The 6 Best POS Systems For Food Trucks

In addition to a base subscription plan, many food truck owners also purchase these software add-ons:

• Loyalty Program Subscription: $45/month
• Square Marketing: $15 to $425/month, depending on the number of email contacts you have

You may also upgrade your Square Online website to include QR code ordering, text order status updates, and item reviews, as well as remove the Square subdomain and branding.

Square’s easy-to-use register functions include conversational item modifiers and the ability to limit or update your truck’s item availability based on your current inventory, which you can track in real-time. You can sync your in-person and online orders to a kitchen display system to ensure you get orders right every time. Registers and kitchen displays run on compact, battery-operated iPads.

With a free Square Restaurant online ordering site (or low-cost if you’d like to remove Square branding), you can upload your food truck menu, locations, schedule/events, and embed online ordering and eGift cards for sale. You can also embed a custom contact form to accept event catering inquiries and add an event calendar so that people can keep up with your food truck.

Square integrates with your Google business profile, so customers can order directly from your Google business profile. Plus, Square integrates with all popular social media platforms.

Square runs on smartphones and tablets, so you can turn hardware you already own into a POS terminal. You will also need a Square Contactless Card + Chip Reader to accept payments.

Other Square hardware offerings that are great for food trucks include:

• Square Terminal: take orders and payments on a handheld device
• Square Mobile POS Kit: includes compact smartphone and built-in Square card reader
• Square POS Register Bundles: includes things like card readers, POS stands, cash registers, printers, customer-facing displays, and barcode scanners

Read more about it in our guide to Square POS hardware before purchasing any equipment.

Square has an in-house payment processor, which you must use on every subscription plan. Square charges the following fees per transaction on the free plan:

• Card-Present Payments: 2.6% + $0.15
• Manual Card Entry Payments: 3.5% + $0.15
• Online Payments: 2.9% + $0.30

On the Pro plan, card-present payments (i.e. in-person payments) have a slightly lower processing fee. If you have high sales volumes, upgrading to the Plus plan could end up saving you money.

The Essentials plan includes online ordering, tableside ordering, QR code ordering, and advanced inventory management.

The Premium plan includes hotel revenue management, API access to build your custom integrations, and custom payment processing rates to help you lower credit card processing fees.

If you own a restaurant in addition to a food truck or want more ordering types, go with the Essentials plan. Very large restaurant/food truck businesses should consider the Premium plan to get lower payment processing rates.

Lightspeed’s best quick-serve and fast-casual restaurant features include:

• Separate quick-serve and full-service modes
• Order holds, which allow servers to take the next person in line if someone forgets their wallet or needs to wait to pay
• Custom online and self-ordering menus so that customers can’t order items like alcohol or miss-modifiers
• Set items as a composite of individual ingredients, which is great for fast-casual restaurants serving buildable items like grain bowls or burritos
• Automated inventory tracking with auto-86ing on POS screens so that servers can’t accidentally sell what they don’t have
• Kitchen display software with easy order fulfillment management

Lightspeed has great ingredient tracking and automatically removes an ingredient when you run out of it, so a customer won’t be disappointed if they order something online that you don’t have in-store.

You can also create rules in Lightspeed’s inventory management dashboard that alert you when an item is low in stock and allow you to generate a purchase order email or connect the alert to a supplier’s website if you order from there.

Lightspeed Restaurant hardware is all iPad-based. Hardware options include a countertop POS with a customer display, standalone iPads for tableside ordering, and/or iPad kiosks for self-ordering. Lightspeed’s KDS is also iPad-based.

You may purchase iPads on your own or through Lightspeed along with stands, cash drawers, and printers

It’s important to purchase your card reader (Lightspeed supports Verifone products) from Lightspeed to make sure your Lightspeed Payments account is configured correctly with the hardware.

We advise contacting Lightspeed to get a custom quote on a hardware bundle.

Lightspeed has an in-house processing program, Lightspeed Payments. Its fees are 2.6% + $0.10 for card-present transactions or 2.6% + $0.30 for card-not-present transactions for business owners on the Essentials plan.

Those on the Premium plan can get a custom payment processing rate, which should be lower than the rate offered on lower-level plans.

Revel is entirely quote-based and it can be difficult to lock down exactly how much you’ll be paying but to get the best pricing, you will likely have to sign up for a two or three-year commitment.

Many food truck owners, especially those who also operate restaurants, will require a custom software plan and several POS terminals.

Revel offers a combined retail and restaurant POS system so that you may sell retail items, weighted food items, made-to-order food, and more from your food trucks and restaurants.

Larger restaurants that provide catering services or rent out their location for special events will appreciate Revel’s appointment scheduling, service charging, pre-ordering module, and catering reporting capabilities. Also, Revel offers age verification functions, which are great for wine trucks and event catering.

Food service businesses with multiple restaurants and/or food trucks will appreciate Revel’s enterprise-level menu, inventory, scheduling, and reporting functions. There’s even franchise management built into Revel’s software.

Revel software runs on iPads.

You may get a quote for Revel proprietary iPads, iPad stands, self-serve ordering kiosks, card readers, printers, and auxiliary hardware. You also have the option to purchase compatible hardware on your own.

Revel offers an in-house payment processing system, Revel Advantage. You will have to contact Revel for a custom payment processing quote based on your business’s sales volume, average ticket size, and time in business, among other factors.

You also have the choice to integrate your POS with third-party payment processors, such as Adyen or FreedomPay. You may face an extra monthly fee if you choose a third-party provider over Revel Advantage.

Toast also offers several add-on products, everything from third-party delivery services to kitchen displays to Toast Payroll. The most popular add-ons are the marketing and digital ordering suite products, which include the following:

• Digital Ordering
• Loyalty
• Gift Cards
• Email Marketing
• Toast Catering & Events

Toast will often bundle add-ons and multiple POS terminals with a bulk discount, so you may get a better deal when you get a custom quote from a Toast representative.

Note: If you are on the Quick Start Bundle plan, you can incorporate Toast add-ons for no monthly cost, just an increased payment processing fee.

One of Toast’s most unique and comprehensive features for food truck owners looking to build a solid customer base is the customer loyalty program, which includes:

• Multiple Enrollment Opportunities: Customers can enroll during or after checkout on in-person, self-serve kiosks, delivery, and takeout orders, plus via a link on your website.
• Custom Account Information: Customers can sign up via text or email and receive a welcome message, plus updates on your loyalty program.
• Earn On Every Purchase: Customers automatically earn points with every purchase made through a card linked to their loyalty account (automatically set to whatever card was used to pay for the order during signup). They may add more linked cards whenever they want and manually enter their loyalty account information on purchases made with cash or check.
• Customer Loyalty Account Link: Customers get a digital loyalty account link where they can view their points, see ways they can earn, and add their birthday to get a birthday reward.
• Automated Redemption Prompt: Once customers have spent enough to earn a reward, they are automatically asked if they’d like to redeem it. This automated prompt shows up on online, takeout, and in-person orders, so customers will never forget to redeem their points.

We also like Toast’s online ordering add-on, which allows customers to choose from multiple food truck and restaurant locations for curbside pickup and delivery. You can also list your food truck on the Toast Takeout app and third-party pickup/delivery platforms to get even more exposure. Like Square, you can allow customers to order with Google.

If you get a lunch rush or large mobile order, you can easily set a cutoff for online ordering, that way no one gets overwhelmed trying to prepare too many items.

Plus, Toast has recently released a new product, Toast Catering & Events, that helps food truck owners accept pre-orders and order requests online, make estimates and send invoices for catering orders, sync events with a Google calendar, and create special catering menus. You can even send a contract with custom terms to make sure you get paid for your services.

Toast offers a Starter register kit and accessories exclusively for users on the Quick Start Bundle and Core plans. If you decide on the Growth or Build Your Own plan, you need to contact Toast to get a custom quote on POS and kiosk hardware.

Starter kits include either a handheld or countertop POS system, router, WiFi access point, and basic POS software subscription. You could also purchase only a self-serve kiosk if you run a business such as a food stall.

The Handheld kit, which includes the Toast Go 2, is one of the best restaurant handheld POS systems.

Alternatively, you can pay $0/month, with $0 upfront, and pay higher payment processing fees to cover your Starter kit hardware and monthly software subscription costs.

Toast requires you to use its in-house payment processor, which charges the following payment processing fees per transaction and the rates vary by plan, giving you the option to pay for your services upfront if you want a lower rate or, if you’re short on cash, you can pay higher transaction fees.

If you can, sign up for the Standard plan and purchase your equipment upfront. The amount you save on payment processing fees will probably more than cover your monthly fee.

Or, consider using equipment financing to pay for your Toast hardware.

On higher plans, you must get a custom payment processing quote.

If you don’t use any integrations or add-ons, TouchBistro is $69/month for one register, billed annually.

Optional add-ons include:

• Online Ordering: $50/month
• Reservations: $229/month
• Gift Cards: $25/month
• Loyalty Program: $99/month
• Marketing: $99/month

The reservations app can be used to accept catering orders and book events.

TouchBistro offers a hybrid cloud-based and local installation, which is a very attractive feature for food truck owners who are not always tethered to any WiFi connection. With this setup, you can use iPads to take online orders but can also connect your food truck POS to a locally installed router, which allows you to take orders and payments on iPads without internet access.

Food trucks that also offer mobile catering will appreciate these features:

• Taking Catering Orders: Caterers can create a quote and take notes for a future order, require a deposit for future orders, and choose how far in advance someone can order. You can also set concrete event start and end times.
• Delivery Customization: Caterers can set different delivery zones, increase fees, and set minimum order amounts per delivery zone. If a customer inputs an address outside your delivery zone, an automated message will ask the customer to contact you to discuss a custom order.
• On-Location Sales: You can bring items that are on your catering menu with you to sell on-location with TouchBistro’s hybrid system.
• Customer Accounts: Allow billing to regular catering customers’ house accounts with saved payment types. Take partial or full balance payoffs. Allow customers to preload credits to an account.

TouchBistro’s online ordering platform allows you to do many things, but one of the biggest benefits for food trucks is that you can post your locations on your own branded web-based app so people have an idea of where to find you. You can include restaurant and food truck locations.

With the web-based app, you can also:

• Customize your online presence by branding the app, adding your socials, and creating pages such as “FAQs” and “Contact Us”
• Accept orders for pickup and delivery with estimated wait times that can vary depending on how many orders are in your kitchen order queue
• Allow customers to sign up for, automatically collect, and redeem loyalty program points from the online ordering platform
• Generate item pairings that show up as dynamic upselling suggestions on orders
• Accept customer feedback to assist you in making your food truck business better (and boosting the confidence of stellar employees)

TouchBistro software runs on iPads, and you can configure iPads as POS terminals, customer-facing displays, kitchen display screens, and self-serve kiosks.

You must contact TouchBistro for a quote on hardware such as card readers, iPad stands, and cash drawers.

You can use TouchBistro Payments’ 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, and TouchBistro will give you a custom payment processing rate quote.

The best food truck POS plan for Clover merchants is the Counter Service Restaurant plan. But all Clover plans range from $0 – $84.95/month, with the free plan covering just processing. Your prices will also vary depending on if you buy your hardware outright or if you choose to pay monthly.

The above pricing is for merchants who purchase their software/hardware package directly from Clover. Some Clover-authorized resellers may charge a different monthly subscription, but more on this later.

Clover’s base offering includes an online ordering page that connects to your Google business profile, a loyalty program builder, gift card sales, scan-to-pay QR code ordering, and retail sales functionalities.

Clover users have access to the Clover app market, which includes hundreds of retail, restaurant, and general business apps made by Clover and third-party providers to help your restaurant succeed. There’s even an app specifically geared toward food trucks, Truckfindr, that allows you to:

• Put a pin on all your truck’s locations and update it in real-time so everyone can easily visit your truck
• Update your location a week in advance
• Allow customers to order on your online ordering platform or app and provide customers with a link to track the status of their orders
• Publish a custom catering menu for pre-ordering
• Sign customers up for SMS updates on anything from your location and specials to a new truck opening

You can also add apps such as an ID verification app to make sure you’re selling alcohol legally in your restaurant and/or food truck and third-party delivery integrations.

Clover has a unique software/hardware offering. Your hardware and software are tied together. This means that the reseller you purchase your Clover hardware from also provides the Clover software and the merchant account (which you need for payment processing.)

If you purchase your hardware from Clover, you’ll pay anywhere from $199 – $1,799 for the Clover card reader up to the Clover Station.

If you use Clover’s parent company, Fiserv, for payment processing, you’ll get the following flat-rate payment processing:

• Card-Present Transactions: 2.3% – 2.6% + $0.10 per transaction
  
• Card-Not-Present Transactions: 3.5% + $0.10 per transaction
  

Card-not-present transactions include any phone order, third-party ordering platform order (e.g., Grubhub and Order With Google), invoice payment, online order on a Clover-hosted website, manually-keyed-in card payment, and any form of payment that is not a swipe/chip/tap card payment, cash, or check.

If a large amount of your revenue comes from online or phone orders, choose a different payment processor or POS provider for your restaurant.