EPOS system comparison UK: the four types, scored on eight criteria (2026 guide)
Comparing twelve brands on a feature grid tells you who has the longest list. Comparing four types of system on the eight things that cost you money tells you which shortlist to make.
- Four system types, eight criteria, one table
- How to score quotes on your own numbers
- Cloud hospitality EPOS from £499 + VAT
Written by the Posso team in Leicester · Reviewed by Paul Robinson, Managing Director · Last reviewed
Short answer
UK EPOS systems fall into four types, and the type decides more than the brand. Payment-led tablet apps cost little upfront and charge 1.5–1.75% on every card sale; cloud hospitality EPOS costs £300–£1,500 for hardware and £25–£70 a month with kitchen routing and delivery integration built in; legacy local tills run without internet and rarely connect to anything; enterprise platforms run to £100+ a month per site with contracts to match. Compare them on eight criteria (upfront, monthly, card fees, offline trading, kitchen routing, delivery platforms, online ordering, contract shape) at your own turnover, then shortlist inside the winning type. Posso sits in the cloud hospitality column at £499 + VAT.
Key takeaways
- Choose the type of EPOS first and the brand second; most cost differences sit between types, not between brands.
- Payment-led tablet apps are cheapest upfront and dearest per card sale once turnover passes a few thousand pounds a month.
- Offline trading, kitchen routing and delivery integration are where hospitality systems separate from general-purpose ones.
- Posso is a cloud hospitality EPOS with offline-first software, £499 + VAT hardware and software from £25 + VAT a month.
Takeaway: Score every quote on the same eight criteria at your own turnover, and the type of system you need will choose itself before the brand does.
Why most EPOS comparisons do not help
The typical comparison article lines up ten brands and ticks features. It does not help the owner of a 60-cover restaurant work out why one quote is £49 a month and another is £900 upfront. The two quotes are not for the same kind of product, and a tick grid will never say so.
Hospitality EPOS in the UK comes in four types. A payment-led app runs on a tablet, is cheap to start and earns on a flat card rate. A cloud hospitality EPOS sells commercial hardware with a monthly fee and is built around kitchens, modifiers and delivery channels. A legacy local till stores everything on the machine, runs with no internet and connects to little. An enterprise platform runs estates of twenty sites with a contract to match.
The payment-led app looks free; the enterprise platform looks professional; the local till looks cheap because there is no monthly fee. None of those impressions survives a year of actual bills. This guide compares the types on eight criteria using typical UK ranges, then shows how to put your own numbers through the same grid. For the wider set of comparisons, start at the compare EPOS systems hub.
The eight criteria, and how to read each one
Weigh the upfront cost against who owns the hardware
Upfront cost runs from roughly nothing (a tablet plus a reader) to £1,500 for a full commercial bundle. What matters is what it buys: a terminal you own and could run other software on, or a reader locked to one acquirer. A restaurant that pays £1,000 once for hardware it keeps for six years has spent about £14 a month on it; one that pays nothing upfront and 1.75% on £20,000 of monthly card sales is paying £350 a month.
Read the monthly fee alongside what it includes
Cloud EPOS software typically costs £25–£70 a month; enterprise tiers run £100+ per site. Two systems at £45 a month can differ by whether that includes kitchen routing, delivery integration, online ordering and support. A £29 licence that needs £60 of integrations is an £89 system. A legacy local till with no monthly fee but a paid call-out when the Friday menu change goes wrong is not free either.
Work card fees out on your turnover, not on the headline rate
Payment-led readers typically charge 1.5–1.75% flat; merchant accounts run around 1–1.5% plus pence. At £30,000 a month on card, 1.75% is £525 and 1% + 10p on 1,500 transactions is £300 + £150 = £450, and the gap grows every month after that. A system that forces one card rate is a card contract with a till attached. See card machine fees explained.
Test what the till does when the internet drops
A cloud-only system stops taking orders when the broadband does. An offline-first system keeps a local database on the terminal, trades through the outage and syncs when the line returns. Ask the provider to pull the network cable during the demo and take an order, then a card payment; the answer separates the types faster than any price list. The full picture is in what happens when an EPOS goes offline.
Judge kitchen routing by stations, not by whether a printer is supported
Any system can print a ticket. The question is whether one order with a starter, a wok dish and a dessert can print at three stations, and whether the kitchen screen shows what is outstanding across 14 open orders. Payment-led apps usually stop at a single printer; cloud hospitality and enterprise systems route by station. For a 10-cover café none of this matters; for a 60-cover kitchen on a Saturday it is the whole job.
Count delivery platforms and online ordering as part of the system
Delivery-platform integration typically costs £0–£60 a month per platform elsewhere, and online ordering 0–15% commission or £20–£60 a month. A system with neither pushes you to a tablet stack and marketplace commission at 14–30%. On 400 online orders a month at £20 average, 15% commission is £1,200. The type a system belongs to largely decides whether these channels are built in or bolted on.
The four types compared on eight criteria
Typical UK ranges for each type; the pattern across each row is what to read.
| Criterion | Payment-led app on a tablet | Cloud hospitality EPOS | Legacy local till | Enterprise platform |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Upfront cost | Low; a consumer tablet plus a reader | £300–£1,500 for commercial hardware | Upper end of £300–£1,500, sometimes more for proprietary units | Hardware per site plus implementation fees |
| Monthly cost | Free or low tier; paid for through card fees | £25–£70 a month | Usually none, but paid support and call-outs | £100+ a month per site, typically on contract |
| Card fees | 1.5–1.75% flat, provider's own reader | Merchant account around 1–1.5% plus pence | Standalone PDQ, often not integrated | Negotiated merchant rates; integration standard |
| Offline trading | Limited; many stop | Varies: cloud-only stops, offline-first keeps trading | Full; everything is local | Varies by vendor; often cloud-dependent |
| Kitchen routing | Single printer, rarely station routing | Printers and kitchen screens with station routing | Printers by station; screens rare | Full routing, multi-kitchen |
| Delivery platforms | Rarely integrated | Integrated; £0–£60 a month per platform | Not integrated; tablet stack | Integrated via middleware, usually extra |
| Online ordering | Basic, often via the payment provider | Built in; 0–15% commission or £20–£60 a month elsewhere | Not available | Available, usually a separate module |
| Contract shape | Pay as you go on card fees | Monthly licence; hardware bought outright | One-off purchase; support contracts optional | Multi-year per-site agreements |
| Where Posso sits | — | £499 + VAT hardware; software from £25 + VAT a month; Posso Pay from 1% + 10p quoted on card turnover; offline-first; delivery integration £45 a month for three platforms | — | — |
Ranges are typical UK figures at October 2026; Posso prices are published on EPOS pricing. No competitor's individual prices are quoted here.
How to score quotes on your own numbers
Put the eight criteria down the side of a sheet and one column per quote. Fill the first three rows with pounds, not ticks. Upfront cost is the invoice divided by 60 months, so a £900 bundle is £15 a month. Monthly cost is the licence plus every add-on you would switch on. Card fees are the rate applied to your real card turnover: £24,000 and 1,100 transactions at 1.75% is £420; at 1% + 10p it is £240 + £110 = £350.
Add the three rows. That is each quote's monthly cost at your volume, and the ranking is usually different from the headline one. Then add a line for what the system does not do: the staff hour a night retyping delivery orders, or the commission paid to a third-party ordering site.
The remaining five criteria are pass or fail at your site. Does it trade offline? Does it route to your stations? Does it take orders from your platforms? Does it run your own online ordering? Can you leave without losing the hardware? A quote that fails two is out regardless of price. What is left is a shortlist inside one type, and that is when named comparisons are worth reading: see Posso vs Epos Now, and the alternatives to Square, SumUp, Zettle, Lightspeed and Toast.
What to ask a provider before you sign
Which type of system is this, and what does that mean for who I pay?
Ask the provider to say plainly whether you pay them through card fees, a software licence, a hardware purchase or a contract. A provider that earns on card fees has no reason to lower them; one that earns on software has a reason to keep you trading. The answer tells you what the total will look like in year three.
What happens if the internet goes down on a Saturday night?
Ask for the specific behaviour: does the till take orders, does the kitchen printer fire, does the card reader work, and what happens to those orders when the line returns? 'Use your phone hotspot' is a workaround, not a feature. An offline-first system should keep the full service running from the local database and sync afterwards without duplicates. Ask them to demonstrate it.
What do I keep if I leave, and what does leaving cost?
Ask whether the hardware is yours, whether the printers and drawer work with other software, whether your customer database exports, and what notice applies. A payment-led reader is usually worthless with another provider; a commercial terminal usually is not. Historic sales data rarely transfers between systems, so export reports before the switch rather than after.
The Posso approach to EPOS comparison
Posso is a cloud hospitality EPOS supported from Leicester, and that is its column in the table. The complete system is £499 + VAT and includes a touchscreen Windows 11 Pro terminal, an 80mm kitchen printer, a receipt printer, a cash drawer, the menu build and staff training. Software is from £25 + VAT a month. You own the hardware outright; software is from £25 + VAT a month.
Posso runs an offline-first local database on the terminal, so service continues when the broadband drops and syncs when it returns. Kitchen printers route by station and the £399 + VAT kitchen display adds item-level completion. Just Eat, Uber Eats and Deliveroo integration is £45 a month for all three. Your online ordering website is hosted free, with a 60p service fee per order paid by the customer.
Card payments run through Posso Pay, Posso's own merchant service, from 1% + 10p quoted on card turnover, with the same rate in store and online. Teya and Dojo terminals are also supported. Multi-site reporting, Xero sync and a free marketing suite are part of the platform rather than modules.
A 2-year warranty is standard, with UK remote support Monday to Friday, 9am–9:30pm and 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. Systems are preconfigured and shipped plug-and-play. Posso is used by 500+ UK hospitality businesses; see EPOS systems.
Where to look elsewhere
If you are a sole trader at a market stall taking 30 card payments a day, the payment-led column is right for you: the flat card rate on a small turnover costs less than any licence, and you have no kitchen to route to.
If your business is retail with a few thousand barcoded lines, or a chain of 40 sites that needs a procurement-led enterprise contract, Posso is not the right column. Retail needs stock control with supplier ordering that Posso does not offer, and large estates should compare enterprise platforms on implementation and head-office reporting.
Related guides
Related guides
Cloud EPOS vs traditional till
Where the data lives, what happens offline and who should still buy a local till.
Read the guidePosso vs Epos Now
A named comparison inside the cloud hospitality column, re-verified quarterly.
Read the guidePOS vs EPOS: what is the difference?
The terms, what they used to mean and what they mean on a UK quote today.
Read the guideHow much does an EPOS system cost in the UK?
Hardware, software and card fee ranges for every type of system in this comparison.
Read the guideEpos Now alternative
What to look for when leaving a cloud EPOS, and how to move the menu and customers.
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.
EPOS system comparison — frequently asked questions
What are the different types of EPOS system in the UK?
Four: payment-led apps on a tablet, which earn through a flat card rate of 1.5–1.75%; cloud hospitality EPOS, with commercial hardware, a £25–£70 monthly licence and kitchen routing and delivery integration built in; legacy local tills, which store everything on the machine; and enterprise platforms at £100+ a month per site on multi-year contracts. Pick the type first; most of the cost difference between quotes is between types.
How do I compare EPOS systems fairly?
Put every quote through the same eight criteria: upfront cost, monthly cost, card fees, offline trading, kitchen routing, delivery platforms, online ordering and contract shape. Turn the first three into pounds per month at your own turnover and treat the other five as pass or fail at your site. Then read named comparisons only between the providers left standing.
How much does a hospitality EPOS system cost compared with a tablet app?
A tablet app is cheap to start and charges 1.5–1.75% on every card sale, so £20,000 a month on card costs £300–£350 in fees. A cloud hospitality EPOS typically costs £300–£1,500 upfront and £25–£70 a month, with a merchant account at around 1–1.5% plus pence. Posso's complete system is £499 + VAT with software from £25 + VAT a month and Posso Pay from 1% + 10p, quoted on card turnover.
Is a cloud EPOS better than a traditional till?
For most hospitality businesses with more than one order channel, yes, provided it is offline-first. A cloud system gives you remote reporting, menu updates from a laptop, delivery integration and online ordering; a local till gives you independence from the internet and nothing else. If the cloud system keeps trading from a local database and syncs later, it has the local till's one advantage as well.
Which EPOS type is best for a small restaurant?
A 40 to 80 cover restaurant with two or more kitchen stations and any delivery or online orders usually lands in the cloud hospitality column, where station routing, modifiers, table management and delivery integration are built in. A payment-led app suits the same restaurant only while it is a single counter with one printer.
Can I switch from one type of EPOS to another without losing my data?
Your customer database usually transfers; your historic sales data usually does not. Export the reports you want to keep before the switch. Standard hardware generally transfers; payment-led readers and proprietary terminals generally do not.
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