Restaurant POS system / Pricing
Costs
How to reduce what your POS actually costs you
Almost nobody knows what their point of sale costs them. They know the subscription, because it has a number on a page. The rest arrives on other bills, in other months, as percentages of things that vary — and that is where the money is. This page is a method for finding the whole figure, and the questions that make a vendor produce it.
★The fee you can change is the one you can see.
The short answer
How do I reduce my restaurant POS fees?
Total the whole line for one month before you negotiate any part of it: subscription per location, a licence per register, payment processing (a separate bill at your processor's rates), any per-order fee on orders placed through channels you already own, and what it would cost you to leave. Most restaurants discover the biggest reducible number is not the subscription at all — it is a percentage taken on their own repeat customers, and hardware they were told they had to replace. Those two are worth more attention than a few pounds a month on a plan.
A quote is a price for the software. It is not what the software costs you.
The monthly plan is the one number every vendor leads with, and it is usually the smallest one. Around it sit a licence per register, the hardware you are asked to buy, the processing that lands on a separate statement, a percentage on online orders, and the cost of getting your menu and your customer list back out again. Each of those is defensible in isolation. Added up over a year, they decide whether the software was cheap.
Where to start
Three things, in this order.
Write down one real month
Not the quote — a month. Every line that exists because of your POS: the plan, each register, the processing statement, any per-order fees, hardware you bought or leased, support you paid for. One page, one total.
Sort it into fixed and per-transaction
Fixed costs you can negotiate once. Per-transaction costs grow with your success, which is why they are the ones worth attacking — a percentage on a busy Friday is a raise you gave someone else.
Attack the percentages and the lock-in first
A per-order fee on customers who already know your address, and a contract that makes leaving expensive, cost far more over three years than the difference between two subscription tiers.
In detail
How this actually works.
The five places a POS bill hides
Any vendor can be assessed on the same five lines. Ask for all five in writing, for your actual number of registers and your actual volumes — not for a plan.
- Subscription — per location, per month
- Registers — a licence per till, which is what makes a second counter cost more
- Payment processing — usually a separate bill, and usually the largest of the five
- Per-order fees on online orders, including ones placed on your own site
- Hardware and exit — what you must buy to start, and what leaving costs you
What PatronWorks charges, in plain terms
We publish it, so we can describe the shape of it here and let the pricing page carry the current figures. Plans are per location, per month, month-to-month — no long-term contract, so leaving costs you a month's notice rather than a settlement.
- Per location, per month, published on the pricing page
- A licence per register, at a published rate — add or drop one as your counters change
- Payment processing is billed separately by your processor, at their rates
- Online ordering is an add-on with a per-order option and a flat monthly option
- Month-to-month, so you can stop
The cheapest fee to remove is the one on your own customers
A percentage makes sense on a customer a marketplace found for you. It makes much less sense on the regular who was always going to order from you and simply used a link. Orders placed on your own PatronWorks storefront carry no third-party marketplace commission — the customer is yours, and so is the margin.
- No third-party marketplace commission on orders from your own storefront
- A flat monthly option on the ordering add-on, so volume stops being a penalty
- Do the arithmetic at your own volume and pick the cheaper of the two — that is what the option is for
Hardware is a fee, even when it is called a requirement
A terminal you must buy is a cost the subscription line never shows. PatronWorks runs on a Windows register you probably already own and prints to the receipt printer already behind your counter — the printing agent senses whether it is a thermal receipt printer or a regular inkjet or laser and formats each receipt to match.
- Runs on the register and printer you already have
- Receipt printing over your own network, no print cloud in the path
- Keeps ringing sales and prints when the internet drops, then syncs when it returns
Do it properly
Five questions that surface the real number
Put these to every vendor on your list, us included. We answer all five on this page — hold everyone to the same standard.
What is my total monthly bill, in writing, for my number of registers?
A quote prices a plan; you are buying a store. Two counters and a kitchen screen is a different number from the one on the pricing page, and it should be produced without a follow-up call.
Is payment processing part of this, or a separate bill at my processor's rates?
This is usually the largest line of the five, and the one most often left out of a software comparison entirely. Ours is separate: your processor bills you at their rates.
Is there a per-order fee on orders placed on my own website, and is there a flat alternative?
A percentage on your own repeat customers scales with your success. Ask whether a flat option exists, then work out which is cheaper at the volume you actually do.
What must I buy before I can take a sale?
Required hardware is a fee wearing a different hat. Ask specifically whether your existing register and receipt printer are usable.
What does it cost me to leave in month four — contract, hardware, and my data?
The honest version of a price includes the exit. Ask for the notice period and how you get your menu and customer list out. Ours is month-to-month.
Do the arithmetic before the demo, not after the invoice
Take last month's order count and run every vendor's fee structure across it — including ours. A percentage and a flat fee cross over at a volume you can calculate in about ten minutes, and knowing where that line sits is worth more than any discount you will be offered on the call.
Good to know.
- Plans
- Per location, per month — current figures on the pricing page
- Contract
- Month-to-month
- Registers
- A licence per register, published rate
- Payment processing
- Billed separately by your processor, at their rates
- Online ordering
- Add-on with a per-order option or a flat monthly option
- Your own storefront
- No third-party marketplace commission
- Hardware
- Runs on a Windows register and the receipt printer you already have
Questions, answered.
What is the single biggest POS-related cost for most restaurants?
Payment processing, in the great majority of cases — it is a percentage of everything you sell, so it dwarfs a fixed monthly subscription at almost any volume. It is also the line most often missing from a software comparison, because it arrives on a different statement. Total it first.
Does PatronWorks take a cut of my sales?
No. Plans are a flat monthly fee per location, plus a licence per register. Payment processing is billed separately by your processor at their rates. The one place a per-order option exists is the online-ordering add-on, and it has a flat monthly alternative you can choose instead.
How do I compare a percentage fee against a flat monthly fee?
Multiply your monthly order count by your average order value, apply the percentage, and compare that to the flat figure. The result tells you which one you should be on — and it changes as you grow, so it is worth recalculating once a year rather than once ever.
Do I have to buy new hardware to switch POS?
Not with PatronWorks. It runs on a Windows register you likely already own, and the printing agent detects whether your printer is a thermal receipt printer or a standard inkjet or laser and formats receipts accordingly. Ask every vendor this question explicitly — required hardware is a real cost that rarely appears on a pricing page.
Is a cheaper subscription always the cheaper system?
No, and it is the most common mistake in this category. A lower plan attached to a percentage on your online orders, a required terminal purchase and a multi-year term can cost several times more over three years than a higher plan with none of those. Compare the total, over a period, at your volume.
Start running your restaurant on PatronWorks today.
14 days free, no credit card. Set up your POS, printer, and first crew member in minutes — or book a demo and we'll do it with you.