We'll start with what a lot of POS companies won't tell you. If you sell at the Saturday Market a few weekends a summer, a phone reader from Square is probably all you need. It costs nothing to start, the flat rate is easy to understand, and no one needs to come out and install anything.
That changes once you have a fixed counter, employees and steady volume. A flat rate on every card costs more than wholesale-plus pricing once your sales grow. Consumer-grade hardware wears out under real use. And email-only support is a problem when the station quits on a Saturday.
This post is for businesses at that point.
What you're buying
A POS has three parts, and each one has its own price:
- Hardware: the station, the pin pad, a receipt printer and a cash drawer. Depending on the business you may add a barcode scanner, a handheld or a kitchen display.
- Software: your item list, modifiers, staff logins and end-of-day reports, usually billed monthly.
- Processing: what you pay on every card sale. This is the part that adds up over time.
Some providers fold the hardware into the processing rate or into a long lease. That makes the upfront number small and the total large. Ask what the hardware costs if you pay cash for it.
What's different in Alaska
Replacement parts. A part that ships ground from a Lower 48 warehouse can leave you down for days, and longer off the road system. We keep spares in Anchorage. With hardware care, a replacement goes out on a same-day flight before you send back the broken unit.
The internet. Connections drop more often here than vendors in the Lower 48 seem to expect. Every pin pad we install keeps taking cards offline, and we monitor the network on every install.
Seasons. If you're open in summer and dark in winter, paying for software in January doesn't make sense. Winter Freeze bills software for the seven months you're open and pauses it for the five you're closed. If your season is shorter than seven months, call us and we'll talk through it.
Our prices
| Item | Price |
|---|---|
| Countertop kit (cafés, counters, trucks) | $1,800 |
| Retail kit (scanner, customer display) | $2,300 |
| Handheld kit | $1,000 |
| Bar & Nightlife kit | $2,600 |
| Software: Essentials / Core / Growth | $99 / $199 / $299 a month per location |
| Hardware care, whole kit | $15 a month or $150 a year |
Install and training come with every kit. Software is month to month, with 10% off if you pay yearly, and there's no early-termination fee.
For processing, you can pay interchange plus 0.30% and 10¢. Or you can use cash discount, where card-paying customers see a 3.99% service fee, hardware is half off and software is free for the first year. Which one comes out ahead depends on your average ticket and how many customers pay by card. An accountant can run that comparison with your own numbers. Either way, plan on about $34 a month in processor pass-through fees, billed at cost.
Who we're a good fit for, and who we aren't
We're a good fit if you have a physical counter in Alaska, you want someone local to install it and answer the phone, and you don't want a contract.
We're not the cheapest option for a pop-up that runs a few weekends a year. Use Square for that, and call us at (907) 290-8555 when you outgrow it.
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