9 Best POS Systems for Retail of 2026

Square's retail pricing page splits the product into three plans. Free covers automatic item and SKU creation from a scanned GTIN barcode, bulk catalog import, discounts, refunds and sales reporting. Plus, at $49 per location per month, adds inventory management and stock intake, vendor profiles, purchase orders and cost of goods sold reporting, which is where most specialty stores will land. Premium, at $149, adds cross-location returns, transfer orders and 24/7 phone support. Online sync is a strong point: Square Online sites draw on the same item library, a store can run several sites from one account, and Square also lists a sync with Wix online stores. Card rates fall as you move up, from 2.6% plus 15 cents in person on Free to 2.4% plus 15 cents on Premium. The limits are the per-location fee on paid plans and offline payments, which Square declines if the device stays offline for more than 24 hours.

Shopify POS is the store counter for a Shopify online shop, and that is its main argument for retail: products, stock, customers and orders sit in one back office, so a sale at the till and a sale on the website draw on the same count. Every paid Shopify plan includes casual in-person selling with limited staff logins, simple customer profiles and returns at the original location. Serious stores will want the POS Pro add-on, charged per location, which brings unlimited staff with roles and permissions, inventory counts, purchase orders, low stock alerts, rich customer profiles with loyalty insights, returns and exchanges at any location, and omnichannel tools such as buy online, pick up in store and endless aisle. Shopify says its back office supports more than 1,000 locations. The trade-offs are cost and lock-in: the full setup is a Shopify plan plus POS Pro, and payment providers other than Shopify Payments add a fee on lower plans. Our location showed local currency, so the USD price is pending.

Lightspeed Retail is built for stores where inventory is the hard part. The pricing page lists inventory management for products, variants and stock across channels on every plan, purchase orders made from the POS, and access to Lightspeed Wholesale and the NuORDER catalog, which holds data for more than 5 million products to speed up item creation. PO Sync connects NuORDER orders to receiving, and AI Doc Import turns a scanned supplier invoice into a draft purchase order. Higher tiers add landed costs to spread freight and duty into product costs, forecasting and order recommendations, custom reports, API access, workflows and custom user roles. Lightspeed eCommerce, in-store and online loyalty, and accounting and marketing integrations round out the platform, and a Mobile Scanner app handles counts and fulfillment. The cost is the barrier: Basic is $89 per month with one register, Core is $149 and Plus is $289, before extra locations or registers.

KORONA POS takes a different route from processor-owned systems: every plan is processing agnostic, so a store can keep a card rate it has negotiated elsewhere. Pricing is per terminal. Core, at $59 per month, covers checkout, the product database, sales reports, manual discounts, gift cards and open API access. Retail, at $79, is the plan most specialty shops will need, adding inventory counts, real-time stock tracking, barcode automations, shelf and price labels, supplier ordering, customer management, custom promotions and KPI reports. Plus, at $99, adds ABC and slow-seller reports, multi-location inventory tools, per-store pricing and accounting exports. Every plan includes unlimited users, 24/7 in-house support and month-to-month terms, and KORONA offers a 60-day money-back guarantee on software. Its retail page lists eCommerce integrations, loyalty programs and ID scanning for age verification. The downsides are per-terminal costs for multi-register stores and the lack of a native online store.

Loyverse gives away more than most retail POS vendors. Its pricing page lists the point of sale, sales analytics for the last 31 days, essential inventory with low-stock alerts, a loyalty program, customer and kitchen display apps, multi-store management and integrations as free. The app runs on a phone, tablet or supported POS device, keeps recording sales when the connection drops, and connects to a receipt printer, barcode scanner and cash drawer. Payments can run through integrated providers in more than 30 countries or a merchant provider of your choice. Paid add-ons cover the gaps: unlimited sales history, employee management with permissions and hours, and Advanced inventory for purchase orders, stock transfers and deeper reports. Each add-on starts with a 14-day trial and includes 24/7 live chat. Loyverse reports more than 350,000 active merchants. For retail, the limits are the 31-day report window on the free tier and the lack of a built-in online store.

Helcim is a payment processor that gives its POS software away and earns on transactions, and its pricing page is plain about it: no account monthly fees, no minimums, no software or statement fees, and no contracts or cancellation fees. The POS app runs on a laptop, tablet or smartphone and handles card and mobile wallet payments, partial refunds, split payments and tipping. Inventory covers product details, SKUs, prices, stock levels, images, variants and brands, with low-stock alerts in the app, and Helcim says inventory data syncs across all sales channels. Customer records keep purchase history and saved payment details. Hardware is priced openly: the card reader is $199 and the Smart Terminal, with a built-in printer and 4G, is $349 or $32 per month for a year. Tap to Pay on iPhone needs no hardware. For a specialty store, the gap is depth: there are no supplier purchase orders or label tools comparable to retail-first systems.

Clover sells retail as hardware bundles, and its retail pricing page lays out three. The Basic system is a compact countertop terminal with a 3.6 inch screen and built-in printer on the Starter plan, at $16 per month for 36 months or $349 outright, with in-person cards at 2.6% plus 10 cents. Standard pairs a 14 inch Station Duo with an 8 inch customer display, a printer and a cash drawer on the Retail Growth plan, at $180 per month for 36 months or $1,899, plus $84.95 per month. Advanced adds a Flex handheld for $240 per month or $2,648, plus $104.90. Retail Growth is where retail tools appear: itemized returns and exchanges, item and order discounts, scale integration, detailed reports, item and category management, a branded website, a single dashboard for online and in-store sales, and integration with an existing online store. Card rates drop to 2.3% plus 10 cents on those systems. The catch is the 36-month pricing and credit approval.

Genius is the retail POS from Global Payments, sold on the Heartland site where Heartland Retail used to live. The retail page focuses on stock and customers: real-time inventory with forecasting from historical sales, automated stock alerts and trend tracking, plus custom permissions for staff, coupon fraud controls and faster physical counts. Customer profiles capture shopping behavior, and coupons, promotions and loyalty programs are managed centrally. Hardware covers countertop and handheld devices, and Virtual Terminal and digital invoicing handle payments when customers are not in the shop. Global Payments targets age-regulated retailers with compliance and age verification tools. Pricing starts at $0 per month on Essentials, $42 on Advanced and $129 on Complete, all with 2.6% plus 10 cents per transaction, and the page notes these are software-only prices for a single station. Support is 24/7 and live, and the company cites more than 110,000 retailers. Online store sync is the weak spot for boutiques that sell on the web.

eHopper competes on price. Essential Plus costs $10 per month billed at $120 a year for one license, covering inventory, tip, customer and modifier management, tax settings, split payments, receipts and basic reports, but it caps the store at 1,000 products and 1,000 transactions a month. Freedom, at $20.99 per month billed annually, is the realistic retail plan: unlimited products and transactions, loyalty, an inventory matrix for variants, inventory adjustments, store transfers, PO receiving, exchanges, a barcode manager, low stock alerts and a QuickBooks integration. OmniChannel, at $35.99, adds an online ordering website. The software runs on eHopper's all-in-one devices, Android tablets and Windows PCs, and card payments can run through eHopper or another provider. A 30-day money-back guarantee lowers the risk. The limits are the plan caps, prepaid annual billing, and a thinner retail feature set than the systems ranked above it.