An iPad POS system is a crucial tool for retail operations. Not only does it help streamline the checkout process, but it also gives businesses more oversight and control intro transactions. These systems allow businesses to offer flexible payment options, optimize customer transactions, and identify trends and opportunities using the data collected. They are incredibly useful and one of the fastest ways to use and operate a POS system.
The best iPad POS systems can also help create a better experience for employees and customers and offer many great features that can drive real value for businesses. For this article, we’ll look at some of the key features you should be looking for in an iPad POS system, such as cost, payment options, customer experience, and more. We will also profile some of the best companies out there offering iPad POS systems to help you make your decision.
iPad Point of Sale Systems:
- Square Point of Sale
- Lightspeed Retail
- Touchbistro
- Clover
- Talech
- Revel Systems
- Toast POS
- Epos Now
- Vend
What are the main features digital payment companies offer?
Digital payment companies have evolved considerably over time and offer many dynamic features that help retailers succeed in a competitive market.
When evaluating iPad POS systems, there are a few key aspects to bear in mind to help make the decision-making process a little easier.
- Cost: There are many different payment models available for retailers, so it’s important to look at cost in relation to what is offered. Some POS systems come with a nominal monthly charge; others may require quarterly payments, etc. Any considerations around cost need to go hand-in-hand with how much value the features provide overall.
- Available Payment Options: Flexible payment options are crucial to appeal to as wide a customer base as possible. Ideally, POS systems should accept various payments, including card, contactless, and other digital payments, to ensure customers always have a way to pay.
- Customer Experience: As customers get used to fast and easy service, the POS system needs to match that and enhance their experience. POS systems should streamline the transaction process for customers and make payments as simple as possible.
- Ease of use: For both employees and customers, it’s crucial that a POS system is easy to use and can adapt to business needs. It shouldn’t be a hassle to train employees to use it, and it shouldn’t be complicated for customers to use.
- Customer Support: Systems can go down, and issues can come up that could slow down business performance. That is why having access to robust and responsive customer support is essential to ensure downtime doesn’t pose a risk to the business.
Most POS systems will also offer additional features that give additional value to customers, including analytics, reporting, booking capabilities, and more. It varies across POS systems, but having a general idea about additional features that could be relevant for the business can help narrow down options.
1. Square Point of Sale
- Cost: Free to use, but each transaction incurs a processing fee of 2.6% + 10¢
- Available Payment Options: All payment options accepted
- Customer Experience: Rated well for customer experience and ease
- Ease of use: Simple and easy to set up and use
- Customer Support: 24/7 customer support available
- Additional features: Appointment booking, order tracking, and financial analytics/reporting
Square POS for iPad is one of the most commonly used systems across retail operations thanks to its minimal design and simplicity to use. Square POS for iPad supports retailers across different businesses and also offers additional features to help businesses grow. Businesses can accept all kinds of payment options, including swipe, chip, and contactless payments, and it can streamline the customer transaction experience.
Additionally, Square POS systems also offer features for inventory management, appointment booking, and more to work as a full-service solution for businesses. Multiple POS options are available depending on the industry and sector, and setting up the POS takes very little time. Square also offers payment processing capabilities, including chargeback assists and reporting functions.
2. Lightspeed Retail
- Cost: Free trial available. Pricing can be requested
- Available Payment Options: All payment options accepted
- Customer Experience: Easy and seamless customer experience
- Ease of use: Easy for employees and customers to use
- Customer Support: 24/7 support available
- Additional features: In-depth reporting, multi-channel management, subscription management, and business-specific features as needed
Lightspeed Retail is one of the best POS systems for iPad available and is widely used across many retail sectors since it makes payments much more flexible and easy for customers. Similar to Square, it offers a full-service POS solution with lots of great features to make it great value for customers. Lightspeed offers a consolidated POS system so that businesses can monitor multiple channels, and managers and employees can access it through iPad and mobile phones.
Lightspeed also offers additional features specific to businesses, such as delivery capabilities for restaurants, driving up its value. With Lightspeed, businesses can accept multiple payment options, process payments, access in-depth reporting around financial performance, and more.
3. TouchBistro
- Cost: Starting at $69 per month
- Available Payment Options: All payment options accepted
- Customer Experience: Enables faster transaction times
- Ease of use: Seamless to integrate and use
- Customer Support: 24/7 customer support available
TouchBistro has many essential features and value-adds that make it a great iPad POS system for restaurants. It’s an all-in-one solution that offers customers multiple payment options and processing and a marketing and analytics tool. Having these features gives businesses more insight into performance and management.
Using TouchBistro, restaurants can enable fast, reliable, and easy-to-use transaction processes for customers while growing their business. TouchBistro can help increase sales, provide better visibility on performance while still giving businesses the flexibility they need to improve the customer experience.
TouchBistro is available across many different restaurant types, including full-service, fast-casual, coffee shops, food trucks, and more. It also includes additional features such as reservation booking and online ordering to help restaurant businesses grow.
4. Clover
- Cost: 2.3% + 10¢ per transaction
- Available Payment Options: All payment options accepted
- Customer Experience: Streamlines the transaction process
- Ease of use: Easy to adapt across business use
- Customer Support: 24/7 support
Clover is another all-in-one iPad POS system that enables businesses to accept flexible forms of payments while also helping manage operations. The system can be used as a standalone POS with an iPad, or businesses can opt for the full suite of Clover features depending on needs. iPad POS systems like Clover are crucial for increased customer engagement and to encourage repeat business.
A cloud-based POS system, Clover can be used to accept in-store credit card swipes and online payments. It also includes features to allow businesses to track and monitor sales and offer more value to customers through subscriptions and memberships.
Clover has worked hard to create a simple and easy system for businesses to use while also providing value for customers. Businesses can also access custom dashboards and analytics to monitor performance with more oversight and better understand trends to tailor the experience for customers.
5. Talech
- Cost: Starts at $29 a month
- Available Payment Options: All payment options accepted
- Customer Experience: Offers flexibility and ease for customers
- Ease of use: Cloud-based and accessible from anywhere
- Customer Support: 24/7 customer support available
Talech is a fantastic option for an iPad POS system as it caters to many different types of retail businesses, and features can be adapted as needed. Talech offers over 100 features for businesses to use with their iPad POS system, and it’s another all-in-one solution that can manage operations and payments.
Talech POS has a simple and powerful design to make the experience as intuitive and smooth as possible for customers and businesses. Their point of sale system can be tailored to needs and includes value-add features such as order management, tax calculations, discounts, and more based on needs. In addition, the system accepts all forms of payments, making it a great choice to give customers maximum flexibility and ease in their transactions.
6. Revel Systems
- Cost: Available upon request
- Available Payment Options: All payment options are accepted
- Customer Experience: Have received praise for great customer experience
- Ease of use: Quick and easy to integrate
- Customer Support: 24/7 support available
Revel Systems is an iPad POS system targeted towards helping businesses improve. By using their POS, businesses can improve revenue streams and find new ways to grow without sacrificing the customer experience. Revel Systems POS can be used for different types of restaurants such as dine-in and coffee shops, and quick service businesses.
Revel Systems is a pioneer in the field and was the first iPad POS system to launch in the market. Since its inception, Revel has been working towards optimizing and refining its POS to ensure that it meets the needs of businesses and gives them the features necessary to spark growth. Revel manages all aspects of a business, including transactions, inventory management, financial reporting, and much more.
7. Toast POS
- Cost: Free option available, prices start from $165 up to $272
- Available Payment Options: All payment options accepted
- Customer Experience: Consistently fast transactions leading to great customer experience
- Ease of use: One of the most widely-used systems due its ease
- Customer Support: 24/7 support available
Toast POS is one of the most widely-used POS systems, and their popularity is for a good reason. Toast POS is an innovative POS system that helps businesses manage across many different fronts and consistently deliver a great customer experience.
The Toast iPad POS system accepts all forms of payments and enables faster transactions by streamlining the process. Other options such as hand-held POS devices, self-ordering kiosks, and other payment methods are also available to help businesses improve the guest experience.
Businesses can also take advantage of additional features to grow their business, including guest engagement, back-of-house operations management, and much more. Toast POS also offers advanced reports and analytics to help spot trends and monitor performance, inventory management features, and the chance to improve financial performance through its payment options and reports.
8. EPOS Now
- Cost: Starts at £399 a month
- Available Payment Options: All payment options accepted
- Customer Experience: Positive reviews around customer experience
- Ease of use: All in one solution businesses can easily adopt
- Customer Support: 24/7 support
Epos Now is an all-in-one, cloud-based iPad POS system that boasts some incredible features for businesses looking to increase sales and boost revenue. All types of payments are accepted, enabling businesses to offer more flexibility for customer payments and make transactions easy and fast for both employees and customers.
The Epos system spans management, operations, and finance features to make running businesses a smooth process. With their system, businesses can set up onboarding and staff training quickly, manage payment options, view financial performance, and see detailed reports around staff, customers, sales, margin, and stock.
The Epos system also integrates with a variety of payment and accounting software to provide business owners with total oversight into performance from one solution.
9. Vend
- Cost: Prices start at $99
- Available Payment Options: All payment options accepted
- Customer Experience: Great customer experience that can be scaled as the business grows
- Ease of use: Easy to integrate and adapts as the business grows
- Customer Support: 24/7 customer support
For businesses growing and scaling rapidly, Vend is one of the best iPad POS systems to integrate into operations. Not only does it offer a great customer experience and superior features, but the POS scales as your business grows, allowing you to continue expanding revenue streams.
Now acquired by Lightspeed, Vend is designed for omnichannel retail businesses. Essentially, that means businesses can operate across multiple channels such as eCommerce and in-person to capture as much market share as possible. Vend includes traditional POS features, such as accepting multiple payment types and optimizing transactions, and much more. It also includes inventory management features, reporting, insights, app integrations, POS hardware if needed, and more.