Most restaurant POS lists rank brands. The brands are closer to each other than their marketing suggests, so this list is organized by the setup your floor needs.
| Setup | Fits | What it has to do well |
|---|---|---|
| Counter / quick service | Cafés, counter service, food trucks with a wall | Fast ticket entry, simple modifiers, kitchen printer or display |
| Full service | Dining rooms with servers | Table map, coursing, seat-level splits, server checkout |
| Bar | Bars, taprooms, breweries | Pre-auth tabs, quick drink buttons, a handheld for the floor |
| Handheld-first | Patios, markets, pop-ups, trucks | A device that takes the order and the card at the table |
| Hybrid | Dining room plus a bar, or food plus retail | One system that handles both without two menus |
Toast, Clover, Square and Quantic can each cover most of these. The differences that cost you money show up in three places: how the hardware is paid for, whether there's a contract, and who you reach when something breaks.
What each setup costs with us
We install Quantic. Prices are published, and install and training are included in every kit.
- Countertop kit, $1,800: station, receipt printer, cash drawer, pin pad. Fits counter service and small dining rooms.
- Handheld kit, $1,000: Quantic Lite handheld with built-in card reader and printer. Fits patios, trucks and markets.
- Bar & Nightlife kit, $2,600: station, printer, drawer, pin pad, plus a handheld for the floor.
- Retail kit, $2,300: for the bottle shop or gift counter next to the restaurant.
For full service, start with a Countertop kit and add stations ($900 each) and handhelds ($600 each) as the room needs them. Each added device needs a license. Kitchen displays start at $900, and the Core tier and above include the KDS license.
Software is $99, $199 or $299 a month per location, month to month, with no early-termination fee. Processing is interchange plus 0.30% and 10¢, or you can use a cash-discount program with half-price hardware and a year of free software.
Questions to ask every company on your list
- If I pay cash for the hardware, what does it cost?
- Is there a term or an early-termination fee?
- What's the processing rate on a plain debit card?
- Where's your nearest spare, and how does it reach me?
- Who answers the phone at 7 p.m. Alaska time?
- Can I pause billing when I'm closed for the season?
- Who looks after the network, or is the router my problem?
Write the answers down next to each other. That comparison usually tells you more than any feature chart.
Our answers
- Every price is on the pricing page.
- No term and no early-termination fee.
- Interchange plus 0.30% and 10¢, the same on every card. Processor pass-through fees are about $34 a month at cost.
- Anchorage. With hardware care ($15 a month for the whole kit), we put a replacement on a same-day flight before you send the broken unit back.
- A person in Anchorage at (907) 290-8555.
- Yes. Winter Freeze bills software for the seven months you're open and pauses it for five.
- We do. Every install includes a UniFi gateway that we monitor remotely.
Want a straight answer for your counter?
Prices are on the page, and a person in Anchorage answers the phone. (907) 290-8555.
See pricing Request a call