Bar / pub / POS and payments
The best POS for a bar or pub
Scored and compared prices dated
The short answer
Open tabs and card pre-authorisation are the feature that actually decides this category, and it is rarely demoed properly. Toast and TouchBistro both handle tab reopening and splitting well; TouchBistro's local-network setup is worth extra attention for a late-night venue where the last thing you need is the system going down at 1am.
Reviewed by the editorial team · updated 11 August 2026
Step 3
What matters most to you?
Pick one or two. Everything below re-scores instantly, and we show you the maths.
Winner overall
Square for Restaurants
The default answer for anyone who wants to be selling this afternoon.
The trade-off
Offline mode takes the card without knowing if it will clear, so a declined payment surfaces after the customer has gone.
Why it won
- price
- ease of setup
- support
- volume
- integrations
Our scores, 1 to 5, defined on the methodology page.
Everything else, ranked the same way
| # | Product | From | Contract | Card rate | Score | Price checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Square for Restaurants The default answer for anyone who wants to be selling this afternoon. | Free, then $49 | none | 2.6% + 10¢ in person on the free plan, 2.5% + 15¢ on Plus | 4.2 | Pricing checked 10 Aug 2026 |
| 02 | SpotOn The one people actually praise for picking up the phone. | Free, then $55 | 2-year minimum on the $0 plan, month to month on Essentials | 2.79% + 20¢ on the $0 plan, 2.45% + 15¢ on Essentials | 3.6 | Pricing checked 10 Aug 2026 |
| 03 | Toast The one built for restaurants only, with the lock-in that implies. | Free, then $69 | multi-year is typical | 2.99% + 15¢ on the free Starter Kit, 2.49% + 15¢ on the $69 plan | 3.6 | Pricing checked 10 Aug 2026 |
| 04 | Lightspeed Restaurant Strong reporting and stock control, priced for somewhere above the small independent. | From $69 | month to month available | 2.6% + 10¢ on Starter, negotiable on higher tiers | 3.2 | Pricing checked 10 Aug 2026 |
| 05 | TouchBistro iPad-based, runs on a local network, keeps working when the internet does not. | From $69 | annual | through TouchBistro Payments, required for new customers | 3.2 | Pricing checked 10 Aug 2026 |
| 06 | Clover Sold through resellers, which is the single most important thing to know about it. | From $59.95 | 36 months is common when hardware is bundled | roughly 2.3% to 2.6% + 10¢ in person, varies by who sold it to you | 3 | Pricing checked 10 Aug 2026 |
What's different about buying this for bar / pubs
Most POS comparisons focus on menu and modifier handling, which matters far less to a bar than one specific workflow: opening a tab against a pre-authorised card, adding rounds to it over two hours, and closing it out fast when the customer wants to leave. If reopening a tab takes four taps instead of one, staff will hate the system by the second week, and that friction repeats on every single tab, every single night.
Toast handles this well and holds up under real volume, which matters at last orders when twenty tabs are closing out at once; the cost is their processing and a multi-year contract, the same trade-off it is everywhere else on this site. TouchBistro's local-network architecture is worth particular attention for late trade specifically, since a connectivity blip at 1am on a Saturday is a worse time for the system to go down than almost any other point in the week.
Square, Clover and SpotOn all cover tab management adequately for a smaller bar or pub without the volume of a late-night venue, and SpotOn in particular is worth a look if reliable support that answers the phone matters to you more than the deepest feature set.
Questions people actually ask
- How should I actually test tab handling in a demo?
- Ask the salesperson to open a tab, add three rounds to it, split it two ways and close it out, timed. That single test tells you more than a feature list will.
- Does pre-authorisation actually prevent walkouts?
- It reduces the risk significantly but does not eliminate it entirely, since a pre-auth hold has its own limits and expiry rules that vary by processor. Worth understanding the specifics rather than assuming full protection.