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According to our research and first-hand user testing, Toast is the best free POS system on the market due to its powerful hospitality toolkit, and complementary handheld device which lets servers take orders and make payments on the go. Retail stores will be better off going for Square instead though, as the POS offers a raft of sector-specific features, reliable 24/7 support options, and lets you get selling for free with its bonus card reader.
There are loads of great free POS options out there, including SpotOn which lets counter service businesses get started with a POS 15″ terminal, and Zettle by PayPal which boasts ultra-low transaction fees. To help match you to a solution that fits your needs, we’ve reviewed the best free POS software below — comparing their features, unique strengths, and additional costs.
Alternatively, if you’re willing to invest in higher-quality software, fill in a couple of simple questions using our free POS system comparison tool. We’ll get back to you with tailor-made quotes from leading POS providers, to help you take the guesswork out of POS pricing.
The Best Free POS Software Platforms Currently Available
As the economic climate grows even more challenging, free POS software gives businesses a way to scale back costs without compromising operational efficiency.
We’ve rounded up the best free options, complete with lists of the main pros and cons that can help guide your decision. Here are Tech.co’s top picks for the best free POS systems:
- Toast – Best free POS for food businesses
- Square – Best free POS for small stores
- SpotOn – Best free POS hardware package
- Zettle By PayPal – Best free POS for mobile sellers
Scroll down for detailed reviews of each POS, or click on the names above to jump directly to the system you’re interested in.
1. Toast
- Best free hardware and software package for food businesses
- Transaction fees: From 2.49% + 15¢
Toast is an industry-leading POS system designed specifically for food and beverage businesses. With a spectacular array of hospitality features – including digital menus and real-time analytics – and a handheld ordering device available with its free Starter Kit plan, Toast will be a great option for most small food vendors.
Combine this with Toast’s slick interface – which boasts the best user experience out of any provider we tested – and it’s no surprise why the POS sailed to the top of our list.
Toast menu customization feature. Source: Toast Tab
When we tested out Toast, we appreciated its clean, modern design, and the fact that its software led us on a smooth user journey. Specifically, one user tester mentioned that it offered “everything that they needed” without the software feeling cluttered with unnecessary features. This gives Toast a leg up over systems like Square, as it took users a bit longer to search for key features with the alternative.
It’s worth noting, however, that Toast isn’t currently compatible with iOS hardware, as they instead offer their own restaurant-proof devices. So, if you’re after a setup compatible with existing iPads you own, or want a retail-focused option, we’d recommend using Square instead.
Learn more about how Toast vs Square compare.
Pros
- Great for Android users with built-in interface
- Strong menu customization for your team
- Support for tableside ordering and payment
Cons
- Doesn't work on iOS devices
- No integrated payment processors
- Limited help & support offered
- Point of sale plan with prices starting from $69/month
- Three restaurant plans with prices starting from $110/month
- Hardware package costs $799 plus $499 installation
- Free Pay-as-you-go plan available
- Transaction fee: 2.99% + $0.15
The engagement features suggested campaigns to help us attract more customers. Source: Tech.co testing
Businesses using the free plan can also showcase their offering through digital menus, giving customers a chance to check out menu items virtually by scanning a QR code on their table, before a server comes to take their order. If you want to unlock Toast’s mobile ordering feature, you’ll have to pay extra as this isn’t included in the provider’s free tier.
Who should use Toast?
- Small full-service restaurants
- Businesses that would benefit from digital menus
- Businesses that want to grow their base
Who shouldn’t use Toast?
- Counter-service businesses like cafes and fast casual vendors
- Businesses looking for ultra-low transaction fees
- Businesses that rely heavily on help and support
If you like Toast, you might also like…
- Square, if you run a smaller cafe or food business and don’t require tons of advanced features
Why Should You Trust Us?
The Tech.co team pours hundreds of hours into researching the best POS systems because it’s the only way to ensure we’re providing our readers with the most accurate, up-to-date information possible.
We’ve spoken to daily POS users working in restaurants, retail and more, and have tested out more than 20 point-of-sale platforms ourselves, paying close attention to everything from the quality and feel of the hardware to how easy the software is to use, to help you make a clear decision for your business needs.
Head over to our methodology section to learn more about our product review process, which is one of the reasons more than one million users consult our articles every month.
2. Square POS
- Best POS for small retail stores
- Transaction fees: 2.6% + 10¢ to 3.5% + 15¢
Square is a huge name in POS that offers a generous free version currently being used by 4 million merchants worldwide. It’s our best-rated POS for small businesses because of its stripped-back interface and excellent selection of retail and restaurant features. Fortunately for smaller sellers, loads of advanced capabilities are available in its free forever plan Square Free – including advanced reporting and fraud protection – preventing businesses from needing to splurge to access top-tier capabilities.
Pros
- Free to get started
- Slick and stylish hardware that impresses guests
- Serves businesses of all sizes and in all sectors
- Strong analytics, inventory, and third-party integrations
Cons
- Some necessary features for mid-sized businesses cost more
- 3.5% + 15¢ charge for keyed-in transactions
- Support options vary by plan
- Free to install
- No monthly fees, charges transaction fees instead
- 2.6% + 10c fees for card transactions
Square gives you a clear overview of your stock catalog, stock counts, and purchase orders from its user-friendly dashboard. Source: Tech.co testing
With 53% of organizations falling victim to payment fraud in 2023, Square also offers free fraud protection tools to protect businesses against fraudulent buyers. Square Risk Manager uses machine learning to automatically identify and block unusual payment patterns. The tool is customizable too. Businesses can view fraud activity through their analytics dashboard and set rules that automatically control when they accept payments.
All told, if you want to start a business with a free(ish) POS system, and are looking to get started on a user-friendly, stripped-back interface we’d choose Square.
The Square POS includes reports like this sales summary. Source: Tech.co user testing
However, while Square’s modern software and fuss-free offering will lend itself well to smaller businesses, we did find the system to be slightly more clunky than alternatives like Toast and Clover. For this reason, we wouldn’t recommend the system for established businesses that need to serve high-volumes of customers quickly.
Read our Toast vs. Square vs. Clover POS guide to learn about how the systems compare in full.
Square free POS hardware
Aside from access to a range of POS features, free users are also entitled to a free Square card reader for Magstripe – a magnetic stripe reader for swiping credit cards. The card reader, which connects seamlessly with Square’s POS app, accepts swipe payments and is compatible with iOS and Android devices.
Square’s Card Reader for Magstripe lets you take swipe-based payments for free and is compatible with Android and iOS devices. Source: SquareUp
Square’s free Magstripe reader provides smaller vendors with a great opportunity to get selling for free, but if you’re looking to unlock extra streams of revenue with contactless and chip-and-pin payments, you’ll need to upgrade to the Square Reader ($59) or the touch screen Square Terminal ($299).
Square POS transaction fees
Square does charge processing fees: 2.6% + 10 cents for each card-based sale, 3.5% + 15 cents for manually keyed-in sales, and 2.9% plus 30 cents for online sales. Cash and check transactions are free, though.
You’re also able to integrate your POS with your online store for absolutely free, too. But if you want to access team management and payment features, you’ll have to pay $35 per month + $6 per employee for its Payroll add-on.
If basic features won’t cut it for you, you’re also able to trial out Square’s Retail and Restaurant plans for free for the first 30-days.
Who should use Square?
- Small pop-up vendors
- Sellers that are looking for a simple tablet set-up
- Vendors who want to integrate their online store
Who shouldn’t use Square?
- Food businesses after a seamless user experience
- Vendors after a free contactless payment option
- Sellers that want a free terminal
If you like Square, you might also like…
- Clover, if you’re willing to pay monthly fees for stronger POS features and slightly more competitive transaction rates
3. SpotOn
- Best free POS hardware package
- Transaction fees: 2.89% + 25c
SpotOn is an up-and-coming POS system that offers an extremely generous free plan for food businesses to get started on. Aside from a surprisingly expansive software package, SpotOn has the best free hardware options of any other free provider on this list – making it a top contendor for counter service hospitality businesses.
Pros:
- Good range of retail features
- Customizable POS options
- Solid inventory management tools
- Affordable hardware
Cons
- Charges extra for lots of features
- Pricier than similar systems
- Poor help and support tools
- Business management features are lacking
- Hardware available from $25 per month
- Hardware + software from $99 per month
- Full hardware kit + software from $135 per month
- Transaction fee: 1.99% + 20¢ to 2.99% + 20¢
SponOn offers tons of useful payment, reporting, and menu-management features in house, and also lets users connect the software with third-party integrations. Source: Tech.co user testing
SpotOn free POS hardware
The free plan gives you access to a fully water and dust-resistant 15-inch POS terminal which is ideal for busy, counter-service businesses like cafes and fast food vendors. The terminal also comes with an optional customer-facing display, allowing your customers to view sales data in real time.
In addition to the terminal, SpotOn’s free hardware package includes an optional stand, cash draw, and receipt printer. This hardware offering is much more generous than what’s offered with other free plans, making SpotOn an excellent choice for small food businesses without existing hardware, that are looking for something a bit more advanced than a basic tablet set-up.
While our team of user testers found the SpotOn quite easy to use overall, they faced hurdles when it came to setting up custom floor plans and adding products to orders. While it shouldn’t take servers too long to overcome these issues, we’d recommend Toast for food businesses looking for a lower learning curve.
Who should use SpotOn?
- Vendors without pre-existing hardware
- Food businesses that want to grow their customer base
- Counter-service businesses like cafes and fast casual vendors
Who shouldn’t use SpotOn?
- Sellers that want ultra-low transaction fees
- Businesses that already have an iPad setup
- Businesses that rely on customer support
If you like SpotOn, you might also like…
- Square, if you run a smaller food or retail business that is able to get by with a slightly more limited free plan
4. Zettle By PayPal
- Best free POS for mobile sellers
- Transaction fees: Starting from 2.29% + 9¢
Zettle by PayPal is a user-friendly POS app that runs on smartphones and tablets. It may not be the most feature-rich POS we’ve researched, but its software has more than enough capabilities for single-store retailers, pop-ups, and mobile sellers, including impressive stock controls and customer loyalty features. Zettle doesn’t offer any free hardware like other providers on this list, but affordable transaction rates help vendors keep costs low over time.
Pros
- No monthly fees to really keep costs low for small businesses
- Reasonable transaction fees that won't take too much
- Unlimited users across your entire team
Cons
- No add-on features are available
- No CRM or offline mode
- Limited amount of integrations
- Free software
- 2.29% + 9¢ fee for card transactions
- 3.49% + 9¢ fee for manual transactions
- 3.49% + 9¢ fee for invoicing
- Card readers from $29
- Terminals from $199
Zettle by PayPal features
Despite Zettle’s micro-price tab, we were impressed by the POS’s stock management tools. Sellers can use Zettle to track inventory, sift through products, and even set low-stock alerts to get notified before they run out of units. The low-stock alerts and customizable too, allowing sellers to set specific limits for whichever products they choose.
Zettle By PayPal accepts lets vendors accept payments via card, cash, links, and gift cards. Source: Tech.co user testing
Zettle By PayPal’s system is simplistic but easy to use. Our team of user testers were really impressed by its slick, modern design, but found it slightly challenging to complete advanced tasks like adding notes to orders and adding new customer discounts. This suggests that similarly to Square POS the system is suitable for smaller, single-unit businesses like cafes and bars, but may struggle to meet the needs of full-service businesses.
Who should use Zettle by PayPal?
- Pop-up sellers like food trucks or market stalls
- Small retail stores
- First time POS owners
Who shouldn’t use Zettle by PayPal?
- Multi-branch retail stores
- Full-service restaurants
- Sellers after free hardware
If you like Zettle By PayPal, you might also like…
- Square, as the alternative offers a great smartphone or iPad setup, but has a wider variation of hardware options, in case your businesses’ needs evolve over time
Is Free POS Software Really Free?
Most small business POS systems on the market today are cloud-based. This means they are run by a company that hosts their software and licenses it out to businesses, who then use it while connected to the internet.
Since these systems tend to make their money on a subscription basis, some offer a free tier. This allows POS providers to gain brand recognition and creates a broad customer base that might eventually move up to a paid subscription plan.
However, while POS software can be free, most businesses will have to invest in extra hardware devices, which can bump up the price of the system overall. For example, businesses will need a pre-existing tablet or smartphone to download the app, which can cost anywhere from $99 to $799 new. Then you have to factor in the cost of additional hardware like touch-screen card readers ($30-299), cash drawers ($50-200), or barcode scanners ($30-70)
Free POS plans also take a few percentage points off the revenue from each sale. While there’s no up-front cost for using the software, your monthly revenue will drop by around 2-3%, so it’s not really free. However, the price might be more acceptable for a small business that can’t depend on consistently meeting a budget, or an individual vendor that doesn’t sell year round. Square POS operates using this model and provides significantly better features for it.
Find out more – How Much Does a POS System Cost?
Other free POS systems include those offered by companies as a no-strings-attached loss leader to boost their brand name and encourage sales of POS hardware or add-ons, as well as open-source POS software, which is created and maintained by online volunteers but is often clunkier and may be outdated.
Weighing It Up: Are Free POS Systems Worth It?
It’s a hard time to be running a restaurant or business at the moment. As surging inflation rates push up the price of stock, and the cost of living hampers consumer spending, maintaining healthy profits has become even more challenging for business owners.
Free POS software might seem like an easy way to reduce your overheads. But be warned, not all of them are as “free” as they claim to be, and others simply don’t have the features you’ll need to run your business.
If you’re still on the fence about using a free POS system take a look at the benefits and drawbacks associated with pursuing this option below:
Free POS Systems: The Pros
- By letting businesses get started without fronting monthly fees, free POS systems are a tried-and-tested way to lower overhead costs.
- Free POS systems don’t require businesses to pay for packages up front, providing a lifeline to sellers who don’t have lots of start-up capital.
Cons of Free POS Systems
- Free POS systems charge much steeper transaction fees than pain versions, making costs add up fast for businesses with high turnovers.
- Most free POS systems lack advanced features like custom reports and online ordering, forcing businesses to rely on paid add-ons to access these services.
- Free POS systems tend to offer fairly basic hardware options, making them unsuitable for businesses that require expansive or specific hardware setups.
What it eventually comes down to is the POS system you choose has to be the right POS for your needs. You can use our free POS comparison tool to find the best value POS system for your business. It’s simple, quick, and easy-to-use, and you’ll get a free, no-obligation quote to help you assess your business’ needs.
Buying Guide: How to Choose a Free POS
While this guide rounds up the best four free POS systems, we also recommend you do your own research to make sure your chosen solution will be able to fulfill your needs. Just like with paid versions, there’s a wide range of factors to consider to ensure your system will provide you with great returns over time. We take you through just a few of them, below:
- Industry-specific features – A fast casual food business needs a completely different set of factors than a retail store. When choosing a free POS make sure the system offers all the capabilities you need in-house, as this will prevent you from needing to augment your package with costly add-ons.
- Scalable software – While you’re looking for a free POS solution now, as your business grows it’s likely your point-of-sale needs will evolve too. This makes choosing a POS with different pricing tiers and software add-ons important, if you plan to stick with your provider in the long term.
- Suitable hardware options – Whether your business requires a counter service terminal or handheld card reader, make sure your POS provider offers hardware options that support your service style. If you have existing hardware, like an iPad, you should also only be considering compatible hardware packages.
- Reasonable transaction fees – While free POSs are a great way to dodge monthly fees, providers make their money back by charging steeping card transaction fees. Some free POS providers charge much higher fees than others though, so it’s always worth shopping around to make sure you’re getting the best deal possible. Find out how much credit card processing fees cost here.
- Ease of use – If you’re opting for a free POS system, it’s likely you don’t have tons of experience navigating point-of-sale software. To make you, and your teams’ life easier, only consider systems that are renowned for their intuitive, user-friendly interfaces.
Research & Methodology
We’re very committed to making accurate and well-informed recommendations at Tech.co. This is why we never list a provider on our site without researching it extensively first.
When compiling our list of the best free POS systems, we collected data on the leading providers before comparing them on factors that are of high importance to our users. Specifically, we focused on the main categories including POS hardware, POS features, help and support options, customer satisfaction, and pricing. Aside from crunching the data, we extensively tested each POS firsthand, paying close attention to factors like overall design, ease of navigation, and error occural rates.
We then disregarded the POSs that didn’t offer free plans and determined the quality of the free plans offered, prioritizing systems that offered the most useful POS features for the least money. In addition to the presence of a free plan, we analyzed how affordable the transaction fees were, and checked for hidden fees, before using this information to rank the software in order of their overall value.
Our research process guarantees that this list exclusively includes high-quality, great-value products, to ensure we only provide our readers with useful and research-driven recommendations. We review every type of business software a little differently at Tech.co, so read our research process to learn more.
Verdict - Best Free POS Software
The best free POS system for food businesses is Toast. The system is stacked full of useful hospitality features, ultra user friendly, and throws in a handheld ordering and payment device to businesses using its free plan. It’s hospitality-industry specialism and Android hardware will rule it out from being used by lots of businesses, though.
For retail stores, we recommend Square instead. It’s stripped back software is easy to get started on, and it’s free package is surprisingly feature rich. SponOn, on the other hand, is perfect for counter service businesses like cafe’s and fast-casual food vendors, while Zettle by PayPal’s low transaction rates and portable hardware options will be the best fit for pop-up sellers.
While paid POS systems offer more advanced business features and generous user limits, you don’t have to pay monthly fees to get your business off the ground. If you’re unsure of the best choice for your needs, use our free POS comparison tool to help you find the most affordable POS system for your business needs.
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