How much does POS software cost?

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Henry David Thoreau once said , "The price of anything is the number of lives you will trade for it," which oddly reminds me of the common saying, "It costs an arm and a leg." You can imagine that paying for things is like going into battle: who knows which limbs you'll have left intact?

Jar for saving money. Vector illustration.

The good news is that paying for something doesn’t necessarily mean bleeding, so the rest of this article will be painless. In fact, if you’re just starting to research POS software, this post will synthesize all the key information you need to know about POS pricing models and what you should plan to pay for each.

Hardware
Let's quickly cover the basics: there are two some telemarketing facts in uganda components to a POS - hardware and software. The hardware (depending on the software you get) will be a combination of a cash register, PC, tablet, receipt printer, scanner, and maybe one or two other odds and ends.

The hardware will cost between $500 and $3,000 per POS station, depending on whether you already have a computer/tablet that can run the software. If you already have a computer that you plan to run the software on, you will only need to purchase a kit that includes a cash drawer, scanner, etc. Keep in mind that the computer or tablet you use will need all of its power to run the POS software, so make sure you can dedicate an entire machine to this purpose.

As a very tiny retailer, it is entirely possible to skip the hardware part if you already have a PC. But again, I am talking about a VERY TINY retailer. If you have more than ten products, you should purchase a registry, both for efficiency and professionalism.

Now let's move on to the actual prices of the software.

Pricing models
Let's start with pricing models. How do suppliers structure their plans?

Pay immediately
Paying for a license upfront is not a very popular model, and most companies don't use it. It's a huge upfront cost, so there's a lot of sticker shock that can put off potential customers. But you should know that paying upfront can end up costing you less than paying monthly over time.

A secondary problem with the pay-as-you-go model is that you'll have to pay an upgrade fee if you ever want to upgrade to a new version. The upgrade fee is usually just a percentage of the initial cost, but it can add up (and, by comparison, most monthly versions always offer free upgrades).

Typically, pricing tiers in this model are broken down by number of stores and features, rather than by registration, user number, etc.

Payment per month
The monthly payment model is by far the most popular pricing model, mainly because, as I said above, there’s no sticker shock (at least up front). However, this model can get pretty expensive. Before jumping on board for a seemingly reasonable $40 per month per register, you should do the math. $40 per month per register translates into $480 per year per register, plus you may need to add an extra user for $12 per month, which brings you to $624 per year. Add in $19 per month per register for full customer support, and you’re looking at $852 per year for just one register. (And yes, my numbers were very fictitious and actually quite conservative.) So you have to be careful.

As I hinted at above, there are a couple of kinks to this model. The base price is usually set per register and/or per user. This means that pricing would look like this: $35 per month per register. After that, the actual tiers (e.g. small, medium, large retailers) would usually be determined by some combination of stores and features. For example:

Small: $35/mo/register, gets you 1 store, CRM features
Medium: $40/month signup fee, gets you 1 store, CRM features, inventory management
Large: $50/month per register, unlimited stores, CRM features, inventory management