Should a restaurant pay a higher rate to get POS hardware included?
Summary
It can be. On SpotOn's published prices, a restaurant doing $60,000 a month on cards with five devices saves $114 a month by buying its own hardware, which takes about 25 months to earn back the $2,844 spent on devices. If a fifth of its card sales are American Express, the saving falls to about $25 a month and the payback runs past nine years.
Two SpotOn plans side by side
| All-In Plan | POS Essentials | |
|---|---|---|
| Software | $0 per station per month | $55 per station per month |
| Hardware | Included | Bought separately, plus implementation costs |
| Card present | 2.79% + $0.20 | 2.45% + $0.15 (Amex 3.19% + $0.15) |
| Keyed | 3.79% + $0.20 | 3.45% + $0.15 |
| Term | Processing minimums, two-year minimum | Month to month |
Essentials hardware is listed at $750 for a Station 15 (down from $995), $415 for a Station 10, and $297 for a handheld (down from $495). SpotOn does not publish the implementation cost.
A $60,000-a-month dining room
Assume $60,000 in card-present sales, a $40 average check (1,500 transactions), three Station 15s, and two handhelds.
Twenty-five months is close to the All-In plan's two-year minimum term, and the unpublished implementation cost only pushes it further out.
The Amex share changes the answer
The 2.45% rate on Essentials does not apply to American Express. If $12,000 of the $60,000 is Amex at 3.19%, Essentials costs $1,948.80 a month and the gap to All-In shrinks to $25.20. At that pace the hardware takes 113 months to pay back. All-In's rate card lists no separate Amex rate. The more of a restaurant's checks land on corporate Amex cards, the less the lower Essentials rate saves it.
Systems that quote processing privately
TouchBistro lists its POS from $69 a month and a hardware bundle from $119 a month, with a footnote that hardware, payment processing, and additional fees apply. Its payments add-on shows only a quote button. SkyTab's pricing page gives no processing rate either and points instead to a program that offsets processing fees. Toast describes itself as a payment facilitator that partners with processors, so the restaurant's processing agreement runs through Toast.
Kitchen screens add their own monthly line. Square for Restaurants charges $30 a month per device for its KDS app on Plus and $20 on Premium, and does not offer it on the free plan. Plus itself is $49 a month per location with in-person payments at 2.5% + 15¢.
Sources
- spoton.com/pricing
- touchbistro.com/pricing
- skytab.com/pricing
- pos.toasttab.com/pricing
- squareup.com/us/en/point-of-sale/restaurants/pricing
Related on this site
- What does a POS system really cost each month once card processing is included?
- Why does the same card rate cost a gift shop more than a furniture store?
- How to read the effective rate on this site
- What a 'get a quote' button is for
- Every provider we hold, and which publish a rate
- Effective rate calculator
Written by Kaz (pen name). Figures are copied from providers' published pricing pages on the dates shown. We have not used these products. Corrections: contact form.