Best iPad POS Systems for Restaurants

iPad-based POS systems are becoming an increasingly popular choice for restaurants, owing to the increased agility and flexibility they give servers.

We’ve spent over 20 hours testing 15 different POS systems, and based on our findings, Square offers the best POS system for restaurants looking for iPad-based software. It’s a highly scalable option thanks to its free POS app that makes a great first POS and its paid advanced plans that can support established small businesses.

That said, Square is missing some key tools that large restaurants can benefit from, such as cost vs profit management, a gap that can be filled, for a higher price, by Lightspeed Restaurant.

The Best iPad POS Systems for Restaurants: Overview

Here’s a quick side-by-side overview of the best iPad POS systems for restaurants. Keep reading for a more in-depth review of each POS system.

1. Square: Best for Scaling Your Business

With its free plan, Square’s app-based software starts at $0 per month, making it an affordable entry-level POS system. Once you’re ready for more advanced features like table plan customization and in-depth reporting, you can move up to its $69 per month Plus plan, which is still cheaper than most competitors.

Our experience with Square

We tested Square’s iPad POS system and found it quite intuitive overall. Square’s uses the same layout across its systems, from its POS to its online store, and clearly labels everything in its sidebar menu, making features easy to find.

The main task we struggled with was finding and using the floor plan, since we had to go into the backend and couldn’t edit it from the frontend of the POS system, unlike with TouchBistro or Epos Now.

Another aspect we didn’t like is that Square doesn’t have a training mode, so teaching your staff how to use the system might take more time than it would with a provider like Lightspeed, which does offer one. To compensate, Square has a help center that contains a large range of guides.

Square’s best features

Square offers comprehensive restaurant management features for a low price. For example, on its free POS plan, you’ll get access to cash payment tracking, a plethora of discount options, which can be set for certain dates or item combos, and a free online ordering website. These tools should be enough for most small restaurants to get up and running and satisfy customers.

Upgrading to the $69 Plus or $165 Premium plans opens the door to more functionalities, particularly when it comes to reporting. You’ll be able to view reports by staff member, menus (lunch vs dinner), and even sections. Reports such as these can help you identify what works best for your restaurant, and allow you to capitalize on it. You’ll also be able to integrate with third-party reservation apps, such as OpenTable, allowing you to attract more customers.

When it comes to hardware, Square sells iPad-compatible gear. It offers a $149 iPad stand, which comes with a built-in card reader, perfect for counter service or hostess stands. For table service, Square also sells a $79 iPad case with a hand strap and slot for its card reader.

Where Square could improve

While Square may be affordable and easy to use, it isn’t the perfect system and is missing features that are vital for large restaurants or chains.

For example, there’s no feature for tracking ingredient usage, or cost vs profit. When you’re dealing with a large inventory, these tools are essential for minimizing wastage and loss, so if that’s your restaurant, POS systems that offer them, such as Lightspeed Restaurant or Epos Now, are better options.

2. Lightspeed Restaurant: Best for Driving Customer Loyalty

Lightspeed Restaurant is a purely iPad-based POS system. From its main operating system to its customer display screens and KDS, everything runs on iPad. It’s a particularly good option for restaurants that want to supercharge their marketing and increase customer retention, owing to its built-in marketing and loyalty tools.

Our experience with Lightspeed Restaurant

We found Lightspeed Restaurant generally easy to use, although it wasn’t as smooth a ride as with Square, owing to lagging and system glitches. Creating and editing menus and table plans in the back end was simple enough, but we struggled with adding a tip and splitting the bill, due to unclear signposting.

One advantage Lightspeed has over other systems is its training mode, which is particularly useful if you have a large team. It also has a help center filled with guides on a range of common topics, such as system setup (for both hardware and software).

Lightspeed’s best features

Lightspeed Restaurant’s best features are its marketing and loyalty tools. You’ll get access to a wide range of features, including automated email marketing campaigns, customer SMS notifications, and a rewards and points program for customers, including VIP nominations.

With competition usually being quite fierce in the restaurant industry, tools like these can go a long way to remind existing customers that you’re the best option out there and give them incentives to keep coming back.

Besides marketing, Lightspeed also comes with robust restaurant management features, including ones missing from competitor Square, such as ingredient use tracking and cost vs profit management, perfect for helping large restaurants manage their expenses.

Where Lightspeed could improve

One downside to Lightspeed being a completely app-based system is that it’s a little light when it comes to hardware options. While it does offer an iPad stand and a case with straps, it doesn’t offer the same variety of accessories, such as cash drawers and receipt printers as Square. It also doesn’t offer separate screens for customer displays or KDS. This means you’ll have to purchase several iPads to run these systems, which can get expensive.

Lightspeed also doesn’t offer tip management tools, such as tip sharing or gratuity reports, features available at rival Square. Depending on your tipping policy, this might not be an issue, but it might make things difficult if you share server tips with busboys and hostesses.

3. TouchBistro: Easiest POS System to Use

Designed specifically for restaurants, TouchBistro’s iPad-based POS system was the easiest to use in our testing. This is largely thanks to its straightforward front-end interface, which made it easy for us to process orders quickly.

Our experience with TouchBistro

We found TouchBistro’s POS system to be exceptionally user-friendly, especially when it came to using the frontend. We were able to quickly process orders in just a few taps, and could even edit our table plan directly from the frontend of the POS system, a rarity in the industry.

That said, we did find the dashboard menu titles to be a little vague at first, especially when compared to competitor Square. But, unlike Square, TouchBistro has a training mode, which can speed up the learning process, especially if you have a large staff.

TouchBistro’s best features

TouchBistro’s table planning tools are particularly good for restaurants with separate sections (e.g. upper and lower floors, bar area, and booths). Floor plans can be edited from the front or back end, and you can even create and remove walls between tables so that your floor plan exactly matches your restaurant. It allows for the most flexibility for floorplans of all the POS systems we tested.

The POS system also integrates seamlessly with TouchBistro’s proprietary touchscreen KDS. Kitchen staff can see at what time each order was made, and can easily clear them with two taps once they’re completed. This ensures orders are ready in good time, and helps avoid mistakes or forgotten orders.

TouchBistro also has a host of add-on tools, including advanced reservation management, which we recommend for upscale restaurants looking to create a personalized experience for guests, and marketing and loyalty tools, such as customer app creation and point collection systems.

Where TouchBistro could improve

TouchBistro is an expensive option. While its basic POS software costs from $69 per month, add-on tools can quickly cause your monthly overheads to skyrocket, with the reservation management tool alone costing $229 per month.

It can quickly become out of budget for small businesses, which is why a platform such as Square, which offers a lot of free tools and cheap add-ons (marketing tools start at $9 per month compared to TouchBistro’s $99 per month) is a better option for cost-conscious restaurateurs.

4. Epos Now: Best for Managing Complex Inventories

Epos Now offers a dedicated iPad POS system for just $649 upfront, then $59 per month. Its system is perfect for restaurants with large complex menus and inventories, thanks to features like advanced categorization, which enables users to create multiple variants of the same item, and bulk inventory uploads.

Our experience with Epos Now

We found Epos Now to be a little more difficult to use than other POS systems we tested. The backend in particular was a little overwhelming, mainly because there were so many options for categorizing items and building reports.

Plus, since Epos Now doesn’t have a training mode, unlike Lightspeed and TouchBistro, we only had the help center to rely on, which doesn’t have guides for everything. It’s missing how-tos for taking tips for example.

That said, we had no issues with basic tasks such as creating floor plans and assigning ingredients to menu items facilitated stock tracking.

Epos Now’s best features

Epos Now’s inventory management tools are its standout features. It allows you to track ingredient usage in real-time, across multiple locations, plus you get access to low stock alerts, and cost vs. profit analysis.

If you’re a restaurant with a large menu, multiple menus for different times of day, or use very varied ingredients, Epos Now’s inventory management tools can help you avoid overspending and wastage, while ensuring you don’t run out of ingredients for popular dishes.

Coupled with Epos Now’s in-depth reporting tools capable of handling multi-location businesses, it’s a great solution for chain restaurants.  You’ll get access to with reporting by location and reports based on items, employees, refunds, and discounts.

Epos Now also has a decent hardware offering. As part of its $649 iPad bundle, you’ll get a 9th gen iPad, and rotating iPad stand, card machine, and receipt printer, which works out cheaper than purchasing each item separately.

Where Epos Now could improve

As we’ve noted, Epos Now isn’t the easiest system to use, so it’s not the best choice for novice POS users. Part of this is due to the sheer number of features, but usability could be greatly improved by changes to the layout. The dashboard looks quite cramped, and more empty space between text would make it easier to find features.

It’s hardware is also only available as a bundle, which isn’t ideal for businesses that want to avoid hefty upfront payments. If that’s you, Square’a model, where you purchase individual hardware, could be a better option, since if you already own an iPad you could get away with simply purchasing its $59 card reader.

5. Lavu: Best for Optimizing Stock Tracking

Lavu is a purely iPad-based POS system built specifically for the hospitality industry. It’s easy to use and offers great tools for tracking ingredient usage and stock, including features like low stock alerts.

Our experience with Lavu

After TouchBistro, Lavu was the second easiest to use POS system that we tested. We found the placement of most functions and buttons to be very intuitive in the frontend, and didn’t have much trouble processing orders, creating a table plan, or adding discounts.

Lavu, like Lightspeed and TouchBistro, also has a training mode, which we found very useful, and is a good way to train new staff.

However, we did feel that the platform was a little inconsistent across tabs. The layout wasn’t always consistent, with some sections seeming more modern than other, as though some had been recently updated and not others.

Lavu’s best features

While competitors such as Lightspeed Restaurant and Epos Now also offer ingredient use tracking, we found it much easier to implement this with Lavu thanks to the system’s intuitive design. Ingredients could be assigned to menu items as we were creating them.

Lavu’s POS system also allows for a decent amount of flexibility when it comes to menu creation, allowing you to create item modifiers, and different menus for different times of day, and add product images, making it easy for staff to accommodate guests requests, and quickly process orders.

We were also quite impressed by the provider’s onboarding and training process, which was quite comprehensive. Paired with Lavu’s 24/7 customer support, it’s a good choice for restaurant operators that want to be sure they can get help quickly in a crisis.

Where Lavu could improve

Like Square, Lavu is missing cost vs profit management tools, which are particularly important for large restaurants or chains. To get them, we recommend alternatives such as Lightspeed Restaurant or Epos Now.

Lavu also doesn’t disclose the pricing of any of its software or hardware, opting for quote-based pricing instead. This is quite rare in the industry, and can understandably put some businesses off. The provider with the most transparent pricing is Square, and it’s also one of the most affordable options out there.

Buying Guide: How to Choose a Restaurant POS System

It’s a good idea to define the specific needs of your restaurant before you choose a POS system. Aspects you should take in to account include the size of your restaurant, how you serve your food (for example, counter ordering, table service, or QR code), and the number of locations you have.

Here’s what else to consider when evaluating your choices:

Costs and Pricing Structures

Consider upfront costs and monthly fees, as well as what’s included in them. Is it both software and hardware, or one and not the other? For example, Square offers free software, but charges for hardware, whereas providers such as Toast and Spoton offer free software and hardware, but charge high transaction fees to make up for it.

Don’t forget to include the added cost of integration and training in your budgeting, and to plan for any projected growth by choosing a system that can accommodate your future needs. Switching systems is expensive, so it’s easier to stick with the same provider in the future if you can.

Software

Make a list of must-have and nice-to-have software features based on your restaurant’s operational model.

These could include:

• Inventory management: To help you keep on top of your ingredients and prevent you from running out of something unexpectedly
• Reservation management: To help you book out tables in advance and gather customer data
• Staff management: So you can reward your best employees and identify those that need further training
• Online ordering functionality: So you can offer your food to takeout customers or accept online pre-orders
• Analytics: So you can learn which meals are most popular, which staff members are processing the most transactions, and more
• Customer loyalty programs: So you can offer benefits that entice customers back to your restaurant as repeat visitors

If you prioritize features that help you automate workflows and prevent manual work, you might be able to reduce your labor costs.

Hardware

Think about what pieces of hardware are vital for your restaurant, and how many of them you need – from POS terminals and card machines to receipt printers, kitchen printers, and cash drawers.

Not all providers automatically provide you with portable card machines, for example. They’re sometimes replaced with a tablet or terminal that can take payments. But if you need your staff to do table service, you should choose a provider that includes portable card machines in their packages.

If you have existing hardware, just make sure to find a POS system that’s compatible with your existing equipment. This will save you from having to buy everything new. Most POS providers appreciate that you might be switching to them from another supplier, and that you won’t necessarily want a complete overhaul of all your hardware.

Add-ons and integrations

You should also pay attention to what software or apps your chosen POS system can integrate with. If you already use software, such as accounting software, make sure the POS system you choose has a ready-made integration for it, as this will help you streamline operations.

It’s also a good idea to check what other add-ons or apps are available via a POS system. Some providers offer advanced marketing or reporting features as add-ons, usually for an extra fee – but if these seem particularly valuable to your business they could be worth the extra price.

Customer support

Make sure you check how available the POS provider’s customer support team is, and how easily reachable they are.

A POS provider should have a customer support phone line that’s open on weekdays, at the very least. Live chat support and community forums you can go to in a pinch are a welcome addition.

You should also check the training resources, onboarding support, and post-implementation support terms provided by the POS provider to ensure your team will get the support they need to learn the new system.

How We Tested iPad POS Systems