Best EPOS system for pubs in the UK (2026 guide)
A pub till has to run a bar at three deep on a Friday and a Sunday lunch with courses the next day. Here is what separates a till that can do both from one that can only do one.
- Wet-led and food-led pubs need different things from the same till
- Tabs, rounds, happy hour and the beer garden
- Pub EPOS systems from £499 + VAT
Written by the Posso team in Leicester · Reviewed by Paul Robinson, Managing Director · Last reviewed
Short answer
The best EPOS system for a UK pub is the one that rings a round of five drinks in under 15 seconds, holds a tab against a card without an argument at closing, and switches prices by time of day without a manager touching the till. For a wet-led pub that is almost the whole brief; a food-led pub adds table numbers, courses for Sunday lunch and QR ordering so the beer garden does not empty the bar. Expect to pay typically £300–£1,500 one-off for till hardware and £25–£70 a month for software, with card processing on top. Posso pub systems start from £499 + VAT.
Key takeaways
- Rounds and tabs are the pub's core workflow; time them on the demo before anything else.
- Day-part pricing should change automatically at 5pm, not rely on a manager remembering.
- QR ordering keeps the beer garden drinking without pulling staff off the bar.
- Stock control depth varies widely; if keg-level stock is essential, test it specifically.
Takeaway: Buy the till that is fastest at a round of five on a Friday, then check it can also run a Sunday lunch.
Why a pub is not a restaurant with more beer
Most EPOS advice is written for restaurants and transfers badly to a pub. A restaurant takes an order once per table and the ticket sits open for ninety minutes. A pub bar takes forty orders an hour from people standing up, half of them adding to an existing round, a quarter paying with a mix of cash and card, and all of them wanting to be back at their table before the next song.
The first distinction to get clear is wet-led versus food-led. A wet-led pub lives and dies on bar speed, tabs and rounds, and the till barely needs a table plan. A food-led pub or gastropub needs everything the wet-led pub needs plus table numbers, course firing, kitchen tickets and the ability to put a round of drinks on table 7's food bill without re-keying it. Most pubs sit somewhere between, which is why the till has to do both without forcing bar staff through a restaurant workflow on a Friday night.
The common mistake is buying on the feature list and never timing the basics. A till with twenty integrations that needs four taps to add a pint to an open tab loses more in a year than any integration earns. The second mistake is assuming the till handles stock the way a brewery stocktaker does; depth varies enormously, so test it before you rely on it. To weigh pub tills side by side, start with our compare EPOS systems hub.
What a pub EPOS has to get right
Ring a round of five faster than the customer can read their list
Time it on the demo: two pints of Madri, a gin and slimline, a large Sauvignon and a lime and soda, paid by card. On a well-built pub till that is five taps for the drinks, one for the card and about twelve seconds. On a till built for restaurants it is a table number, a cover count, a category tree and a confirmation screen before you have poured anything. Put the top twenty drinks on the home screen with the house pour as the default, and the bar runs at the speed of the staff rather than the software.
Hold the tab against a card so closing time has no arguments
A tab is a promise, and the till needs to keep it. The workflow that works: open the tab by name or table, pre-authorise or hold a card against it, add drinks as the night goes on, and at close either settle to the held card or split it. Rounds should be addable to a tab in two taps from the home screen, because the person who opened it is rarely buying the third round. If re-opening a tab needs a manager PIN, staff start writing tabs on a pad and the till records half the night.
Change prices by the clock, not by the manager's memory
Happy hour from 4pm to 7pm, a Tuesday quiz night with £3.50 pints, a Sunday roast at £16.95 that becomes £18.95 on bank holidays. These are day-part price lists and the till should switch between them on a schedule. If the manager has to change the price of every lager by hand at 7pm, the price stays wrong for twenty minutes every evening, which at 60 pints is 60 × £1 = £60 given away. Check that the schedule applies to the whole menu and that a tab opened in happy hour charges the right price either side of 7pm.
Price the double and the mixer as modifiers, not as separate products
Spirits are where pub menus bloat. Gordon's single, Gordon's double, Gordon's and tonic, Gordon's and slimline, and so on, until there are 400 products and staff cannot find anything. The alternative is one product per spirit with modifiers: single or double (priced), mixer (priced where premium), and ice and garnish (free). This keeps the home screen to a page, puts the upsell in front of staff every time, and means the report shows how many doubles you sold rather than hiding them in forty product lines.
Let the beer garden order from the table without emptying the bar
In summer the garden is where the revenue is and the bar is where the staff are. A QR code on each picnic table lets a group order the next round and pay on their phone; the order prints at the bar or appears on a screen, and a runner carries it out. The bar keeps its server, and the group orders a round they would have skipped because the queue looked long. Check that garden orders land in the same till as bar orders, so sales and stock are in one place.
Count the float and the tips without a spreadsheet
Pubs still take more cash than most of hospitality, and the till needs to handle it like a till: declare the float at open, record pay-outs for the window cleaner and the quiz prize, lift cash mid-shift with a record of who and how much, and reconcile at close against a Z-read that shows cash expected versus cash counted. Staff PINs on every transaction mean a short drawer has a name attached to the shift. Card tips should route to the right staff member or a pooled tronc so Friday's tips are not Saturday's argument.
What a pub EPOS costs in the UK
Typical ranges for a single-site pub. The one-off and monthly figures compound differently: a wet-led pub with one till pays mostly the one-off, a food-led pub with a kitchen screen and two waiter pads pays more of both.
| Item | Typical UK range | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Till hardware (terminal, drawer, printer) | £300–£1,500 one-off | Consumer tablet at the low end, purpose-built terminal at the top |
| Software | £25–£70 a month | Up to £100+ a month for enterprise tiers |
| Card processing | 1.5–1.75% flat on readers; 1–1.5% plus pence on merchant accounts | The pence matter on a £4.80 pint |
| Kitchen display (food-led) | £300–£800 per screen plus £0–£30 a month | Printers are cheaper if the kitchen is small |
| QR table ordering | 0–15% commission or £20–£60 a month elsewhere | Check whether orders land in the till |
| Installation | £0–£300 elsewhere | Often waived on larger orders |
| Warranty | 1–2 years | Ask what happens in year three |
| Posso | £499 + VAT hardware; software from £25 + VAT a month; Posso Pay from 1% + 10p | Terminal, kitchen printer, receipt printer, cash drawer, menu build and training; two-year warranty |
Ranges are typical UK figures at October 2026; Posso prices are published on EPOS pricing.
What to ask a provider before you sign
How many taps to add a pint to an open tab?
Ask them to show you, not tell you. From the home screen, find the tab by name, add a pint of the house lager, close the screen. Two or three taps is right. If it needs a manager PIN or a confirmation dialogue, imagine doing it 200 times on a Friday. Then ask whether the held card can be charged if the customer walks.
Does the price change itself at 5pm, and on an open tab?
Have them set a happy-hour price list on the demo and move the clock. Check that every lager, not one, changes price, that a tab opened at 6:30pm charges happy-hour prices for drinks added before 7pm and standard after, and that the report shows which price list each sale used. If the answer involves a manager editing prices by hand, that is a workaround and it will be forgotten on the busiest nights.
How deep does the stock control go?
Be specific about what you need. Some pubs want to see that the Madri keg is nearly out; some want full stock-take by weight against delivery notes, with a stocktaker's report. Systems vary widely and the demo shows the best case. Ask to see a stock report from a live pub, ask what counts as a unit for draught, and if keg-level stock is central to your operation, make it a condition of the sale.
The Posso approach to pub EPOS
Posso is a hospitality-only EPOS, built in the UK and supported from Leicester. A complete system is £499 + VAT, including the touchscreen terminal, kitchen printer, receipt printer, cash drawer, menu build and staff training, with software from £25 + VAT a month and a two-year hardware warranty. The terminal is offline-first, with a local database, so a broadband fault during the Six Nations does not stop the bar.
For a wet-led pub the relevant parts are a home screen built around your top sellers, tabs held by name or card, rounds added in two taps, priced modifiers for doubles and mixers, scheduled day-part price lists and staff PINs on every transaction. The menu build is included and we set it up around how your bar actually sells. The pub POS system and bar EPOS pages describe the product in detail.
For a food-led pub, add table numbers, course firing for the Sunday lunch, a 21-inch kitchen display at £399 + VAT with item-level completion and station routing, and handheld waiter pads at £259. QR ordering for the beer garden runs through the drink order app, with orders landing in the same till as the bar. TableMaestro handles bookings with deposits or a card hold for the Christmas party season, from £5 a week with no commission.
Card payments run through Posso Pay, Posso's own merchant service, from 1% + 10p quoted on card turnover, with the same rate at the bar and online. Teya and Dojo terminals are also supported. Support is UK-based, Monday to Friday, 9am–9:30pm, with an urgent out-of-hours line for till-down issues. Setup (menu build + configuration) is free; on-site installation for larger sites is priced on application.
Where to look elsewhere
If your pub is also a shop, a bottle shop with 800 lines or a village store attached to the bar, you need retail-grade stock control with barcode purchasing and supplier management, and a retail-first platform will serve that better than a hospitality EPOS. Our retail POS guide explains where the line sits.
If keg-level stock-take against brewery delivery notes is the single most important job, test any system, including ours, on that job before buying. And if you run a micropub doing thirty pints a night with one person behind the bar, a card reader and a notebook is a perfectly reasonable answer.
Related guides
Related guides
Pub POS system
The Posso pub product page: tabs, rounds, day-part pricing and what is in the box.
Read the guideBar EPOS
For wet-led bars and late venues: speed at the bar, tabs held by card, staff PINs.
Read the guideTable ordering system for restaurants
QR ordering in depth: what works, what annoys customers and what it costs.
Read the guideCard machine fees explained
Why pence-per-transaction matters on a £4.80 pint and how to read a quote.
Read the guideEPOS system installation UK
What a pub install involves, from the cabling behind the bar to staff training.
Read the guideThis is one part of the Posso EPOS system — the same till, kitchen display, ordering and card payments, set up for your type of venue. Every one-off and monthly cost is on the EPOS pricing page.
Pub EPOS system — frequently asked questions
What is the best EPOS system for a pub in the UK?
The one that rings a round of five drinks in under 15 seconds, holds tabs against a card, changes prices by schedule for happy hour and, if you serve food, runs table numbers and courses without slowing the bar. Time the basics on a demo before comparing features. Posso pub EPOS systems start from £499 + VAT including the terminal, printers, cash drawer, menu build and training.
How much does a pub till system cost?
Typical UK till hardware runs £300–£1,500 one-off with software at £25–£70 a month and card processing on top. A complete Posso system is £499 + VAT, including the touchscreen terminal, kitchen printer, receipt printer, cash drawer, menu build and training, with software from £25 + VAT a month. Card payments through Posso Pay are from 1% + 10p, quoted on card turnover.
Can a pub EPOS handle tabs and rounds?
A good one does both as core workflows: open a tab by name or table, hold a card against it, add rounds in two taps from the home screen, and settle or split at close. Test on the demo how many taps it takes to add a pint to an open tab, and what happens when the customer leaves without paying. If it needs a manager PIN each time, staff will revert to a pad.
Does pub EPOS do happy hour pricing automatically?
It should. Day-part price lists switch the whole menu by schedule, for example happy hour 4pm to 7pm or quiz-night pints on Tuesdays, without a manager editing prices by hand. Check on the demo that a tab opened during happy hour charges the right price for drinks added before and after the cut-off, and that the report shows which price list was used for each sale.
Does a pub EPOS system track keg stock?
Stock control depth varies widely between systems, from a simple count-down per product to full stock-take by weight against delivery notes. If keg-level stock is essential to how you run the pub, ask to see a stock report from a live site, ask how draught is measured, and make it a condition of the sale. For retail-depth stock, such as a bottle shop attached to the pub, a retail-first platform is the better tool.
Can customers order from the beer garden on their phone?
Yes, with a QR code on each table that opens the menu, takes the order and the payment, and sends the order to the bar printer or screen. The point is that garden orders land in the same till as bar orders, so sales and stock stay in one place. Posso runs this through the drink order app, with the same card rate as the bar.
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