eHopper POS Review

Looking for a free POS solution?
Try Square POS

Pros

• Free plan available
• Free terminal
• Easy to use
• eCommerce integration

Cons

• Rudimentary feature-set
• Limited integrations
• Basic reporting
• Buggy

Overview

It’s FREE!

I thought I’d start with that, seeing as eHopper’s price is the first thing people tend to notice — not the fact that it’s a globally-available mobile POS solution, that it’s easy to use, or the breadth of hardware options it offers (including Android, Windows, iOS, and Poynt). Nope, we only care about the money.

Besides free POS software, eHopper, created by B2B Soft co-founders Gary Khabinski and Igor Senchenko in 2012, also offers free payment processing and even a free PAX S300 payment terminal ($249 value). Is this all too good to be true? Well, kind of. The POS has all of the standard features of any cloud POS, but they’re pretty basic, particularly on the free plan. And to get free payment processing, you’ll have to pass your processing costs along to your customers, which some businesses might not be comfortable with. Even so, there is a lot to like about this POS, even aside from its affordability. eHopper has no long-term contract, can accept just about any kind of payment from Apple Pay to EBT, and is suitable for small businesses in just about any industry (at least, theoretically).

Read on to learn about this interesting free POS option and find out if it’s right for your business.

Don’t have time to read an entire review? Take a look at our top-rated point of sale solutions for a few quick recommendations. Every option we present here offers excellent customer support, detailed user interfaces, and easy-to-use software, all for a reasonable price.

Read on to find out more.

Pricing

eHopper offers a 30-day free trial, so you can take it for a spin before going live. There’s no obligation until you actually pick a plan, which means there are no contracts to sign and no need to hand over any credit card information for the trial. Once you’ve given the system a go and decide to move forward, you can pick one of four month-to-month plans, including the Essential (free) plan, which has all of the basic POS functionality but no customer support or advanced features:

• Essential, FREE — includes one POS with:
  • Order tracking
  • Inventory management
  • Customer management
  • Tip management
  • Modifier management
  • Include/Exclude taxes
  • Assign taxes to products
  • Include tax in the product price
  • Full/Split payments
  • Print/Email receipts
  • Reporting
  • Online documentation
• Freedom, $29.99/month ($29.99/month per additional license) — includes everything in the Essential plan, plus:
  • Preauthorization
  • Directional printing
  • EBT
  • Use eHopper on Poynt Terminal ($39.99/month)
  • Clock in/clock out
  • Menu builder
  • Inventory matrix
  • Ingredients management
  • Save order, pay later
  • Inventory adjustments
  • Store transfer
  • PO receiving
  • Exchanges
  • Self-service kiosk
  • Cash denomination count
  • Barcode manager
  • Low stock alert
  • QuickBooks integration
  • Email support
  • Implementation and training
  • Phone and chat support
• Restaurant, $39.99/month ($39.99/month per additional license) — includes everything in the Freedom plan, plus Table Management and Floor Planning
• Omnichannel, $79.99/month ($39.99/month per additional license) — includes everything in the Freedom and Restaurant plans, plus:
  • eCommerce
  • Loyalty program
  • Marketing suite
  • Digital signage

All plans are $39.99/register/month on Poynt, except for Essential, which is only available on Android, iPad, and Windows PC.

Cloud-Based Or Locally-Installed

eHopper is entirely cloud-based, so all of your business data is stored on external servers and synced to your device via the internet. However, so your business isn’t entirely dependent on the reliability of your internet connection, a copy of your data is saved to your web browser every time you open the system. That means you can continue to process sales even if your Wi-Fi goes down, though you won’t be able to accept credit card transactions.

Specific Industry

eHopper is best suited for small retail establishments. The system does allow you to sell products by the pound, inch, yard, ounce, etc., and designate the price accordingly at the register. This opens it up for fabric stores or any establishment that sells its wares without a fixed price.

eHopper also advertises itself as a restaurant and bar POS, but I really can’t say it’s equipped for anything more than quick-serve. Most of the basic features are there — modifiers, tips, voids, table management, pre-auth, directional printing, and even ingredient tracking. However, the way that all of those features are implemented is just that — basic — and without a good comps-and-voids system or strong reporting function, I wouldn’t recommend it for a full-service restaurant.

Specific Size Of Business

Offering access to a limited number of reports and somewhat basic POS functionality, eHopper is really only suitable for small businesses, and even then, some small businesses will need more functionality than eHopper can offer.

Ease Of Use

Though not the most intuitive system I’ve ever worked with, the layout is simple enough that you can set up your entire business without much help. Everything except for your hardware configuration is set up from the back office: inputting inventory, managing customer accounts, creating employee profiles, etc. And with all of the different areas grouped under their respective headings (inventory, customers, employees), navigation is easy.

As you can see, the interface itself is very bland and basic — which is not necessarily a bad thing, particularly if you only need basic POS functionality.

During setup, eHopper offers some helpful videos and checklists that help orient you to the system. Additionally, eHopper has a knowledgebase with articles covering all topics related to POS setup and usage, such as importing inventory, setting up table management, processing exchanges, and much more.

However, the phrase “easy to use” can only be applied to the software because of its general simplicity and not necessarily for its implicit helpfulness. Yes, there’s a shallow learning curve, but that’s because the depth of features is, well, shallow (more about the specific features in a bit).

I did have some trouble figuring out how to assign a cost price to an item (so I could compare it to my sale price and calculate my margin) since it’s under the “vendor” tab instead of “pricing” in the product setup window. I tried watching the training videos to figure it out, but the videos are limited and only cover the most basic functions of the POS. I eventually figured it all out, but it took a couple of rounds with the software and some intuitive leaps to get there.

But overall, I would say it’s fairly easy to set up the system and to figure out how its features work.

Hardware & Operating System Requirements

eHopper makes it a point to open up its software to run on a variety of operating systems. Currently, the software is recommended for Windows laptops, tablets, and PCs, Android tablets, iPads, and Poynt wireless smart terminals (pictured below).

Though pricey (about $500-$700, depending on the model), Poynt’s sleek payment devices can make it convenient for customers to pay at their table or anywhere else, and it also has a customer-facing display and built-in printer.

There are also standard terminal options if you don’t want to spring for a Poynt terminal — which very well may be the case if you’re interested in eHopper for its free or low price! As mentioned, eHopper is currently offering new customers a free Pax S300 terminal, which has a $249 value and can support EMV and NFC payments. And, interestingly, Canadian customers on the Freedom and Omnichannel plans can use the Clover Flex smart terminal on Windows PC and Android devices.

As for supported tablets and operating systems, you can find exact hardware specifications on eHopper’s website, but the basic operating system requirements are as follows:

• Android tablets with version 4.4.2 and higher
• Any Windows tablet with Windows 8 or 10
• Any iPad with iOS 9.3 + or later

You can also use eHopper on a Windows laptop or PC with a Chrome browser version 51 and higher.

On its website, eHopper sells all-in-one POS hardware bundles — including the Android-based HP Engage One Prime, the Elo PayPoint Plus system for iPad, and others — as well as individual tablets, terminals, and POS accessories.

Note that eHopper does not have a mobile app to support iPhones or Android smartphones. Also, and I’ll get into this a little more in the User Reviews section, but multiple customers have mentioned bugginess and compatibility issues with Samsung Galaxy Tabs (though eHopper does officially support these devices).

Features

If all you need is basic cloud POS features, eHopper’s got ’em. The POS company has also expanded its feature-set over the past couple of years to include more functions, such as eCommerce, online ordering, loyalty, and some restaurant-specific features as well, such as ingredient management. However, the breadth of features is not matched by any significant depth. None of the features are exactly best-in-class. eHopper is also still missing some key retail features, such as store credit and gift cards. Foodservice businesses may be frustrated by the inability to comp items or integrate a weight scale. The system also doesn’t let you generate purchase orders or integrate with payroll.

With all that said, I think that for its price, eHopper’s feature-set is more than adequate for many small businesses. You get most of the features in the $29.99 Freedom plan, which could make eHopper a reasonable choice of POS for a small retail or convenience store.

Anyway, here are some of eHopper’s most notable features:

• Basic POS Features: As far as the actual front-end register part of the system, you’ve got all the necessary bits. Add items to orders by scanning a barcode, searching for it, or selecting the quick key on the screen. Add tips to orders, and assign discounts by individual products or entire transactions. Ring up and then hold multiple orders, which you can call up later. Split payments between multiple tender types. Choose to either print or email receipts, and let your customers sign for credit card transactions directly on the POS screen. The POS also supports exchanges and returns but not store credit.

• Cash Management: Though not something I would rave about, I have certainly seen worse cash management features. You can perform a starting till count when you open the register, make any pay-ins or payouts, and do a final till count when you close the register. Generate a Z-report with a comprehensive overview of tender counts, net sales with tips and taxes, any variance in your till counts, etc. You can also designate which salespeople (the lowest role level) have access to each register, and you can edit prices directly in the shopping cart.

• Settings: eHopper offers a couple of different currency and language options, which is nice, but all the other settings are fairly basic. You can set more than one tax level, and eHopper just added the ability to include taxes in your product price, set up multiline taxes, and create tax exemptions. After that, the only thing left to do is customize your receipt header/footer and decide how the date and time should be displayed.
• Employee Management: eHopper lets administrators create individual employee profiles with designated roles and unique login pins. There are four roles (salesperson, sales manager, back-office operator, and administrator), each with different access permissions. The permissions for each role are also customizable.

Additionally, eHopper has a couple of other employee features, including an employee time clock and employee tip tracking.

• Reporting: This function is very basic because there are only about 15 reports. As you might expect, the Tips report displays the basic transaction information of any order processed with a credit card, so you know how much each server has earned in tips. Another important report, the Z-report, displays a tender breakdown, your net sales with taxes and tips, any pay-ins and payouts, and data about who opened and closed the register, along with some other more detailed information.

The Product Mix report is essentially the only access you have to your most important data. From it, you can view each item, its ID number, department, category, register, employee, quantity on hand, quantity sold, and gross sales. This report can be filtered by a specified date range, register, employee, department, and category. You can also now filter the Product Mix using a custom timeframe to see what’s selling at certain times of the day.

The Orders report shows the details of recent transactions or transactions over a set time and allows you to filter orders by each store if you have more than one location.

With eHopper, you can also export your reports to a .csv file.

• Customer Management: You may assign customers to a transaction by looking them up in the database or creating a new profile with their name and basic contact information. A customer’s orders will be recorded for later access and will show up in the Orders report as well.

• Stock Control: You have the option of tracking your stock levels by indicating the current quantity, recommended quantity, and minimum quantity of each product. The Product Mix report will allow you to see what you still have in stock and how many you sold. The system can also notify you when an item reaches its minimum quantity number so that you can reorder. However, the system does not allow you to place purchase orders (though you can input them and track them).
• Restaurant Features: eHopper has the following restaurant features. Currently, eHopper is offering its online ordering module free of charge for three months.
  • Table management
  • Menu builder
  • Online ordering
  • Pre-auth for credit card tabs
  • Manage quick-sale, take-out, drive-thru, and delivery orders
  • Digital menu board option (requires Omnichannel plan)

The Menu Builder tool, pictured above, is basic but capable enough and lets you drag menu items and categories to where you want them on the POS screen.

eHopper’s table management function is basic (you may be noticing a theme here) but still adequate. You can add, edit, and name each of your service sections and tables. You can also move, resize, delete, and edit tables to match your floor plan. It’s easy to edit table orders, assign and move servers, and move guests. There is a basic table management reporting function as well.

• Loyalty: Available to paid users (Freedom plan and higher), eHopper’s loyalty add-on costs $9.99/month for the first 1,000 loyalty visits per month and $5.00 for each additional 1,000 visits within a month. Or, if you are on the Omnichannel plan, the first 1,000 products are included at no extra cost. The program supports physical loyalty cards as well as mobile numbers. Customers can earn points each time they visit or based on the amount spent and exchange them for rewards.
• Self-Service Kiosk: This new feature is available on the Freedom plan and higher. Customers can place and pay for their orders, or, depending on your setup, place orders on the kiosk and pay at the register. The feature, available as a free add-on, supports multiple devices, including HP Engage One Prime, Android tablets, and iPads. I can’t speak to its quality since it’s not available in the demo version, nor have I seen any reviews from customers who have used it, but I will say that it’s probably about the cheapest self-service kiosk POS option I’ve seen.
• eCommerce: I don’t have hands-on experience with eHopper’s eComm add-on, but it syncs your orders with your POS for store pick up or delivery, and it includes a mobile-friendly website with your own domain. The add-on is currently free for three months (with an eHopper account), then $49.99/month for the first 500 products and $10.00 more for each additional 500 products a month. You can watch a demo on eHopper’s website.

• Item Creation: eHopper allows you to name your products, write descriptions, nest each item in a department and category, upload an image, and note whether a product is taxable and discountable. You can add item images and import inventory items as well. You can choose from a list of units (inch, ounce, pound, gram) by which to sell each product, and designate whether the price should be fixed or manually calculated when you ring the item up. Unfortunately, there is no weight scale integration, so you’ll need to input weights manually. It’s also possible to record the sale price, cost price, and vendor for each item, along with pertinent vendor information, such as contact info, tax ID, and vendor type.
• Control Number: If you are a merchant who works in Puerto Rico, you are in luck. eHopper has a control number option for Puerto Rican merchants who are required to display a control number on every receipt.
• Multilocation: eHopper can sell from multiple locations, and it is possible to transfer stock from one location to another.

A couple of other notable features of eHopper are its ability to accept EBT payments and its cash discount/credit surcharge processing model. But I’ll talk about those features more in the section on payment processing.

Customer Service & Support

If you’re using eHopper on the Essential plan (the free version) you won’t have access to all of eHopper’s support avenues, but you do have several self-support options:

• Training Videos: The training videos cover basic POS functions but don’t necessarily offer much information beyond what you can discover for yourself by simply tooling around in the software for an hour or so.
• Knowledgebase: The searchable knowledgebase contains the most information about the system. It’s very easy to read and adequately covers all of eHopper’s various functionality.
• Community Forum: There’s not much on the community forum, except for a bunch of unanswered questions and a couple of posts from eHopper employees explaining how to use the forum.
• Blog: eHopper has a blog on its website, which has a lot of good POS content, though it doesn’t offer anything in terms of tech support.
• Webinars: From time to time, eHopper hosts free webinars on various topics, such as online ordering.

If you end up going with the Freedom plan (the paid version), these are the extra support channels available to you:

• Phone: You can call customer service seven days a week between 6 AM and 1 AM EST.
• Email: Email support is available 24/7.
• Support Ticket: The ticket system functions pretty similarly to email. You can use it to ask support questions and request new features.
• Chat: As far as I can tell, the chat is available 24/7 as well.
• Training: When you’re first starting up, you can schedule up to four training sessions with technical support, each session lasting up to two hours.

Compatible Credit Card Processors

Because eHopper is available internationally, your payment processing options are pretty open. You can choose to integrate with USAePay (one of the major gateways) or TSYS. Or you can use the EMV and NFC-enabled PAX terminal, which integrates with Fiserv. Between Fiserv, TSYS, and USAePay, almost any processor you want to go through should be covered. However, available processing options vary based on which terminal you use and which country your business is located in. Find the full list of eHopper merchant account options on eHopper’s payment processing webpage.

Importantly, eHopper offers free credit card processing to US customers only. This is achieved by passing along your processing costs to your customers via a credit card surcharge or cash discount program — which method you use depends on your state, as credit card surcharges aren’t allowed in all states. You have probably seen this type of system before at gas stations where you are charged less if you pay with cash or debit. Credit surcharge/cash discount payment processing may work well for some small businesses, such as small convenience stores or coffee carts, but probably not for businesses with larger transaction sizes where customers expect to be able to pay easily with a credit card. Make sure you read up on credit card surcharges before you decide if this processing model is right for your business: check out our article, Your Complete Guide To Credit Card Surcharges.

Some more things to know about payment processing with eHopper is that the system supports EBT payments, which, again, could make eHopper a good choice for small grocery stores or convenience stores. Additionally, customers can pay with NFC payments, such as Apple Pay and Samsung Pay (if your CC processor supports those payments). You can also order barcode gift cards coded to work with the eHopper system, but the POS does not offer any gift card management features.

Integrations & Add-Ons

Currently, the only third-party software eHopper integrates with is QuickBooks Online.

eHopper does offer an “App Directory” that allows users on the Freedom plan and higher to select additional features and paid add-ons, such as Loyalty and eCommerce. At the outset, it looks a little like Clover’s App Market, but if you take a closer look, eHopper’s version is about as bare-bones as you can get. In total, there are 21 apps to choose from, and most just cover basic functionality, such as the time clock and credit card processor integration.

User Reviews

eHopper is not registered with the BBB and has zero reviews or complaints on that website. Elsewhere on the web, there are a decent amount of reviews, though they are mixed. eHopper has 3/5 stars on the Google Play store, out of 38 reviews. eHopper also has 3/5 stars on the App Store, though there are only three total reviews.

Negative Reviews & Complaints

Here are some of the common issues I noticed in online comments:

• General Lack Of Features: Without a weight scale integration or the ability to properly comp, even some of the smallest retail and foodservice merchants I’ve worked with would balk at eHopper. Some reviewers also mention the overly basic reporting suite. The free plan is especially bare-bones.
• Credit Surcharge Processing: This feature is a good thing for some merchants but not so much for others. A lot of businesses aren’t that comfortable passing on their credit card fees to customers, commenting that it could turn away customers who prefer to pay with a credit card.
• Samsung Galaxy Tab Compatibility Issues: Multiple Galaxy Tab users have complained that eHopper doesn’t work on their device; the app either won’t open or it crashes. This problem seems to be primarily related to the Tab v3.
• Buggy: Some customers say the system tends to stall out or behave erratically. Sometimes the printer speed can be slow as well. There are a lot of negative reviews on the Google Play store, mostly due to complaints of Android tablet bugginess. Some users comment that eHopper works better on PC.
• No Mobile Support: Many users wish they could run the app on their smartphone. Currently, you can only use the POS on a tablet or PC.

Positive Reviews & Testimonials

Here are some of the things that customers like about eHopper:

• Easy To Use/Simple: You can’t argue with simplicity if that’s what you need. It can be all too easy to clutter up an interface (even with a limited amount of features), but eHopper manages to keep things simple, relatively intuitive, and aesthetically pleasing.
• Good Value: Something else you can’t argue with. If you don’t need integrated credit card processing and find yourself comfortable enough with the system that you don’t anticipate the need for technical support, free is a great price. Even the paid plan is pretty cheap, though, priced at well below the industry average.
• Basics Are All There: If you don’t need a system with any bells or whistles, it’s difficult to go wrong with eHopper. Sure, you’ll start running into problems when you begin to expand, and if there’s still no ability to export products or reports at that point, you’re going to be in trouble, but until that happens, eHopper can take care of you.
• Free Terminal: Several customers praise the free touchscreen terminal as a benefit of choosing eHopper.
• Free Credit Card Processing: Free credit card processing is certainly a rarity; though the cash discount/credit surcharge pricing model doesn’t work for all businesses, some merchants appreciate this feature and see it as the system’s biggest perk.
• Good Customer Support: Multiple users mention eHopper’s good customer support. Since free plan users don’t have access to live support, I assume these reviews are from paid users.

Final Verdict

eHopper is a solid budget POS system, but I wouldn’t say it’s a great one. All of the standard features are there, but the interface and the functionality are both pretty basic. However, eHopper has recently implemented credit surcharge no-fee credit card processing, which could make this POS interesting for certain business types. Convenience stores or small grocery stores that want to accept EBT may also find eHopper to be a suitable choice of POS. eHopper has additionally expanded its feature-set over the past couple of years to include eCommerce, online ordering, loyalty, and NFC support. With that said, many features are still absent — gift card management, a comp system for bars and restaurants, a weight scale integration, advanced reporting, store credit, and purchase orders, to name a few.

With a (very basic) free plan, free terminal, and even free credit card processing, eHopper is definitely worth checking out if the idea of a completely free system appeals to you. But keep in mind that there are other free POS systems. For example, Square POS is free, and though you’ll pay a flat fee for credit card processing, the feature set is more advanced (and you may prefer not to pass on your credit card fees to customers anyway).

In the end, the most appealing aspects of this software are its ease of use and low price, but that’s simply not enough to build a solid business on. Particularly not when there are so many great POS alternatives out there. You can always explore eHopper’s software for yourself. But once you’ve given it a go, I would encourage you to take another look around before jumping on board with eHopper.

Check Out Our Preferred Restaurant POS Software 🏆

	TouchBistro	Clover POS	Toast POS	Lightspeed POS
	Visit Site Read Review	Visit Site Read Review	Visit Site Read Review	Visit Site Read Review
Pricing	$69+/mn	$30+/mo	$100+/mo	$69+/mn
Ease of Use	Very Easy	Very Easy	Very Easy	Very Easy
Software Type	Hybrid	Hybrid	Cloud-based	Cloud-based
Next Steps	Visit Site	Visit Site	Visit Site	Visit Site

See more information

Hide

We've done in-depth testing of each and confidently recommend them.

Check Out Our Preferred Restaurant POS Software 🏆

	TouchBistro	Clover POS	Toast POS	Lightspeed POS
	Visit Site Read Review	Visit Site Read Review	Visit Site Read Review	Visit Site Read Review
Pricing	$69+/mn	$30+/mo	$100+/mo	$69+/mn
Ease of Use	Very Easy	Very Easy	Very Easy	Very Easy
Software Type	Hybrid	Hybrid	Cloud-based	Cloud-based
Next Steps	Visit Site	Visit Site	Visit Site	Visit Site

See more information

Hide

We've done in-depth testing of each and confidently recommend them.

Read Next

Looking For The Best Merchant Services? Try These 8 Small Business Credit Card Payment Processing Companies In 2021

Read More

Jan 6, 2021 328 Filed under: Credit Card Processing

Need A Retail POS System For Your Small Business? These 7 Great Solutions Can Solve Your Store’s Woes

Read More

Jan 8, 2021 6 Filed under: Point of Sale