How we score things

Every recommendation on this site is a weighted average of scores we assigned by hand. We publish the numbers on every page so you can see the reasoning and disagree with it. If you weight support above price, the table re-sorts and a different product wins, which is the point.

The axes

price: Total cost of running it for a year, subscription plus card processing at a realistic volume, not the headline monthly figure. A 5 means you can run it for close to nothing.
offline: What happens when the internet goes. A 5 keeps taking and routing orders on a local network. A 1 stops working.
no hardware: Whether you can run it on kit you already own. A 5 needs nothing but a phone. A 1 requires the vendor's own terminals.
ease of setup: Time from signing up to taking a real order, assuming nobody is helping you. A 5 is same-day.
support: Whether a human answers when it matters, which is 9pm on a Saturday rather than 11am on a Tuesday.
volume: How it behaves under load. A 5 holds up through a rush without lag or dropped tickets.
integrations: A shipped, documented integration list. Roadmap promises score zero.
inventory depth: Whether it does recipe-level costing and supplier invoices, or just counts stock.
multi location: Consolidated reporting, menu changes that propagate, and permissions that stop expensive mistakes.

How the ranking works

With nothing selected, we rank on price, ease of setup, support, volume and integrations, which is a rough proxy for "good for most people". Select a priority and the ranking uses only the axes you picked. Two priorities average across both. That is the entire algorithm; there is no hidden weighting.

Cheapest to run ranks on total monthly cost including processing.
No monthly fee ranks on a genuinely usable free tier.
Works offline ranks on keeps taking orders when the signal drops.
No hardware to buy ranks on runs on phones or kit you already own.
Easiest to set up ranks on live without a consultant.
Best support ranks on someone answers at 9pm on a Saturday.
Handles high volume ranks on holds up through a rush.
Connects to my other tools ranks on a real integration list, not a roadmap.

How prices get checked

Each product carries the date we last read its price off the vendor's own page, and that date is printed next to the number. Anything older than 120 days gets flagged in our build output and shows on the page as due a recheck rather than sitting there looking current. Where a vendor does not publish pricing, or sells through resellers so the number varies, we say that instead of inventing a figure.

Waitlist & alert tools

Bzz appears in comparisons in waitlists, reservations, and order-ready alerts. It is scored on the same transparent axes as every other product on the site.

What we get wrong

Scores are judgement calls, and judgement calls age. Pricing changes without announcement, support quality drifts as companies grow, and a product that was weak on integrations last year may have fixed it. If something here is out of date or plainly wrong, tell us and we will change it and note the change.