a low-cost card reader and software subscription to get started.

Note: Shopify offers a three-day free trial, no credit card required.

Shopify’s eCommerce pricing plans range from $39/month to $399/month. You get 25% off if you pay for an entire year upfront. Each eCommerce plan (that comes with a full store) offers the “Shopify POS Lite” app for free.

For more retail features, such as store pickup and unlimited staff accounts, you’ll need the $89/month/location Shopify Pro subscription, which is added to your monthly eCommerce plan. Additionally, while there are many free Shopify apps on the company’s app market, some require you to sign up for a paid subscription.

Your payment processing rate decreases on higher-level plans. Businesses with larger transaction volumes should strongly consider upgrading to save money in the long run.

Read our guide to Shopify plans and pricing for an idea of what your business needs for fast growth.

Shopify’s best features are related to omnichannel selling and include:

• Beautiful Online Store Builder: Shopify’s store builder is the most advanced and professional-looking software out of all the POS software on this list. You can customize it with anything from adding detailed plant care instructions in item listings, to adding plant care videos and guides, to creating an email newsletter signup popup. Accept sales online for local pickup, local delivery, or shipping.
• Social Media Sales & Advertising: Some garden centers and nurseries offer plants, such as succulents, or items, such as tools and garden décor, that can be packaged and sold. You can advertise products and even sell them on places like Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest.
• Online Marketplace Sales: Sell packageable plants, seeds, tools, and decor on marketplaces like Etsy and Amazon. Your sales on these platforms, as well as social media platforms, will be synced, and inventory will update automatically.
• Mobile Sales: Sell on-location at farmers’ markets and popup events with the Shopify smartphone app. You can sell items that you brought with you as well as items from a catalog. People can purchase items for future delivery or pickup wherever they encounter them.
• QR Code Generator: Use the Shopcode app to create product QR codes and print them onto product tags and branded plant label stakes. People can scan them in-store for more information, or when they see your plant somewhere out there in an office or garden, they can scan the QR code and buy one of their own!

Shopify garden POS center succulent listing on Etsy online marketplace.

Shopify’s in-store sales features include the ability to take partial payments/deposits, schedule discounts and generate digital coupons, put items on layaway, and take custom payment types.

Most of Shopify’s best features will come in the form of an app from Shopify’s app market. The market has over 8,000 apps, with more being added every day. With a Shopify add-on app, you can create your own product catalogs, start an email marketing campaign, and sell subscriptions and memberships — your only limit is your imagination (and, in some cases, your willingness to pay an added monthly software subscription fee).

Shopify POS register stand with card reader.

The Shopify app itself runs on most phones and tablets.

The Shopify Chip & Swipe Reader, which is the bare minimum requirement for taking card and mobile phone payments, starts at $29. The most expensive hardware is the $639 Shopify Star® mPOP™ With Scanner, an all-in-one customizable retail hardware package.

Not sure what equipment your retail POS system needs? Read our post on Shopify hardware choices, which includes pricing and where to source your hardware.

Shopify integrates with its own in-house payment processor, Shopify Payments. Retailers that use Shopify Payments do not need to pay transaction fees. In-person Shopify Payments processing fees are between 2.4% and 2.7% per transaction, while online payment fees are between 2.4% and 2.9%, plus a $0.30 flat fee. Percentage fees vary depending on your pricing plan.

If you prefer to use a different processor or do not qualify for Shopify’s in-house payment processor, you have several options, but you will have to pay transaction fees.

Most Shopify requirements surround payment processing. To use Shopify Payments, you must purchase a card reader directly from Shopify. To use a Shopify-approved third-party payment processor, you must use a card reader sold by that payment processor.

We like that Clover offers the type of system that you can set up and not have to think about. It has an incredibly simple and visually-appealing interface and an excellent array of features and plans to choose from to make sure that you’re not overpaying for unnecessary services. It also has outstanding customer management and loyalty capabilities.

Plus, you get your own merchant account with a Clover POS hardware and software subscription, so you’ll get custom payment processing rates. For many businesses, this can help save money on payment processing fees.

If you buy from Clover directly, which you do not have to do, you can purchase a Clover retail software plan for between $14.95/month and $54.90/month if you purchase your Clover hardware upfront.

If you decide to enroll in Clover’s “pay monthly” plan so that you can pay for your hardware over time, you’ll pay one monthly fee for both your hardware and software. That fee will range from $60/month to $175/month, depending on your hardware package.

Additional devices are $9.95/month/register if you have all your registers in one location. If, for example, you have two Clover Minis in two different stores, you’ll have to pay the full Register subscription cost for both Minis.

Read our Clover POS pricing guide for more on how much you could be paying for your Clover software/hardware package.

Clover retail software itself is a pretty straightforward offering, with an online ordering page for pickup or delivery, in-store discounts and promotions, physical and eGift cards, and an offline payments mode so you can still check out customers even if your store’s Wi-Fi stops working. It also has a built-in loyalty program available for all Clover users.

Garden centers that take any sort of service job on-location, such as garden maintenance or commercial landscaping, will appreciate these service-specific features:

• Invoice by email with status order updates on invoice payments
• Customer database with loyalty program setup and private feedback
• Inventory tracking, stock takes, and itemized order creation through Clover Flex
• Recurring payments with card on file
• Invoice status monitoring

Clover POS system invoice status monitoring.

Any advanced or specialized features you want will come in the form of a Clover app. There are 450+ apps available in Clover’s app store for anything from integrating a weight scale at your garden center to starting an email newsletter with a MailChimp integration.

Clover is also special because you can get a merchant account with one of several Clover hardware/software resellers, meaning that you can find great payment processing fees and contract terms (so long as you get your Clover setup from one of these best Clover merchant account providers).

Clover countertop POS system, handheld POS system, barcode scanner, cash drawer, and card reader.

You may purchase your Clover system from Clover or one of several Clover resellers. If you purchase hardware from Clover, you’ll pay between $49 (Clover Go contactless card reader) and $1,799 (Clover Station Duo).

The Clover Flex, which costs $599, is an excellent choice for garden centers that accept garden design or maintenance jobs, workshops and consulting, or any other on-location job. The Clover Flex allows you to send and accept payments on invoices, quickly charge for any additional items or service fees, accept signatures, and print out receipts.

Clover POS software only works with Clover hardware.

If you purchase your devices from Clover, you must use Fiserv as your payment processor. Fiserv charges the following payment processing fees:

• Card-Present Transactions: 2.3% + $0.10 (Clover Register plan) and 2.6% + $0.10 (Clover Essentials plan)
• Card-Not-Present Transactions: 3.5% + $0.10 (all plans)

Card-not-present transactions include online sales, phone orders, orders from third-party shopping platforms, manually-keyed-in card payments, and anything else that is not a chip/tap/swipe card payment, cash, or check.

If a huge chunk of your sales happens online, consider a different Clover reseller or a different POS provider altogether to avoid the relatively steep card-not-present payment processing fees.

If you purchase your device from a Clover reseller, your fees and fee payment structure will change. Large retailers may save on payment processing fees if they choose to work with a Clover-authorized reseller.

Clover offers 36-month and 48-month contracts with early termination fees should you cancel your contract early. There’s also nothing you can do with your Clover hardware if you stop using Clover POS software since Clover hardware is proprietary. The company won’t fix hardware that you obtain from any source other than Clover.com.

If you work with a Clover reseller, you are subject to that reseller’s terms, so do your research before committing. Read your contract and other customer reviews of your potential merchant service provider to avoid Clover scams.

The bottom line is that no matter where you get your Clover hardware, buying expensive proprietary hardware is a big commitment. So, make sure Clover is right for you before shelling out the money for the fancy POS hardware.