SpotOn POS Review: Features, Pros and Cons

If you're looking for a customizable point-of-sale (POS) solution with top-tier inventory management tools, SpotOn should be on your radar. It's packed with a solid range of retail and hospitality features and offers more specialist options than you can shake a stick at – from casual full-service to home decor and beyond.

With software prices starting from $25 per month for SpotOn With Payments, businesses don't need to break the bank to get started on the system either. However, if you want to unlock fairly basic features like reservation options and customer loyalty tools, will have a pay extra for add-ons, which makes the solution slightly less affordable than other POS we've reviewed.

There's a lot to unwrap when it comes to SpotOn, from its custom hardware options to its impressive training mode, so scroll down to find out if the point-of-sale is a good fit for your business. Alternatively, if you're still open to other solutions, use our free comparison tool to receive custom quotes from leading POS providers.

In this review:

• SpotOn POS: Quick Fact-File
• SpotOn POS: Pricing & Plans 
• SpotOn Review: Key Features
• How Does SpotOn Compare to Other POS Systems?
• Our Methodology
• Verdict – Is SpotOn POS Right for You?
• Frequently Asked Questions

Tech.co leaves no stone unturned when it comes to product research. When reviewing POS systems like SpotOn, we consider a broad variety of factors including restaurant and retail-specific features, help and support options, and overall customer satisfaction. Jump down to our methodology section to learn more about how we make our verdicts.

SpotOn POS: Quick Fact-File

Here's a round-up of SpotOns main deciding factors, to help you understand its offering at a glance.

• Software cost – SpotOn operates on a custom pricing model. However, the provider's software bundles start from $25 per month.
• Hardware cost – SpotOn's cheapest hardware option is Ponyt, which will cost businesses $15 per month.
• Transaction fees – Transaction fees will be dependent on your chosen payment processor, but if you opt for SpotOn With Payments you'll pay 1.99% + 20¢ to 2.99% + 20¢ per transaction.
• Help & support options – SpotOn offers email support 24/7 but only received a dismal 1/5 help and support score because it lacks live chat tools and doesn't carry out daily backups.
• Till features –  With a solid score of 4/5 for till features, SpotOn has a strong range of payment and ordering tools, including bill splitting, receipt customization, and QR payment options.

SpotOn POS: Pricing & Plans

SpotOn is less affordable than solutions like Square and Zettle so only scored 3/5 in our testing for value. However, with plans available from $15 per month, its entry price is still lower than TouchBistro's and Vend's, and its hardware is also cheaper than Clover's — making its value offering pretty run-of-the-mill overall.

SpotOn's pricing model is a little unique, too. Instead of selling software and hardware separately, the provider offers five main combined packages:

• Poynt — At $15 per month, SpotOn Poynt is a payment platform and hybrid POS system. It comes with basic point-of-sale features like ordering, marketing, and loyalty capabilities, and it's easy to use on the go, making it ideal for pop-up businesses.
• With Payments — Retailing at $25 per month, SpotOn With Payments is a software-only payment processing solution with basic POS features. However, while this is SpotOn's cheapest software plan, it requires users to rely on SpotOn's payment processing services which charge 1.99% + 20¢ to 2.99% + 20¢ per transaction.
• Register Lite — Costing $45 per month, this hardware and software bundle is a scaled-back version of Register. It offers all the software features in the Register plan and a hardware unit with everything you need to get started, except for a cash draw.
• Register — SpotOns's full retail package costs $65 per month, and includes a large software and hardware package including a 13.3″ display, a barcode scanner, a thermal printer, a cash draw, and advanced POS capabilities.
• Restaurant — Retailing at $65 per month, SpotOn Restaurant includes a full hardware package and advanced hospitality features including table layouts, mobile manager, online ordering, and split payments.

Take a look at how these plans compare below:

Does SpotOn have a Free Plan?

SpotOn doesn't currently offer a free plan, all of its packages incur monthly fees. SpotOn doesn't offer a free demo either, making it hard for potential customers to get a taste of the product before they commit to lengthy contracts.

If you're looking to shirk monthly fees for longer than a month, we would recommend using Square or Zettle instead. Both providers offer quality free plans for hospitality and retail businesses alike, charging just businesses transaction fees instead. Square even chucks in a free card reader too, making it a great option for new ventures.

SpotOn Review: Key Features

Till

With advanced order and payment features like bill splitting, receipt customization, scannable QR codes, and discounts, SpotOn secured a solid research score of 4/5 for till tools, ranking above other competitors like Square, Lightspeed, and Shopify in this category. SpotOn also accepts all major payment types, including credit cards, debit cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay, Samsung Pay, cash, and gift cards, making it easy for customers to pay whichever way suits them.

Training

SpotOn's training features are also a lot stronger than most of its rivals. The provider offers a dedicated training mode that lets new members of staff carry out a number of duties in a protected mode — including creating orders, adding discounts, using modifiers, printing receipts, and more.

While Vend still offers the best staff training features we've reviewed, SpotOn is still an excellent option for onboarding staff, with other systems like Square, Epos Now, and Shopify, lacking a training mode completely.

Inventory

Receiving a perfect stock management score of 5/5, SpotOn's inventory capabilities are second to none. The provider's back-of-house platform lets businesses manage stock from anywhere with real-time updates, alerts, and front-of-house countdowns to prevent you from selling out of items. These features place SpotOn neck-and-neck with POSs like Square, Lightspeed, and Shopify, which also received a perfect store for their inventory tools.

Performance tracking

SpotOn lets businesses monitor their performance through a variety of metrics. The point-of-sale offers reporting features that help users track trends over time, measure the success of their marketing campaigns, and even follow the ROI on reward redemptions. Unfortunately, since SpotOn lacks basic sales forecasting tool, it only secured a 3.6/5 for the business development features.

If it's strong performance tracking features you're after, we would recommend going with TouchBistro instead, with the POS offering more than 50 reporting options.

Help and support

While SpotOn does offer a help center and customer support via email and phone lines 24 hours a day, it lacks very basic help tools like live chat and auto backups, contributing to its dismal support score of 1/5. Unfortunately, this makes SpotOn a lot less useful than systems like Square and Talech for businesses that depend on these services regularly.

How Does SpotOn Compare to Other POS Systems?

SpotOn is a great option for businesses after customizable software options and stand-out inventory features. However, if you're looking for a cost-effective point-of-sale solution that can do it all ⁠— with 5/5 support features to boot ⁠— we would recommend our top-ranked system, Square.

Alternatively, food businesses after a more specialized toolkit would be better opting for Lightspeed or Toast, with both solutions boasting a near-perfect 4.9/5 score for restaurant features. Clover and Zettle are some other quality solutions, especially for retail businesses that are keen on keeping monthly prices down.

There are loads of notable mentions though, so take a look at our table below for a summary of SpotOns top competitors.

Our Methodology

We take product reviews very seriously at Tech.co. When ranking and reviewing point-of-sale systems, we measure them against a number of key metrics, to make sure we make the most valuable recommendations possible. When researching POSs, our categories of interest include:

• Till features – When measuring how adept a system's ordering and payment features are, we look out for stand-out tools like bill splitting, refunds, and receipt customization.
• Business management – We also check how capable a POS is at managing core areas of the businesses. I.e, does it offer robust staff management and performance tracking tools?
• Business development – For businesses looking to expand, we measure the number and quality of growth features, including customer loyalty, ecommerce, and brand awareness tools.
• Usability – We assess a system's user experience and set up time to see how suitable it will be for beginners.
• Price – To gauge how affordable a system is, we calculate the average price of its plan and factor in if any free versions or demos are available.
• Customer score – We also research the point-of-sale's customer support tools and overall level of customer satisfaction.

On top of these core metrics, we also account for retail and restaurant-specific features – from delivery support and marketplace integrations to menu customization and floorplan management, to measure the potential of a system for businesses in different industries. Then, we award the systems a score out of five for each of these categories and rank and review them accordingly.

Learn more about our dedicated research process here.

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