Top 5 Hotel POS Systems: Which is Best for Your Business?

Vend is the best hotel POS system for 2023, boasting the strongest till and employee training features on record. Vend achieved full marks in 6/7 categories of our independent hospitality POS research— suggesting that it will be a safe bet for any hotel willing to front the entry price of $69 per month.

However, with a competitive feature stack and the best usability we’ve reviewed for tablets and iPads, Talech is another excellent hotel POS system, while Lightspeed is the best for growing hotel chains, thanks to its top-tier omnichannel marketing tools.

Hotels can’t simply choose from any POS system on the market – you need a POS with features suited to the hospitality industry. That’s why we’ve only considered solutions that have strong capabilities for managing guest bookings and services, and have weighted our evaluations towards providers that offer the features that hotel owners care about most – like business management, business development, and till features.

Scroll on for more information about the top hotel POS systems. Or, if it's quick price estimates you’re after, our free comparison tool can match you to a POS within your budget, and provide custom price quotes to compare.

In this guide: 

• What Are the Best POS Systems for Hotels?
• How to Choose a Hotel POS System for Your Business?
• How Did We Compare Hotel POS Systems?
• Verdict — Ready to Choose a Hotel POS?
• FAQs

What is the Best Hotel POS System?

Hotels are multifaceted businesses with lots of moving parts. Luckily, POS systems can streamline operations by helping staffers carry out a number of tasks including managing room reservations, taking payments from guests, tracking stock levels, and more.

Based on the results of our rigorous data analysis and user testing, these are the best hotel POS systems the market has to offer.

1. Vend – Best hotel POS system overall
2. Talech – Best usability for hotels using tablets and iPads
3. Square – Best for smaller hotels
4. NCR Aloha – Best value for money
5. Lightspeed – Best for growing hotel chains

1. Vend — Best Overall POS for Hotels

• Best overall POS system for hotels
• Pricing from: $69 per month

Vend by Lightspeed is a retail-first POS system, but it can also be used by hospitality businesses and hotels. Thanks to its simple interface, we've given it a perfect score of 5/5 for usability, and with stronger ordering and payment features than Talech and Square, our research suggests Vend is the most inept hotel POS system on this list.

In addition to being the best overall system for hotels, when looking across all industries, we all found Vend to be the best POS system to track and train employees in general, whether it's a retail environment, fast food, or something else.

While Vend is strong across the board, the POS really stands out when it comes to its reporting tools, with the system offering a number of solutions to help hoteliers track their performance like real-time sales and inventory reports, KPI metrics to improve profit margins, and mobile-friendly dashboards to review data.

Vend’s training mode is the strongest we’ve researched too. Unlike systems like Square and Lightspeed, it allows new workers to use the system without affecting live hotel data, making the POS particularly beneficial to hotels that onboard staff regularly.

However, despite Vend’s strengths, the POS system's steep entry price and lack of a free plan have contributed to its less than impressive 2.8/5 value score. This makes it less accessible to smaller, budget-conscious lodgings than rivals like Talech and Square.

Vend Pricing

Vend offers four distinct price plans, Lite, Pro, Advanced, and Enterprise. Unfortunately, the system received a value score of 2.8/5 due to its comparatively steep entry point of $69 per month, and its extra charge of $49 per month for each additional register.

Check out our pricing table to learn more about Vend’s packages:

.

2. Talech — Best usability for iPad and tablet users

• Best for iPad and tablet users
• Pricing from: $29 per month

Talech is another extremely capable hotel system, performing almost as impressively as Vend in our research and boasting a much more modest entry price of $29 per month.

Unlike Vend, the POS offers “clock-in” and staff permissions features, which give hotel managers one less thing to think about. Due to the quality of these tools, we've given Talech perfect marks (5/5) in or business management research category. Talech also helps hoteliers to track stock levels and automate inventory processes with ease, allowing staffers to keep tabs on primary and secondary inventory from one centralized system.

What’s more, while all of our top five systems have received full marks for their usability, Talech offers the most user-friendly experience on iPads and tablets. This, combined with Talech’s affordably priced packages, which helped it to achieve a near-perfect value score of 4.9/5, makes it especially suited for lodgings with a more modest setup. However, businesses should be aware that some features, like gift card support, are only available as costly add-ons.

Talech Pricing

With quality pricing plans starting from $29 a month, Talech is a favorable option for POS for hotels on a budget. What’s more, additional devices are available for as little as $29 per month, making the solution great for hotels with multiple POS stations.

Check out how Talech’s four plans compare side by side in our pricing table below:

3. Square — Best POS for smaller hotels

• Best for small hotels, B&Bs, independent motels or inns
• Pricing from: Free (but transaction fees apply)

Square is one of the biggest names in the POS industry, and for good reason. The point of sale is feature-rich and extremely cost-effective, making it for perfect smaller lodgings like inns, B&Bs and hostels, and motels. Our research suggests it's the strongest system for retail businesses, restaurants, and small businesses too, which is a pretty impressive feat.

But this reasonable price tag doesn’t mean Square won’t meet the needs of hotels. The POS offers lots of hotel-friendly features like “Square Appointments”, which lets users manage bookings and take payments for services, and the system has a number of specialist software packages for hotel facilities like restaurants and spas, too.

Square’s till features aren't as versatile as Vend and NCR Aloha though, making it less suitable for hotels that require specific payment and ordering functions. However, with the system producing one of the best app stores we’ve reviewed, and Square's support team available 24/7, we reckon this setback can be overlooked pretty easily.

Square POS Pricing

A major reason Square deserves these accolades is because of its affordability. Square offers a generous plan with all the features smaller hotels need to get started, like basic stock tracking and sales reporting.

However, while the POS achieved a strong value score of 4.4/5, it wasn't able to achieve full marks in the category because it's retail and restaurant plans start at $60 per month, and its transaction fees, which we list below, aren't as low as other systems like Zettle by PayPal.

• 2.6% + 10 cents of each card-based sale
• 3.5% + 15 cents for each keyed-in transaction
• 2.9% + 30 cents for online sales

To learn more about Square’s pricing model you can check out our Square POS pricing review, or compare its plans in the table below:

4.NCR Aloha — Best Value for Money for Hotels

• Best value for money
• Pricing from: Free (but transaction fees apply)

For larger hotels looking for an all-in-one solution, NCR Aloha should be your top pick. The hotel POS system offers just about every feature hotels and restaurants need to thrive — from room billing, room service configuration, help desk support, and mobile ordering. Thanks to Aloha's advanced conversational ordering and restaurant labor management features, it's the only POS to receive a perfect 5/5 score for hospitality features in our wider research too — suggesting it's definitely not a case of quantity over quality.

Moreover, with a free plan that rivals Square, we've given it a near-perfect value score of 4.9/5, making it ideal for hotels with strict margins. The POS would have taken the lead overall if it wasn’t for its dismal (1.5/5) support center that lacks live chat support and a knowledge center.

NCR Aloha POS Pricing

NCR offers two pricing packages: Starter, which incurs no monthly fees but charges businesses 2.99% + 13c per transaction, and Premium, which costs $175 per month but charges 2.25% + 15c per sale.

See how these plans compare in greater detail below:

5. Lightspeed — Best for Growing Hotel Chains

• Best for growing hotel chains
• Pricing from: $69 per terminal, per month

Lightspeed is a highly capable point-of-sale system that’s recently acquired the POS titans Upserve and Vend in an effort to increase its presence throughout the industry.

While its overall score falls slightly short of Vend (4.6/5 vs 4.9/5), Lightspeed offers one of the strongest inventory management toolkits on the market, with the POS boasting a number of specialist features like waste management, low stock alerts, and automatic replacements.

Its loyalty program ‘Lightspeed Loyalty’ offers advanced customer loyalty tools too, like omnichannel rewards and customizable loyalty points. These stellar features helped the POS to secure an impressive 4.6/5 score for business development in our wider research, making it a great option for larger hotels and those looking to franchise.

Unlike rivals Vend and Square, Lightspeed Restaurant can be seamlessly integrated with your hotel’s property management system too, unlocking a wide range of useful functions like online and QR code ordering, room charging features, and venue management. Lightspeed is a bit pricier than similar systems, however. We take a look at its pricing next.

Lightspeed Pricing 

Lightspeed offers four paid pricing plans that start at $69 per month. Since no free tier is provided, and most of its features are reserved for pricier tiers, the POS was only able to land a value score of 3.6/5.

Take a look at our table below for a detailed breakdown of Lightspeed plans:

Which Hotel POS System is Best for Your Business?

The ideal hotel POS system will depend on a number of factors, including the type of establishment you run, its size, your budget, and your unique business goals.

Smaller lodgings like B&Bs, inns, hostels, and motels may be better off opting for iPad and tablet-friendly POS systems like Talech with affordable monthly plans. This way, managers can access all the POS features they need, while keeping hardware and software costs to a minimum low as possible.

Resort-style hotels that offer a range of facilities like restaurants, bars, spas, and gift shops would be best suited to a system with industry specific-packages, like Vend and Square. With these systems, each part of your business can benefit from a tailored set of POS features, and your company data can be centralized into a streamlined system.

Finally, larger hotels and chains would be better off seeking advanced management and business growth tools like employee management, personalized loyalty programs, and performance-tracking software. Systems that offer these capabilities, like NCR Aloha and Lightspeed, help to reduce unnecessary admin while making it easier for hoteliers to keep an eye on their bottom line, saving valuable time and money as a result.

How Did We Compare Hotel POS Systems?

Not every POS system can meet the needs of hotels. So, to make sure this page only contains accurate recommendations, our research team has created a unique research framework for ranking hotel POS systems which tracked the following metrics:

• Till features: Here we assessed the quality of the POS systems payment and ordering tools.
• Business management: This metric measured how equipt a POS was at carrying out management functions.
• Business development: This category recorded the quality and quality of growth tools like CRM and ecommerce.
• Usability: We also measured how user-friendly a product's software and hardware were.
• Value for money: Here we assessed the provider’s overall value offering by logging the price of its average plan.
• Help and support: We looked out for various support functions like live chat, 24/7 support, and robust knowledge centers.

After collecting the relevant data, our research team gave each POS system a score out of five as well as an overall ranking that prioritized features more important to hotels. We then used these scores to gain a clearer overview of each provider's strengths and weaknesses, as well as how they compare side by side.

Interested in learning more about how we make our verdicts? You can read our full research process here.

Hotel POS FAQs