Best POS Systems by Business Type
What's brilliant for a busy restaurant is overkill for a one-person plumbing business. Pick your trade and we'll show you what fits.
Cafés
A café POS needs to be quick, easy for staff, decent with tips, and not fall over during the Saturday morning oat-flat-white stampede. You want fast taps, simple menus and reliable card payments — not a 12-week onboarding project.
Top pick: Square
See best for cafésRestaurants
A restaurant POS has to handle tables, tabs, coursing, tips and a kitchen that's already on fire at 8pm. You want something staff can learn fast and that won't drop payments mid-service.
Top pick: Dojo
See best for restaurantsRetail shops
Retail lives and dies on stock. A good retail POS tracks inventory, handles barcodes, and ideally keeps your shop and online store in sync — without charging you a fortune per sale.
Top pick: Square
See best for retail shopsMarket stalls
On a market stall you want something that fits in your apron, works on mobile data, charges all day and costs almost nothing when it's quiet. No contracts, no monthly fees, no nonsense.
Top pick: SumUp
See best for market stallsPubs & bars
Behind a busy bar you need fast rounds, open tabs and card machines that don't sulk on a Friday night. Reliability and speed beat shaving pennies off the rate.
Top pick: Dojo
See best for pubs & barsSalons
Salons want easy card payments at the chair, tips handled cleanly, and ideally booking that doesn't live in a paper diary. Simple and tidy beats sprawling and complicated.
Top pick: Square
See best for salonsTradespeople
If you're a plumber, electrician or one-person band, you want to take a card on the doorstep, send the odd invoice, and not pay a monthly fee for the privilege. Keep it simple.
Top pick: SumUp
See best for tradespeopleTakeaways
Takeaways juggle counter sales, phone orders and online delivery platforms. You want fast order entry, a kitchen ticket that's actually readable, and card payments that keep up at peak.
Top pick: Square
See best for takeawaysMobile businesses
Food vans, pop-ups, mobile groomers, event traders — if you move around, you need a reader that works on mobile data, lasts the day, and doesn't tie you to a contract.
Top pick: SumUp
See best for mobile businessesNot sure what you need?
Tell us how your business takes payments and we'll point you towards providers that actually fit — not just the one with the loudest sales team.