POS vs EPOS: what is the difference, and does it matter when you buy? (2026 guide)
POS, EPOS, ePOS, POS system, till system, point of sale. Suppliers use six words for the same thing and a seventh for something different. This guide gives you the definitions you need and then gets on with how to choose.
- The definitions in plain English, once
- Which words point at which products
- Complete EPOS systems from £499 + VAT
Written by the Posso team in Leicester · Reviewed by Paul Robinson, Managing Director · Last reviewed
Short answer
POS means point of sale: the place and the moment a customer pays. EPOS means electronic point of sale: the till system that handles that moment electronically, with a touchscreen, software, printers and a card machine. In UK usage the two are interchangeable; "POS system", "EPOS system", "ePOS" and "till system" all describe the same product. The practical difference that does matter is between a cash register, a card reader with an app, and a full EPOS, which in the UK typically costs £300–£1,500 in hardware plus £25–£70 a month in software. Buy on what the system does at your counter, not on which three letters it uses. Posso calls its product an EPOS and prices it from £499 + VAT.
Key takeaways
- POS is the place and act of paying; EPOS is the electronic till system that handles it.
- In the UK, POS system, EPOS, ePOS and till system all mean the same product.
- The real buying choice is register versus card-reader app versus full EPOS, not POS versus EPOS.
- Judge a system by its parts: terminal, software, printers, card integration, back office and support.
Takeaway: Stop comparing the acronyms and start comparing what each system does when an order with three modifiers lands at 7pm on a Friday.
Why the words trip people up
An owner searching for a new till finds "POS systems" on one site, "EPOS systems" on another and "ePOS software" on a third, and reasonably wonders whether they are three products at three price points. They are not. POS is the older, international term; EPOS is the British habit of adding the E to make clear the till is electronic rather than a mechanical register. American suppliers say POS, British ones say EPOS, and the ones selling into both markets say both on the same page.
The term that genuinely points at a different product is "card reader" or "card machine": a payment device, sometimes with a basic app, often sold as if it were a till. It is not one, and that gap is where most bad purchases happen. Someone buys a reader thinking they have a POS, then discovers there is no kitchen printing, no modifiers and no end-of-day report worth the name.
So the useful work is not defining acronyms. It is knowing what parts a complete system has, which words suppliers attach to which products, and how to judge one against your own counter. For the wider set of comparisons, start at compare EPOS systems.
The principles that make the terms useful
Each of these is a rule you can apply to any supplier's page in thirty seconds.
Treat POS and EPOS as the same word
If a UK supplier sells a touchscreen, software, a receipt printer and a cash drawer, it is an EPOS whether the page says POS, EPOS, ePOS or till system. The letters shift with the supplier's origin, not with the product. The only honest distinction left in POS is the literal one: the point of sale is the counter itself. When one quote says "POS terminal" and another says "EPOS terminal", compare the screen size, the processor, the operating system and the warranty. Those differ. The acronym does not.
Count the parts, not the name
A complete EPOS has six parts: the terminal (touchscreen with the till software), the software itself (menu, orders, tenders), the printers (receipt at the counter, kitchen printer or display where food is cooked), the cash drawer (fires from the receipt printer), the card machine (integrated, so the total goes across without typing) and the back office (reports, menu edits, staff, usually in a browser). A quote missing any of these is not like-for-like. Ask for the full list priced, then compare lists.
Know which word points at which product
"Card reader", "card machine", "PDQ" and "terminal" are payment devices. "POS app" and "free POS" usually mean a card reader's companion app: items and a total, little else. "Till" or "till system" in the UK means a full EPOS. "Cloud POS" means the software runs on a server and the till needs the internet to some degree. "Kiosk" means the customer orders on a screen themselves. If a page for a PDQ calls itself a POS, read it as a card machine until it shows you a kitchen printer.
Judge software by the Friday order, not the feature list
Every system lists modifiers, reporting and integrations. The test is a single order at 7:10pm: a 12-inch pizza, half pepperoni half mushroom, extra cheese, two dips, collection in twenty minutes, paid by card. How many taps? Does the kitchen ticket show the halves clearly? Does the card machine show £18.90 without anyone typing it? Does tomorrow's report show two dips sold? Run that order on every demo and the difference between systems appears in a minute.
Decide where the data lives before you decide the brand
Cloud, local or hybrid is a bigger choice than POS versus EPOS. A pure cloud till is easy to run across sites but stops when the line drops. A local till keeps working but is harder to see from home. A hybrid keeps a local database on the terminal and syncs to the cloud when connected, which is what most food businesses want. Cloud EPOS vs traditional till works through the trade-offs; decide that first, then shortlist.
Price the whole stack for twelve months
Hardware is the number on the page. The year's cost is hardware plus twelve months of software (£25–£70 a month typically) plus card processing on your real turnover plus any per-platform integration fees plus support. A £0 terminal at 1.75% on £200,000 of card sales is £3,500 a year in processing before anything else. A £499 terminal with a lower quoted merchant rate can be cheaper by the end of the first quarter. Hidden EPOS costs lists the lines people miss.
What the words usually mean, and what each costs
The product each term normally points at on a UK supplier's site, with typical costs. Where a supplier uses a term differently, the parts list settles it.
| Term you will see | What it usually means | Typical UK cost | Posso equivalent |
|---|---|---|---|
| POS / point of sale | The counter, or (loosely) the till system | n/a | Used interchangeably with EPOS |
| EPOS / ePOS / till system | Full electronic till: terminal, software, printers, drawer | £300–£1,500 hardware; £25–£70 a month software | £499 + VAT complete; software from £25 + VAT a month |
| Cash register | Mechanical or basic electronic till, fixed keys, daily total | £100–£300 | Not sold; see the register comparison |
| Card reader / POS app | Payment device with a basic items-and-total app | £0–£100 reader; 1.5–1.75% per transaction | Posso Pay from 1% + 10p, quoted on card turnover, integrated with the till |
| Cloud POS | Till software running on a remote server | £25–£70 a month, up to £100+ for enterprise tiers | Hybrid: local offline-first database that syncs |
| KDS / kitchen display | Screen in the kitchen replacing printed tickets | £300–£800 per screen plus £0–£30 a month elsewhere | £399 + VAT per 21-inch screen |
| Self-order kiosk | Customer-facing ordering screen | £700–£3,000+ per unit | From £699 + VAT; Fast Lane £399 + VAT |
| Back office / BOH | Browser-based reports, menu and staff management | Included in software tier | Included |
Ranges are typical UK figures at October 2026; Posso prices are published on EPOS pricing.
What to ask a provider before you sign
Is this a till or a card reader with an app?
Ask it that bluntly. Then ask the three questions that separate them: does it print to a kitchen printer, does it price modifiers on the item, and does it produce an end-of-day report by item and by tender? A card reader app will usually fail the first and the third. There is nothing wrong with a card reader for a stall or a sole trader, but if you run a kitchen you need to know which you are being sold before the price looks attractive.
What exactly is included in the price on the page?
Get the parts list in writing: terminal, receipt printer, kitchen printer, cash drawer, card machine, menu build, training, support, warranty. A "from £0" or "from £299" headline often covers the terminal alone, with the printer, drawer and build added at the quote stage. Some suppliers charge £0–£300 for installation and the warranty is typically one to two years. Add the lines up and compare totals, not headlines.
What happens if the internet goes down?
This tells you whether you are buying a cloud till, a local till or a hybrid, which matters more than the name. Ask whether the terminal holds the menu and the day's orders locally, whether the card machine can still authorise, and what syncs when the line comes back. See it rather than hear about it: unplug the router during the demo and put an order through. A system that handles that calmly is one you can run on a Saturday night.
The Posso approach to EPOS
Posso calls its product an EPOS because it is one in the full sense: a touchscreen terminal running Windows 11 Pro, the till software, a kitchen printer, a receipt printer and a cash drawer, with the menu build and staff training included, for £499 + VAT. Software is from £25 + VAT a month, you own the hardware outright and it carries a two-year warranty. It is built and supported from Leicester and runs on 500+ UK hospitality sites.
On the cloud-versus-local question, Posso is a hybrid. The database lives on the terminal and is offline-first, so the counter and the card machine keep working when the line drops, and the back office syncs when it returns. The same software runs as a Windows desktop app and an Android app, both available at downloads, so a second screen or a handheld can be a tablet rather than a second full terminal.
Card payments are integrated rather than typed. Posso Pay is Posso's own merchant service, from 1% + 10p quoted on your card turnover, the same rate in store and online; Teya and Dojo terminals are supported too. Kitchen display screens are £399 + VAT each, and Just Eat, Uber Eats and Deliveroo arrive on the till for £45 a month with unlimited orders. UK support runs 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. Systems are preconfigured and shipped plug-and-play.
Where to look elsewhere
If what you need is genuinely a point of sale in the narrow sense, a way to take a card payment at a stall, a pop-up or a one-person van with four products, then a card reader and its app is the right purchase and a full EPOS is overkill. The same is true for a business where every sale is a single fixed-price item and nothing is cooked to order.
And if you run a shop rather than a kitchen, with barcodes, suppliers and stock counts, you want a retail-first system with proper purchasing and stock control. Posso is for food and drink; a retail-first system will serve a shop better.
Related guides
Related guides
EPOS system vs cash register
The comparison that actually matters: what a register cannot do and when it is still right.
Read the guideCloud EPOS vs traditional till
Where the data lives, what stops when the internet does, and what a hybrid gives you.
Read the guideAndroid vs Windows EPOS
Tablet or terminal: hardware cost, printers, durability and which fits which venue.
Read the guideEPOS system comparison UK
The main UK systems set against each other on cost, offline behaviour and payments.
Read the guidePOS system with card machine
Why the till and the card machine should be one system, and what integration costs.
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.
POS vs EPOS: frequently asked questions
What is the difference between POS and EPOS?
POS stands for point of sale: the place and moment a customer pays. EPOS stands for electronic point of sale: the till system that handles that payment and the order behind it electronically. In the UK the two are used interchangeably for the same product, so a POS system and an EPOS system are the same thing. The E was added in British usage to distinguish an electronic till from a mechanical cash register, and it has stuck.
Is a till system the same as an EPOS system?
In UK usage, yes. "Till" is the everyday word and "EPOS" is the trade word for the same touchscreen, software, printer and drawer. The case to watch is when "till" means a cash register: a fixed-key machine that totals a sale but does not print to a kitchen, price modifiers or report by item. If a supplier says till, ask whether it has a kitchen printer and an item-level report.
What are the parts of an EPOS system?
Six parts make a complete system. The terminal: a touchscreen running the till software. The software: menu, orders, modifiers, tenders. Printers: a receipt printer at the counter and a kitchen printer or kitchen display screen where food is cooked. The cash drawer, which fires from the receipt printer. The card machine, integrated so the total passes across without being typed. And the back office: reports, menu edits and staff management, usually in a browser. A quote missing any of them is not a complete quote.
How much does an EPOS or POS system cost in the UK?
UK till hardware typically costs £300–£1,500 one-off, with cloud software at £25–£70 a month and up to £100+ for enterprise tiers. Card processing on top is typically 1.5–1.75% flat on payment-led readers or around 1–1.5% plus pence through a merchant account. A complete Posso EPOS is £499 + VAT including the terminal, kitchen printer, receipt printer, cash drawer, menu build and training, with software from £25 + VAT a month and Posso Pay from 1% + 10p quoted on card turnover.
Is a card reader a POS system?
Technically it is a point of sale device, which is why many are marketed as POS. In practice a card reader with its companion app lists items and takes a payment, and little more. It does not print to a kitchen, price modifiers on items or produce a reliable end-of-day report by tender. For a stall or a sole trader that is fine. For a kitchen it is not a till, and the gap tends to show up on the first busy Friday.
Which should I choose: a cash register, a card reader or an EPOS?
Choose by the work at your counter. A fixed, short menu with cash or a reader and no kitchen: a register or a card reader app will do. Anything cooked to order, with modifiers, phone or online orders and a kitchen that needs a printed ticket: an EPOS, because otherwise staff do that work by hand every shift. If you are between the two, [EPOS system vs cash register](/epos-system-vs-cash-register) works through the break-even for a single site.
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