What a POS system actually costs in 2026.
10 vendors. Hardware, software and card fees, each quoted as the vendor publishes it: 6 read live off the vendor's own pricing page, 2 that publish no price, 2 whose pages refuse us. Where a vendor publishes nothing, neither do we. Roster re-read 2026-10-03. No affiliate links.
What you should expect year 1
By business size, all-in. These four bands are our own estimate, not a published industry figure: no public survey of small-business POS cost of ownership exists to cite. Use them to sanity-check a quote. The sourced numbers are the per-vendor prices in the matrix below.
The full matrix
6 live-verified, 2 quote-only, 2vendor-blocked. "Quote" in a cell means the vendor publishes no figure for it, not that we failed to look. See the methodology for what each status means.
| Vendor | Vertical | SW $/mo | Hardware | Processing | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Square Block | both | $0-149 | $0-899 | 2.6% + $0.15 | live verified |
| Toast Toast Inc | restaurant | Quote | Quote | Quote | vendor blocked |
| Clover Fiserv | both | $84.95-129.85 | $349-4447 | 2.3% + $0.1 | live verified |
| Lightspeed Lightspeed Commerce | both | $89-289 | Quote | Quote | live verified |
| Shopify POS Shopify | retail | $39-399 | Quote | 2.6% + $0.1 | live verified |
| TouchBistro TouchBistro | restaurant | $69-119 | Quote | Quote | live verified |
| Revel (now Shift4 SkyTab) Shift4 | both | Quote | Quote | Quote | quote only |
| NCR Aloha (NCR Voyix) NCR Voyix | restaurant | Quote | Quote | Quote | quote only |
| Heartland Restaurant Global Payments | restaurant | Quote | Quote | Quote | vendor blocked |
| SpotOn SpotOn | restaurant | $0-55 | Quote | 2.45% + $0.15 | live verified |
Leasing a POS costs 19% to 65% more than buying it
Clover is the one major vendor that publishes both paths for the same system: a 36-month subscription at a single monthly figure, or a hardware purchase plus a monthly software plan. Multiply each out over the 36 months Clover specifies and the subscription costs more in all nine configurations it offers, from 19% on the quick-service Starter system up to 65% on the retail Basic terminal, where $16 a month for three years comes to $576 against $349 to simply buy it.
Practical guidance: if you can buy the hardware, buy it, and treat any multi-year term as financing rather than as the price. Ask every vendor for the purchase price of the same hardware, the total over the full term, and what it costs to exit at month 12, 24 and 36. All nine configurations worked out, with the arithmetic shown →