Choosing a till is one of those jobs you only do every few years, usually in a hurry — when the old one dies mid-service or a rep talks you into a "free" upgrade. The headline price is rarely the thing that bites. The contract behind it is.
This is an honest shortlist of the best POS (point-of-sale) systems for UK restaurants in 2026: what each one costs a month, the card rate you'll actually pay, and the small print that locks you in. Read it before a salesperson does the choosing for you.
Key takeaways
- The cheapest software is not the cheapest system — your card rate and contract length usually cost more than the monthly fee.
- Square (£0/month, 1.75% flat) and SumUp (£0 or £19/month) are the lowest-commitment options; Lightspeed, TouchBistro and Epos Now suit busier, full-service sites.
- The number-one thing owners regret is contract lock-in: some POS deals run 12–36 months and auto-renew if you miss a 30-day notice window (ExpertSure, 2026).
- A till outage isn't a minor glitch — UK retail and hospitality lose an estimated £1.6bn a year to payment outages (FreedomPay/Dynatrace/Retail Economics, 2025).
- Check three things before signing: contract length, the auto-renew notice window, and the early-termination fee.
What's the best POS system for a UK restaurant in 2026?
For most independent UK restaurants, Square is the best starting point — there's no monthly software fee, the card rate is a flat 1.75%, and there's no lock-in, so a bad fit costs you nothing but the hardware. Busier full-service sites that need detailed floor plans and delivery links tend to land on Lightspeed or Epos Now, but those come with contracts worth reading twice.
There is no single "best" till — only the best fit for your service style, your card turnover, and how much commitment you can stomach. The table below is the quick version; the catch each one hides is further down.
The best restaurant POS systems at a glance
| POS system | Monthly software | Card rate | Contract | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Square | £0 | 1.75% flat | No lock-in | Cafes and casual venues wanting a free till |
| SumUp | £0 or £19 (Payments Plus) | 1.69% (0.99% on Payments Plus) | No contract | Counter-service: coffee shops, kiosks, takeaways |
| Lightspeed Restaurant | From £49 (Lite) | ~1.49% | Monthly or annual billing | Multi-site operators needing full floor plans |
| YumaPOS | From £40 | 0% (card rate via third-party processor) | 30 days' notice to cancel | Delivery-first and quick-service venues |
| TouchBistro | From £59 (1 iPad) | Processor-agnostic | Varies | Restaurants with an existing card acquirer |
| Epos Now | From £54 | 1.5% flat | 12-month minimum, auto-renewing | Full-service sites wanting an all-in bundle |
All pricing from BusinessExpert's UK restaurant POS guide (updated 15 June 2026); confirm current rates direct with each provider before signing.
The 6 best UK restaurant POS systems in 2026
1. Square — best for low-commitment value
Square is the default for a reason. The software is free, the card rate is a flat 1.75% on all cards (including Amex), and there's no lock-in (BusinessExpert, 2026). You buy a card reader (the Square Reader is around £19 + VAT) and you're trading.
It handles tables, tabs and modifiers well enough for cafes and casual venues, and because there's no contract, a wrong choice only costs you the hardware. The flat rate is simple but not always the cheapest at high volume — once you're turning over a lot of card payments, a negotiated rate elsewhere can undercut it.
Best for: cafes and casual venues that want a free POS with table, tab and modifier support.
2. SumUp — best for small counter-service sites
SumUp suits the smallest operations — coffee shops, kiosks and takeaways. The pay-as-you-go rate is 1.69% with no monthly fee, or you can move to the Payments Plus plan at £19/month and drop to 0.99% per transaction (BusinessExpert, 2026). The SumUp Air reader is around £15 + VAT.
The maths is straightforward: the £19 plan only pays for itself once your card turnover is high enough that the lower rate saves more than £19. For a quiet site, stay on pay-as-you-go; for a busy counter, the cheaper rate wins.
Best for: counter-service spots — coffee shops, kiosks and takeaways.
3. Lightspeed Restaurant — best for multi-site and full-service
Lightspeed is a heavier, hospitality-grade system built for full floor plans, multiple sites and native delivery links. Pricing starts from £49/month (Lite) with a card rate around 1.49%, and you can pick monthly or annual billing (BusinessExpert, 2026).
The honest caveat: the headline £49 climbs as you add modules, terminals and integrations. Price the configuration you actually need — not the entry tier — before you compare it with anything else.
Best for: multi-site operators needing full floor plans and native delivery integrations.
4. YumaPOS — best for delivery-first and quick-service
YumaPOS is built for delivery-led and quick-service venues — takeaways, fast food and cafes that live or die by online orders. It starts from £40/month for the primary EPOS licence, advertises 0% commission (you pay the card rate via a third-party processor, quoted separately), and asks only 30 calendar days' notice to cancel (BusinessExpert, 2026).
The short notice period is its quiet selling point — it's far easier to walk away from than the longer-term deals further down this list. Because the card rate is sourced separately, get that quote in writing before you compare the true cost.
Best for: delivery-first and quick-service venues — takeaways, fast food, cafes.
5. TouchBistro — best for owners with their own card acquirer
TouchBistro is an iPad-based hospitality POS starting from £59/month for one iPad. Its differentiator is that it's processor-agnostic — you bring your own card acquirer rather than being tied to the POS provider's payments (BusinessExpert, 2026).
If you've already negotiated a good card rate, that flexibility is worth real money: you keep your rate and bolt on the till. If you haven't, you'll need to line up an acquirer separately, which is one more thing to manage.
Best for: restaurants with an existing acquirer relationship that want payment flexibility.
6. Epos Now — best all-in bundle (but read the contract)
Epos Now is one of the most widely used systems in UK hospitality, with 80,000+ businesses on its books (ExpertSure, 2026). Pricing starts from £54/month for a care plan with a hardware bundle, at a flat 1.5% card rate (BusinessExpert, 2026). For full-service sites that want one all-in package, it's a genuine contender.
The catch is the contract — covered in detail below. In short: it runs on a minimum term that auto-renews, and missing the notice window keeps you in for another year (BusinessExpert, 2026). Go in with eyes open.
Best for: full-service restaurants wanting integrated bundles with table service.
How much does a restaurant POS really cost in the UK?
The true cost of a POS is three numbers, not one: the monthly software fee, the card rate on every transaction, and the hardware. The monthly fee is the one reps quote; the card rate is usually the one that costs you most.
Do the sum on your own turnover. On £40,000 a month of card payments, the gap between a 1.75% flat rate and a negotiated 0.99% is around £304 a month — far more than any of the software fees above. Hardware is a smaller, one-off line: a basic reader is roughly £15–£19 + VAT, while full tablet-and-stand bundles run into the hundreds.
POS sits alongside your other fixed overheads — the same pressure you feel on wage costs and energy bills. Price it on the full annual cost (software + card fees + hardware), not the sticker.
The catch nobody mentions: contract lock-in
The thing most owners regret isn't the price — it's the contract. Several POS deals run on long minimum terms that auto-renew, so missing a single notice window keeps you tied in for another year.
Epos Now is the textbook example. BusinessExpert's guide warns plainly: "12-month minimum contracts auto-renew annually: missing the 30-day notice window locks you in for another year" (BusinessExpert, 2026). Independent reviewers report longer 24–36 month terms as standard, with early termination charged as the remaining months' software fees, and advise setting a reminder 90 days before the end date so you don't miss the cancellation window (ExpertSure, 2026).
None of that makes Epos Now a bad system — plenty of busy sites run it happily. It does mean you should treat the contract as part of the price. Ask for the minimum term, the notice period and the early-exit fee in writing before you sign anything.
What happens when the till goes down?
A POS outage is not a minor glitch — it's lost service. UK retail and hospitality lose an estimated £1.6bn a year to payment outages, with as much as £1.17bn (74% of revenue) at risk by minute 22 of an outage, according to research from FreedomPay, Dynatrace and Retail Economics (FreedomPay, 2025). The same study found businesses face over five major outages a year, 61% of them during peak trading, averaging 84 minutes each. (It's vendor-sponsored research, so read the headline figures as directional — but the direction is clear.)
The practical takeaway: ask what your POS does when its internet drops. Can it keep taking card payments offline? Is there a backup — a standalone card reader or cash float — that keeps the queue moving while the system reboots? A till that can't trade through a wobble costs you a full service, not a software fee.
Will it work with Deliveroo and Just Eat?
This is where independents quietly bleed time. Each delivery app often arrives with its own tablet, and staff end up re-keying every order into the main till by hand — the "tablet hell" that clutters the pass during a rush. The aggregators know integration is sticky: back in 2019, Just Eat acquired an iPad POS, Practi, in an explicit "attempt to lock in restaurants" (TechCrunch, 2019).
If you take a meaningful share of orders through delivery apps, prioritise a POS that integrates orders directly, so they drop into your system without a second device. Weigh it against what those apps already cost you — see our breakdown of Deliveroo, Just Eat and Uber Eats commissions.
The deeper fix is to move repeat customers onto your own ordering page, where you keep the margin instead of handing 27–35% to an app. A simple website with ordering — something like DineHere builds from a menu photo — turns your best regulars into commission-free orders. On payments, it's also worth asking providers about pay-by-bank (open banking) rails, which some report can cut fees by up to 50% versus cards (paywithatoa, 2025).
How to choose a POS without getting locked in
Run any shortlisted system through these seven checks before you sign:
- Contract length — is there a minimum term, and how long?
- Auto-renew window — does it renew automatically, and how many days' notice must you give to stop it?
- Early-termination fee — what does it cost to leave early? (Often the remaining months' fees.)
- Card rate, not just software — work out the rate on your real monthly card turnover; it usually dwarfs the monthly fee.
- Offline mode — can it keep taking payments when the internet drops?
- Delivery integration — do app orders flow in automatically, or will staff re-key them?
- Your own ordering — does it let you take direct, commission-free orders, or push everything through third parties?
Get the term, notice window and exit fee in writing. If a rep won't put those three numbers in an email, that's your answer.
One last thing the right system earns its keep on: the dish-level sales data it captures is exactly what you need to control your food costs — ranking dishes by profit, spotting the popular-but-unprofitable plates and recosting them before margin slips.
Frequently asked questions
How much does a restaurant POS cost in the UK?
Software runs from £0 (Square, SumUp pay-as-you-go) up to roughly £49–£59+ a month for full-service systems like Lightspeed, TouchBistro and Epos Now. On top, you pay a card rate of around 0.99%–1.75% per transaction and a one-off hardware cost from about £15 + VAT for a basic reader (BusinessExpert, 2026).
What's the best till system for a small UK restaurant?
For a small or counter-service site, Square (£0/month, 1.75% flat) or SumUp (£0 or £19/month) are usually the best fit — no contract, low commitment, and easy to walk away from if they don't suit (BusinessExpert, 2026).
Is Square or SumUp cheaper for a restaurant?
It depends on volume. SumUp's pay-as-you-go rate (1.69%) is slightly below Square's (1.75%), and SumUp's £19/month Payments Plus plan drops to 0.99% — worth it only once your card turnover is high enough for the saving to beat the £19 fee (BusinessExpert, 2026).
Can I cancel an Epos Now contract early?
You can, but it usually costs you. Reviewers report Epos Now contracts running 24–36 months with early termination charged as the remaining months' software fees, so leaving early means paying out the balance (ExpertSure, 2026). Check your specific term and exit clause before assuming.
What is POS contract auto-renewal and why does it matter?
Auto-renewal means your contract rolls over for another full term unless you give notice in a set window. BusinessExpert warns that Epos Now's 12-month minimums "auto-renew annually: missing the 30-day notice window locks you in for another year" (BusinessExpert, 2026) — so diarise the notice date well ahead.
Do I need a POS that integrates with Deliveroo and Just Eat?
If delivery apps are a real share of your orders, yes — direct integration saves staff re-keying every order into the till by hand ("tablet hell"). Aggregators have long used POS integration to lock restaurants in, so check it works the way you need before signing (TechCrunch, 2019).
What happens to my POS if the internet goes down?
Some systems keep taking card payments offline and sync once they reconnect; others stop dead. Ask before you buy — payment outages cost UK retail and hospitality an estimated £1.6bn a year, and most affected businesses see several outages annually (FreedomPay, 2025). Always keep a backup card reader or cash float.
How do I lower my card processing fees?
Compare the per-transaction rate on your real monthly turnover, not the headline software fee, and consider a processor-agnostic POS (like TouchBistro) so you can shop your card rate around. Some operators also use pay-by-bank rails, which providers say can cut fees by up to 50% versus cards (paywithatoa, 2025).
Which POS is best for a full-service restaurant?
For full-service sites with table plans and multiple terminals, Lightspeed and Epos Now are the usual picks — both built for floor management and bundles. Just price the full configuration and read the contract, as both can climb well above their entry tiers (BusinessExpert, 2026).
Should I buy POS hardware outright or rent it?
Buying outright (a reader from about £15–£19 + VAT, or a full bundle for a few hundred pounds) keeps you flexible and contract-free. Renting hardware is often bundled into a longer software contract — convenient, but it ties your exit to that contract's notice and termination terms, so weigh the lock-in against the lower upfront cost.
The bottom line
The best POS for your restaurant is the one that fits your service style and your card turnover — and that you can leave without paying a penalty. Start with the card rate and the contract, not the monthly fee. Get the term, the notice window and the early-exit fee in writing before you sign, and you'll avoid the regret most owners only discover at renewal.
