Best Hotel POS Systems: Tested, Compared and Ranked

According to our independent research and testing of POS systems, Toast is the best POS system for hotels on the market. It provides users with the most comprehensive package, including in-built reservation features and Toast-made kitchen display system hardware.

It is closely followed by Square, which offers the chance to avoid any upfront costs, and Clover which we think is the strongest range and quality of hotel POS hardware overall. Below are our top five picks in short:

That said, POS systems aren’t one-size-fits-all solutions and you must choose one tailored to your needs. The quickest one to do that is using our free comparison tool, through which we’ll match you up with trusted providers, who’ll then contact you with no-obligation quotes.

However, if you’d like know more about the findings of our research, just head to our mini-reviews below, in which we cover Toast, Square, Clover and two other strong contenders in the POS systems field.

1. Toast: Best Overall Hotel POS System

Rising to the top of our rankings in Hotel POS, having finished in third last time out, is Toast.

Here’s a quick run-down of its system, before we detail exactly what we loved (and think could be improved) about its products.

What Does Toast Do Better Than Other Hotel POS Systems?

While the Hotel POS options on this page, for the most part, all offer excellent tools for table management, ordering and splitting bills, and managing inventory, Toast does stand out in a few key areas.

Out of our six testing areas, Toast impressed us most through its overall usability. We found it incredibly intuitive, with it being easy to identify where certain items fall into certain categories, and had few errors while using it. We also liked the ability to change the text size and screen color and only found that also possible with TouchBistro.

We also found that Toast’s reservation and waitlist features bettered all other competitors we tested. It offers an in-built reservation platform with more features than any other POS, including abilities to manage flow control, create block reservations, and add special requests. You can access booking history, adjust end times, and create reservation reports, too.

By comparison, Square, Lightspeed, and Clover don’t have their own reservation platform (although, like Toast, they do support integrations on this front, such as via OpenTable). TouchBistro does have a built-in platform, however, there are less extensive options, and it can only be integrated with Reserve with Google out of our tested third-party tools.

And, unlike Lightspeed (our previous number-one pick), Toast offers a separate Kitchen Display System hardware to seamlessly connect your front-of-house and kitchen staff and improve operational efficiency.

What Could Toast Improve?

Toast’s weakest area of our scoring criteria for Hotel POS systems was its help and support options. While it covers many bases, including phone support and a knowledge center, it doesn’t have email or social media channels to contact for help when you need it.

Elsewhere, it earned lower-rated customer reviews than the likes of Lightspeed and Square POS via online customer review websites, even if our research participants (from our ease of use testing) found they would recommend Toast to a friend. Some suggested reporting tools could be more extensive, for instance, which we wouldn’t disagree with.

Besides these points, there were no real red flags with Toast’s POS system – hence why it has earned the top spot amongst our tested options.

2. Square: Best for Price

Second in our ranking of Hotel POS systems sits Square. Namely, it was a standout choice for keeping costs to a minimum thanks to a free software plan and low-cost, long-term payment schedules for hardware solutions.

Here’s a summary of what it offers before we dive into the details.

What Does Square Do Better Than Other Hotel POS Systems?

Square’s big boon is its price point. You have the option to avoid any upfront costs for both hardware and software and instead pay monthly installments for the former and nothing for the latter via its free plan.

Even its paid-for subscriptions, Plus ($60 per month) and Essentials Bundle ($153 per month) are less costly than similarly priced and feature-rich alternatives by Lightspeed, Toast, and TouchBistro. Clover does have a cheaper paid plan, its Essentials package at $14.95 per month, however, this is the cheapest subscription it offers compared to Square’s free option.

Square also offers superb hardware at a reasonable cost, including printers, cash drawers, scanners, scales, and stands. Notably, only Square and Clover offer a customer display product that can accept payments from the options on this page.

Its help and support options are the most extensive we’ve found, too. It is the only POS system provider to offer all eight of the support features we looked for on each: Phone, Social Media, Email, Live Chat, Forum, Knowledge Centre, Video/Image Tutorials, and In-Platform Support.

How Could Square Improve?

We had some issues with Square’s usability. Namely, our testing team had more difficulty setting up the POS and creating items to sell than any other POS system provider on this page. They also committed more errors with Square than any option, and you can’t change the text size on the display, either.

While marginal, its software features also earned it a lower mark than other options due to it missing a few tools. That includes a lack of a cost/profit management feature, no built-in reservation tools, and fewer third-party integrations across the board.

Still, that’s not to say it is terrible, hard-to-use software by any means. The image below highlights the sort of interface you can expect, and we still found it generally pretty simple to get to grips with and comes with lots of useful features, including all the essential reporting and management tools required for running a hotel such as identifying new versus returning customers and average customer spend as well as downloadable reports for inventory and alerts when certain items are in low stock.

3. Clover: Best Hardware

For the best hardware for your Hotel POS system, we recommend Clover above all others. But you aren’t just buying hardware when you look for a POS system, so here’s what you need to know before we look at that hardware in greater detail.

What Does Clover Do Better Than Other Hotel POS Systems?

As stated, Clover is our choice for top-quality hardware from handheld POS terminals to separate kitchen display systems.

It has good own-brand equipment, such as printers with UBS, Ethernet, and Bluetooth connectivity, and other accessories like scanners, scales, and docks. Plus, besides Square, it is the only option that has a customer display that also accepts payments.

This all allows it to work perfectly with the software it was intended to be used with, as we’ve experienced ourselves, as the image below highlights.

As such, Clover scored pretty highly for usability too, receiving the joint-highest test score for setting up the POS and creating items alongside TouchBistro from our independent testers. Users also more readily identified which categories product items fell into on the software than with other competitors (besides Lightspeed which scored slightly higher in this regard), suggesting the intuitiveness of the platform is high.

What Could Clover Improve?

We aren’t huge fans of Clover’s pricing, chiefly because it lacks a free plan for hotels to get started on. The rest of its pricing is more reasonable (Essentials plan at $14.95/month, Counter Service plan at $54.95/month, and Table Service plan at $84.95/month), though the lack of a free plan can be a barrier for businesses that want no ongoing payments for their POS system. By comparison, Toast and Square do have free plans.

Clover’s help and support options could do with some work, too. It doesn’t have a user forum and social media channels to help customers, while we had a quicker experience with other chatbots by Square and Lightspeed (albeit those two POS providers used chatbots, while Clover has people responding to user questions). It also goes without a training mode to train staff, leaving it lagging behind Lightspeed’s all-round support features.

4. Lightspeed: Best for Help & Support

Sitting in fourth position is Lightspeed. Previously our number one pick, there’s still a lot to love about its software and overall service – especially when it comes to help and support options.

Here’s everything you need to know about Lightspeed, followed by a discussion of its most and least attractive qualities.

What Does Lightspeed Do Better Than Other Hotel POS Systems?

Leading the way in customer support is Lightspeed. Crucially, it is one of the few providers to have created a training mode for new staff members to learn the platform. It offers all (besides social media) the support channels you could need to get in contact with them should you have direct questions, plus a knowledge center to solve problems yourself.

Thankfully, you might not need to use its help options too much since we were also thoroughly impressed by Lightspeed’s POS software itself. In fact, it earned a higher mark than all other options on this page for its software features.

That’s down to Lightspeed being optimized for hotels and restaurants. It has extensive inventory and table management, menu creation, customer engagement, and reporting tools to execute and iterate your hotel’s day-to-day operations. Plus, it fully integrates with Kitchen Display Systems, as well as a large amount of third-party apps.

What Could Lightspeed Improve?

A major blot on Lightspeed’s record is its hardware options, according to our research. We found that it doesn’t offer any terminal or kitchen display systems, which increases the likelihood that a third-party system won’t perfectly match up with its software.

We did find it could integrate with the third-party kitchen display system hardware we tested, however, so your mileage may vary. But it’s still comparatively poor compared to other providers on this page like Clover and Square, both of which offer class-leading hardware of all types.

5. TouchBistro: Best for Usability

The hardest part of using any software is when you first use it, however with TouchBistro things are a breeze. You’ll be guided through the process as we were, and feel like everything was just a click (or touch) away.

Learn what else you need to know about TouchBistro below.

What Does TouchBistro Do Better Than Other Hotel POS Systems?

TouchBistro is one of our favorite Hotel POS systems for usability. We found it incredibly simple to use, with easily understood labels and images to navigate the platform. Consequently, our testers had no errors while testing the platform. That’s better than all the other options on this page. Plus, it has dark and light modes to change the screen color and you can change the text size, too.

We liked the array of features on TouchBistro’s software, too. With precise tools to split bills, manage table floor plans and inventory, as well as being the only top-rated Hotel POS systems (besides Toast) to have a built-in reservations feature, it has a lot going for it in the hotel-restaurant space.

The likes of Square have more advanced tip management tools, but TouchBistro still allows you tips to be placed on bills, meanwhile, you can pay extra for some additional customer engagement features such as targeted promotions, email marketing, and a customer web app.

What Could TouchBistro Improve?

TouchBistro didn’t overwhelm us with its hardware range. Like Lightspeed, it doesn’t have a terminal, meanwhile, its customer display cannot accept payment. TouchBistro also doesn’t offer a scanner, scales, or a handheld POS terminal either, although you can use its app with an iPad as a handheld replacement for the latter.

And while we found it exceptionally easy to use, its customer scores online aren’t particularly glowing. Some users complained that the back-end is quite complex to understand, including inventory management tools, amongst other reviews on sites like Trust Radius.

How Much Do Hotel POS Systems Cost?

It’s now time for the all-important discussion about POS system costs. The majority of hotel POS system suppliers in our article offer pricing plans starting from $69 per month for the software. You can often pick up a free version of the software, or a free trial, however, these are often limited in either feature set or time you can use them – and some providers, don’t offer either.

You’ll likely need to pay extra for the hardware too, which usually costs approximately $1,000+ as a one-off fee. Inevitably this will vary depending on the type of hardware your hotel needs, with card reader costs starting from just $19 via Square, for example.

Check out our table below, featuring the monthly prices from our top five suppliers:

Our Methodology: How We Test Hotel POS Systems

Next Steps

You now know the best POS systems for hotels. Toast is our number one ranked champion, offering attractively priced hardware-software solutions that we found easier to use than most POS systems we’ve tested.

Each offering their own pluses and minuses, any of these top five rated POS systems can help your profits rise and your stress levels decrease.

If you still aren’t certain which POS system best suits your business, we can help you find the right one for you today. Simply tell us what you need on our short form and we’ll match you up with the POS system suppliers that best cater to your needs. They’ll then offer free, non-obligation quotes for you to compare.