You ask three POS vendors for a price. One sends a neat monthly figure. One says "it depends, let's book a call". The third quotes for hardware you never asked for. A week later you still can't tell which one is cheaper, and that is not an accident.
The short answer: a POS system costs whatever its software, hardware, payment fees and support add up to over a year. The monthly headline price is only one of those four. Add all four together for every option you're looking at, and the comparison usually gets a lot clearer. For reference, EliteTeQ's software starts from USD 499 per year and runs on devices you may already own.
The four parts of every POS price
Every quote you get, however it's dressed up, is some mix of these.
1. The software
This is the subscription or licence for the POS itself, plus whatever sits behind it: stock, reports, staff accounts, branches.
- Cloud POS is usually a monthly or yearly subscription. You pay as you go, and updates come with it.
- Traditional, installed POS tends to be a larger one-off licence, often with a separate yearly fee for updates or support.
What changes the software price most is how much you need it to do: how many branches, how many users, how many products, and which modules you switch on. A single shop and a five-branch chain should not be paying the same.
2. The hardware
Tills, tablets, receipt printers, barcode scanners, cash drawers. This can be your biggest cost on day one, or close to nothing.
The question to ask is simple: does the software run on ordinary devices, or only on the vendor's own terminals? If it's the second, you're buying their hardware now and replacing it on their schedule later. If it runs on a normal tablet, laptop or phone, you can start with what's already behind your counter and add a printer or scanner when you need one.
3. Payment fees
When a customer pays by card or mobile money, someone usually takes a small cut of that sale. That cut comes from your bank, card processor or mobile money provider, and sometimes from the POS vendor too.
On a quiet week it barely registers. On a busy month it can quietly become your largest running cost, because it grows with every sale you make. So ask every vendor directly: do you take anything per transaction on top of what my bank or Octopus provider already charges?
With EliteTeQ, Octopus, card and cash payments are recorded against each sale so the day reconciles in one place instead of across a notebook, a phone and a card machine slip.
4. Setup, training and support
Getting your products loaded, your staff trained and your questions answered. Some vendors include this. Some charge for setup, then charge again per training session or support call. Some offer support only by email, in a time zone that isn't yours.
This is the part buyers forget to ask about, and the part they remember most when something goes wrong on a Saturday afternoon.
Costs that only show up later
These are the lines that turn a cheap-looking quote into an expensive year:
- Locked hardware. Proprietary terminals you must buy or lease, and replace when they say so.
- Per-register pricing. Fine with one till, painful when you add a second counter for the festive season.
- Paywalled basics. Stock tracking, multiple branches or decent reports held back for a higher tier.
- One-off fees. "Onboarding", "data migration" or "activation" charged on top of the subscription.
- Long contracts. A great first-year rate tied to a multi-year commitment with a penalty for leaving.
- Extra for offline. If the internet and power in your area are unreliable, selling offline is not a luxury. Check it isn't an add-on.
None of these are hidden if you ask. They just aren't on the front of the brochure.
A simple way to compare quotes
Take a sheet of paper and draw four rows: software, hardware, payment fees, support. Make one column per vendor. Fill in a full year for each, not a month.
| Row | What to write down |
|---|---|
| Software | Yearly cost for your real number of branches and users |
| Hardware | Anything you must buy, lease or replace to run it |
| Payment fees | Anything the vendor takes per sale, on top of your bank or Octopus charges |
| Setup and support | Every one-off fee, plus what support costs and when it's available |
Then add each column up. The cheapest monthly price is often not the cheapest year.
While you're at it, write down what each option does not do. A system that saves you money on paper but can't sell during a power cut, or can't show you stock in your second branch, is going to cost you in other ways.
How EliteTeQ is priced
EliteTeQ starts from USD 499 per year. The plan grows with the number of branches, users and products you need, so a single shop pays less than a business with several branches across town.
What you get for that is the part that matters: stock that matches the shelf, every branch in one view, staff accounts with their own roles and an audit log, sales that carry on offline and sync when the connection is back, and reports showing what's moving and what isn't. It runs on devices you already own, so you're not forced into a hardware purchase to get started.
For an exact figure in your local currency, the easiest route is a short demo where we look at your actual setup and quote for that.
Before you sign anything
A few questions worth asking every vendor, out loud:
- What will I pay in total over the first year, for my number of branches and users?
- Do I have to buy your hardware?
- Do you take anything per transaction?
- Is stock management included, or extra?
- What happens when the internet or power goes off?
- Who do I call when something breaks, and when are they available?
- How do I leave, and what does leaving cost?
If the answers are vague, that tells you something too.
Want a straight quote for your shop? Book a free demo, or talk to a real person on WhatsApp and tell us how many branches and tills you run.
Let's discuss how EliteTeQ POS can help you achieve the results you just read about.