Best POS System for Liquor Stores In 2025

The best POS system for liquor stores is Square POS, for its fast setup and ease of use, as well as its sleek hardware options and generous free plan. On top of that, it provides tax reporting, so you can stay on top of your state’s liquor regulations without concern. However, if you’re running a large liquor store or sell stock across multiple channels, we’d recommend Shopify instead.

Running a liquor store in 2025 means navigating strict legal regulations, managing complicated inventories, and remaining profitable among increasing competition. While the path to success will never be straightforward, the right POS system will help to streamline core operations for liquor stores, reducing headaches as a result.

We’ve put all the best POS systems through their paces, focusing on features like age verification, advanced stock management, and security integrations, to compile a list of the best choices for liquor stores. Read on to learn about our top picks, or get a personalized POS quote from the industry’s best providers.

In this guide:

• Overview of the Best POS Systems for Liquor Stores
• Why Should You Trust Us?
• Best POS Systems for Liquor Stores
• How to Choose a Liquor Store POS System?
• How We Researched the Best POSs for Liquor Stores
• Verdict: What Is the Best POS for Liquor Stores?

Overview of the Best POS Systems for Liquor Stores

In the table below, you’ll find a quick at-a-glance overview of the best POS platforms on the market for liquor stores. Throughout the rest of the article, you’ll find a detailed breakdown of each provider, with a close look at the features that make them perfectly suited to running a liquor store in 2025.

Best POS Systems for Liquor Stores

In order to meet the steady demand of liquor store business, owners need reliable POS systems they can depend on year-round, which is why we tested every suitable POS system for liquor stores and rated them across multiple categories in order to determine how each one compares. Here are our top providers:

• Square – Best overall POS system for liquor stores
• Clover – Best for rapid expansion
• SumUp – Best value for money
• Shopify – Best for extensive, varied inventories
• Lightspeed Retail – Best for improving customer loyalty

1. Square

• Best POS for liquor stores overall
• Price from: Free

Square POS is the best POS system for most liquor stores: it’s easy to use, offers a robust feature catalog, and includes excellent employee management tools.

On top of this, its free plan is one of the most generous in our research, which makes it ideal for new liquor stores that want a genuinely useful POS without shelling out hundreds of dollars in overheads.

Why is Square good for liquor stores?

Having tested the software ourselves, we’d actually say that Square POS is the only option on this list with a good enough free plan to manage the needs of liquor stores. However, we would recommend its paid plans, as they offer much more competitive transaction fees — the exception being if you’re running a small pop-up or convenience store.

Other free plans, such as that offered by Toast, have serious limitations that will not suit a liquor store. Among them, the lack of in-depth reporting and analytics will not suit businesses with complex inventories or a high volume of sales.

On its free plan, Square offers detailed tax reporting, useful for any business that deals with state and federal liquor tax. Other features that will make your life much easier include automatic restocking, which ensures your store won’t run out of its most popular beers, wines, and liquors.

Businesses that are based in rural areas sometimes have issues with connectivity, which is why Square still accepts payments even when not connected to the internet. This will mean that those with an unreliable network won’t be penalized by an inability to take payments.

The inventory management system is comprehensive, even for beginners, whether you’re selling liquor or jeans. Source: Tech.co testing

Importantly, Square’s paid retail plan – Square Retail – also lets you set age restrictions on items and set up verification processes for purchases, making it easier for you to adhere to legal regulations. If you’re selling online, the provider’s website builder, Square Online, also has a customizable age verification pop-up to restrict access for underage users.

Serving minors is an absolute non-starter for any fledgling liquor business, with punishments potentially including jail time, depending on your location. That’s why Square will also allow you to scan IDs at the point of checkout to verify that the customer is really the age they claim to be.

Liquor store owners have a diverse set of needs. This time-poor demographic often has to juggle multiple different responsibilities, including stock taking, accounting, maintaining legal compliance, and offering customers a bespoke level of service.

That’s why Square’s comprehensive feature set will mark it out as a great potential solution. For instance, you’ll be able to keep accurate inventory, even if you sell your products in different quantities to how they’re purchased.

Square’s inventory features are decent, but they can’t compete with the likes of Shopify and SumUp, which both offer robust stock management features geared towards larger businesses with complex inventories.

What’s more, you can seamlessly create and send purchase orders, as well as set up recurring ones for when stocks of a particular product are dwindling. All of this will allow you to keep on top of business – even as the customers pile up.

Due to these impressive features and Square’s affordable price-tag, our research found that Square is our best-rated retail POS system in general, suggesting it will be up to the task if you’re selling other goods alongside liquor too.

Learn more about the popular system in our Square POS review.

How much does Square cost?

Pricing from: Free, but 2.6% + 10¢ per transaction

Since profit margins for liquor stores tend to be on the lower side, finding a cost-effective POS is a huge bonus. Square understands this concern and offers a free POS package that only charges businesses a percentage of each transaction, allowing them to keep overheads as low as possible.

For those after more advanced inventory and business growth functions, Square also offers a Plus package that retails at $89 per location, per month, and a Premium package with custom pricing.

What’s more, while the flat-rate transaction fees help small operations save costs, large companies will have more transactions and more fees — if you’re in charge of a large business, consider Lightspeed POS instead of Square.

Check out our Square pricing guide

2. Clover

• Best for rapid expansion
• Price from: $14.95 per month for virtual terminal

If you’re hoping to turn your liquor store into a retail empire, Clover has the tools to help you do it. This POS provider offers an extensive app store to help you facilitate growth, with a great range of third-party integrations for taking your liquor store to the next level, including tools for inventory management, reporting, and ecommerce.

Why is Clover good for liquor stores?

When we tested out Clover, we were impressed by its seemingly endless array of external add-ons, which are all sorted into useful categories. Integrating the software with your POS system was quick and straightforward too, all you have to do is click ‘Connect’ on your chosen add-on, and the app will become available almost instantly.

I was really impressed with how many integrations Clover offered when I browsed it. Source: Tech.co testing

Beyond that, Clover also boasts some of the best hardware options across our research. The top-quality terminals offer advanced features, like fingerprint scanning for fast staff logins and haptic feedback, so your team is confident that every button press actually works. It also offers its own brand of receipt printers, which no other provider on this list can say.

Even better, if these hardware costs are a bit too much from a financial standpoint, you can finance them and pay a smaller monthly fee, in addition to the monthly cost of the software.

And what’s more, they look great! All of Clover’s hardware is sleek and easy on the eye, meaning that it certainly won’t look out of place in your store. For premium businesses that place an emphasis on the customer experience, such as an antique wine dealership, Clover will ensure a pleasing checkout experience for high-end customers, who are accustomed to the finer things.

Find out more about this user-friendly POS system in our Clover POS review.

A selection of Clover hardware, in all its glory. Source: Tech.co original imagery

How much does Clover cost?

Pricing from: $14.95 per month for virtual terminal

Unlike Square and Lightspeed R-Series POS, Clover doesn’t offer a free trial. While some customers can get started with Clover for $14.95 per month, liquor stores will need to commit to at least $16 per month for 36 months for a plan better suited to their needs — the Retail Basic plan. Customers will need to pay 2.5% + 10¢ per transaction too.

If you’re in need of more advanced hardware and software options, Clover’s Standard plan offers improved inventory and reporting features, plus access to a Station Duo POS system, for $180 per month for 36 months, plus 2.5% + 10¢ per transaction.

Clover Advanced, on the other hand, includes Clover’s full suite of features and access to a Station Duo and Flex, making it more appropriate for large or chain liquor stores. However, it’s on the higher end of the pricing spectrum, costing $240 per month for 36 months, plus 2.5% + 10¢ per sale.

Read our Clover pricing guide for more information

3. SumUp

• Best value for money
• Price from: $99 per month

SumUp is a great POS solution for liquor stores on a budget. It has a simple pricing structure, with three simple software and hardware packages — POS with Connect Lite ($99 per month), POS with Connect Plus ($199 per month), and POS with Connect Pro ($289 per month).

Why is SumUp good for liquor stores?

You’ll also incur flat transaction fees across all plans — 2.6% + 10¢ per in-person transaction and 3.5% + 15¢ per online transaction or manual entry.

It is this transparency that really sets SumUp apart. While other options on the market, such as Clover, have convoluted plans and pricing structures, SumUp is easy to understand. You also won’t be penalized with higher transaction fees for opting for a lower-priced plan, which is not the case with providers like Shopify and Square.

In terms of liquor store-friendly features, SumUp has a few neat tricks up its sleeve. For example, you can keep on top of your inventory with advanced stock management functions, including an unlimited stock keeping unit (SKU) count.

What’s more, SumUp will give you access to some great sales analytics tools so you can learn what your customers are loving — and boost your revenue in the long term. Detailed sales reports will help you identify high-value customers, which of your stores (if applicable) is selling the best, and your best and worst-performing products.

These advanced analytics tools will come in particularly handily for big liquor stores with complex inventories, as you’ll be able to closely monitor the performance of all your products, which can number the hundreds. A smaller, more bespoke store with fewer best-selling products might not need this depth of insight.

We were able to easily view sales history on the SumUp POS system. Source: Tech.co testing

How much does SumUp cost?

Pricing from: $99 per month

SumUp has three hardware and software bundles on offer. The starter plan, POS with Connect Lite, is available for $99 per month. After that, POS with Connect Plus will cost you $199 per month, and the final plan — POS with Connect Pro — costs $289 per month.

In terms of transaction fees, SumUp is pretty reasonably priced. Notably, you’ll get the same flat rate across all plans — 2.6% + 10¢ per in-person transaction and 3.5% + 15¢ per online transaction or manual entry. This makes it really easy to understand exactly how much money you stand to make per each transaction.

As you would expect, your level of functionality depends on which plan you opt for. With the first plan, for instance, you’ll unlock a cloud-based POS system, alongside a comprehensive customer database and dedicated installation and training.

4. Shopify

• Best for extensive, varied inventories
• Price from: $5 per month

Owing to its “sell anywhere” approach to commerce, Shopify has some strong inbuilt inventory management tools. This will make it particularly suited towards businesses with vast and varied inventories.

Why is Shopify good for liquor stores?

Business owners will be able to keep an eye on their stock levels online and across multiple sites, when applicable. This includes monitoring stock that is incoming, reserved for a particular customer, damaged and in need of replacing, and more.

Furthermore, with detailed sales insights, you’ll be able to identify your hottest products and make informed purchasing decisions to make sure that you’re improving your bottom line.

In our research, we found that Shopify actually has the best software offering across all POS providers for online stores, offering robust functionality for employee management, customer engagement, analytics, and third-party integrations.

As a matter of fact, you can actually start selling online for as little as $5 per month with the Starter plan, although this won’t be suitable for businesses with a physical presence.

Opt for one of Shopify’s more expensive plans, however, and you’ll get the benefits of omnichannel commerce. In other words, you’ll be able to sell in-store, online, on social media, and via marketplaces. And no matter where you make your sales, your inventory will always be up to date.

We found the ordering interface for the Shopify POS simple and straightforward. Image: Tech.co testing

We found it easy to add products in Shopify with basic categorization features. Source: Tech.co testing

Another spot where Shopify shines is the help and support options. You can reach them in all the standard ways, like phone, email, live chat, and even social media. On top of that, Shopify offered one of the best knowledge centers across our research, providing necessary information with comprehensive search functionality.

It’s worth noting that Shopify is an ecommerce website builder first that offers a POS system along with it, similar to Square, although Shopify’s ecommerce platform is far more advanced. As a liquor store, you might not necessarily need online store functionality at the present time, but it never hurts to have the option.

Find out if the system is right for you in our Shopify POS review.

How much does Shopify cost?

Pricing from: $5 per month

The Shopify POS Pro plan starts at a pricey $89 per month, but a more limited Shopify Lite plan is only $5 per month (with per-transaction fees that start at 1.5%). Add in the fact that the service is compatible with most POS hardware, and it’s a great way for a small business to save on costs.

The Shopify website builder supports liquor sales as well: liquor store managers will be able to set up shipping restrictions in their Shopify admin panel to meet state regulations, and can include an age verification pop-up window on their website.

5. Lightspeed Retail

• Best for retaining loyal customers
• Price from: $89 per month

Lightspeed Retail is our pick of solutions for liquor stores that want to operate lucrative loyalty programs. Success is driven by retention, which is why Lightspeed Retail includes loyalty program functionality across its Core and Plus plans.

Why is Lightspeed good for liquor stores?

This built-in loyalty system will award customers with points automatically, encouraging them to return to earn more as they shop.

In fact, the loyalty system from Lightspeed offers the most features of any loyalty program in our research, including automated campaigns and personalized messaging that are not found on Square or Clover. Even better, if you’re willing to pay a bit more, you can automate these features in tandem with your marketing system to see some serious growth.

In addition to its raft of loyalty features, Lightspeed’s overall software package really stands out among POS systems across the market. Its range of features covers all the core areas a liquor store needs, from business development tools and management abilities to till features, like barcode setup and product variants.

Since handling large, varied stockpiles is one of the biggest burdens liquor stores face, Lightspeed’s granular inventory features solidify its position as a top POS systems for liquor stores. For instance, users can buy by the case and sell by the bottle, and low-stock alerts can be triggered to let managers know when a big seller needs to be restocked.

What’s more, staffers can be prompted to request an ID check with every liquor purchase, and the platform has several other useful, liquor-store-specific integrations, from ID verification for age-restricted sales to a delivery, shipping, and in-store pickup functionality.

Lightspeed lets you accept multiple payment methods on each of its plans, including Visa, Mastercard, Amex, Apple and Google Pay, PayPal, and Tap to Pay.

We found the ordering system on Lightspeed Retail clear and concise, for sunglasses as well as liquor. Source: Tech.co testing

Ultimately, it is Lightspeed’s integrated customer rewards system and omnichannel loyalty tools that make it a good pick for your liquor store.

Read our Lightspeed POS review for more information.

How much does Lightspeed cost?

Price from: $89 per month

Lightspeed costs $89 per terminal, per month, under the Basic plan, although more features are available with the other two plans, Core at $149 per month, and Plus at $289 per month.

All plans include the same transaction fees: 2.6% + 10¢ with card and 2.9% + 30¢ without a card present.

How to Choose a Liquor Store POS System

The most important POS software feature a liquor store needs is age verification. The business could be fined or lose its license if it sells alcohol to any underage customer, so the cashier must be able to quickly and easily verify IDs. A simple pop-up can work, but a POS system that integrates with ID scanner hardware is most effective.

You’ll also want complex stock management tools that account for discounts, two-for-one deals, and liquor taxes, which vary by state. These tools should also be able to track case breaks — when the store buys a case of wine or beer, but sells it by the bottle.

Finally, you’ll want a POS system that tracks all the data you need in order to ensure you remain compliant with local and federal laws covering liquor licenses. The legality of on-demand alcohol delivery varies by state, too.

How We Reached Our Verdict

For liquor store POS systems, we gave extra weight to the most industry-relevant features, like age verification and stock management. Overall quality across all categories remained the key factor.