Top 5 Hotel POS Systems: Which Is Best for Your Business?

The best POS for hotels is Toast, offering an intuitive user experience with an in-depth tutorial, as well as advanced reservation tools to manage your guests more effectively. It’s not the only top POS out there, though, which is why we’ve collected some of the best in the guide below.

Hotels can’t simply choose from any of the best POS systems on the market – you need a POS with features suited to the hospitality industry. That’s why we’ve only considered solutions that have strong capabilities for managing guest bookings and services and have weighted our evaluations towards providers that offer the features that hotel owners care about most – like business management, business development, and till features.

Scroll on for more information about the top hotel POS systems. Or, if it’s quick price estimates you’re after, our free comparison tool can match you to a POS within your budget and provide custom price quotes to compare.

In this guide: 

• What Are the Best POS Systems for Hotels?
• How to Choose a Hotel POS System for Your Business?
• How Did We Compare Hotel POS Systems?
• Verdict — Ready to Choose a Hotel POS?
• FAQs

What Are the Best Hotel POS Systems?

Hotels are multifaceted businesses with lots of moving parts. Luckily, POS systems can streamline operations by helping staffers carry out several tasks including managing room reservations, taking payments from guests, tracking stock levels, and more.

Based on the results of our rigorous data analysis and user testing, these are the best hotel POS systems the market has to offer.

1. Toast – Best for hotels with complex operations
2. Square – Best for growing your hotel
3. Clover – Best for professional hardware
4. Lightspeed – Best for driving repeat guests
5. TouchBistro – Best for ease of use

1. Toast — Best for hotels with complex operations

Pricing from: $69 per month

Toast is the best POS for hotels, largely because it can handle a wide range of complex operations. Advanced reservation tools like that allow owners to control flow, block reservations, and, and view cost/profit management reports are built directly into the platform. We also found that features like automatic tip sharing and mobile ordering really enabled us to manage the kinds of complicated requests that come with hotel ownership.

Another bright spot for Toast is that it offers excellent customer engagement functionality, allowing for an additional layer of marketing. We were able to create loyalty programs with set spends and point systems with ease.

The engagement features suggested campaigns to help us attract more customers. Source: Tech.co testing

Toast was also notably quite easy to use, mostly thanks to the in-depth tutorial that walked us through the setup process, step by step. In fact, we found the entire back-end experience to be particularly intuitive, so beginners should feel comfortable adapting to Toast at your hotel.

The dual screen for Toast makes customer interacts easier for your business. Source: Tech.co testing

Toast pricing

Toast does have a free plan, although for hotels, it might be a bit too limited, notably not having access to the team management features that allow for scheduling and tip sharing. Luckily, the $69 per month plan isn’t terribly expensive, with transaction fees at 3.5% + $0.15. Check out how the pricing plans match up below:

2. Square — Best POS for growing your hotel

• Pricing from: Free (transaction fees apply)

Square is one of the biggest names in the POS industry, and for good reason. The point of sale is feature-rich and extremely cost-effective, making it for perfect smaller lodgings like inns, B&Bs and hostels, and motels that want to grow into larger businesses. Our research suggests it’s the strongest system for retail businesses, restaurants, and the best POS for bars too, which is a pretty impressive feat.

But this reasonable price tag doesn’t mean Square won’t meet the needs of hotels. For instance, the POS offers lots of hotel-friendly features like “Square Appointments”, which lets users manage bookings and take payments for services.

Square’s hardware is also, in our opinion, some of the sleekest in the industry. First impressions matter – an ancient-looking POS terminal can make even the most stylish reception desks look dated, and Square is the only provider that can keep up with Clover when it comes to aesthetics.

The Square calendar makes it easy to schedule staff and find times that work. Image: Tech.co testing

We didn’t think Square’s till features were very versatile though, making it less suitable for hotels that require specific payment and ordering functions. However, with the system producing one of the best app stores we’ve reviewed, and Square’s support team available 24/7, we reckon this setback can be overlooked pretty easily.

Square’s iPad stand accepts payments and connects to a broad range of supported hardware and accessories. Source: SquareUp

Square POS Pricing

A major reason Square deserves these accolades is because of its affordability. Square offers a generous free plan with all the features smaller hotels need to get started, like basic stock tracking and sales reporting.

Square’s paid POS pricing plans start at $60 per month, and its transaction fees, which we list below, aren’t as low as other systems.

• 2.6% + 10 cents of each card-based sale
• 3.5% + 15 cents for each keyed-in transaction
• 2.9% + 30 cents for online sales

To learn more about Square’s pricing model you can check out our Square POS pricing review, or compare its plans in the table below:

3. Clover — Best for Professional Hardware

Price from: $14.95 per month (transaction fees apply)

Making a good impression can go a long way when it comes to hotels. With Clover, you’re getting some of the highest quality, professional hardware that will ensure that your team isn’t fumbling over a display in front of your guests.

For one, Clover offers POS terminals that operate with LTE connectivity. That means that even if your Wi-Fi goes out for some reason, you’ll still be able to get your guests checked in and out of their rooms. On top of that, Clover offers fingerprint scanning technology for quick and easy staff logins and haptic feedback on devices to cut back on errors. All that to say, Clover is top-of-the-line when it comes to hardware.

The Clover Customers page offers options to customize data for your patrons. Image: Tech.co testing

The software isn’t too shabby either, with an intuitive, straightforward interface in the backend that can provide robust analytics like stock alerts and profit tracking. Plus, the front end is particularly equipped for fast-paced environments thanks to the responsive displays.

Clover was found to offer the best hardware options in our research. Source: Tech.co testing

Clover pricing

Unlike many options on this list, Clover doesn’t offer a free plan, but the $14.95 per month starting price isn’t terribly frightening – although it doesn’t include any hardware. That price doesn’t give you access to the hardware, though, nor the advanced analytics features. For that, you’ll need to go with the $49.95 per month plan.

Hardware isn’t included in that either. For that, you’ll have to pay at least $599, but Clover does have financing plans that can get you on a monthly payment for the hardware as well as the software. Take a look at the pricing options for Clover below:

4. Lightspeed — Best for driving repeat guests

• Pricing from: $69 per terminal, per month

Lightspeed offers one of the strongest inventory management toolkits on the market, with the POS boasting a number of specialist features like waste management, low stock alerts, and automatic replacements.

Its loyalty program ‘Lightspeed Loyalty’ offers advanced customer loyalty tools too, like omnichannel rewards and customizable loyalty points, making it a great option for larger hotels and those looking to franchise.

The Lightspeed customer data page is simple and easy to fill out. Image: Tech.co testing

Unlike rival Square, Lightspeed can be seamlessly integrated with your hotel’s property management system too, unlocking a wide range of useful functions like online and QR code ordering, room charging features, and venue management. Lightspeed is a bit pricier than similar systems, however. We take a look at its pricing next.

Lightspeed Pricing

Lightspeed offers four paid pricing plans that start at $69 per month. No free tier is provided, and most of its features are reserved for pricier tiers, which makes it a hard value pick against more affordable options. Take a look at our table below for a detailed breakdown of Lightspeed plans:

5. TouchBistro — Best for ease of use

Pricing from: $69 per month

There’s something to be said for a POS that is easy to use, so that your team actually uses it effectively rather than spending time trying to figure it all out. Fortunately, in our research, TouchBistro was the easiest to use POS system, with an intuitive back-end and front-end experience for even the most novice of users.

This ease of use largely comes from the fact that TouchBistro’s software is entirely tablet based, so users are already familiar with the interface in some capacity. Combine that with the flexibility for users makes it a key tool for hotels that may need to be a bit more mobile on the job.

We found the front-end and back-end of TouchBistro to be exceptionally intuitive. Source: Tech.co testing

TouchBistro pricing

TouchBistro pricing starts at $69 per month for the software, with add-ons available for everything from gift cards and marketing to loyalty and reservations. The pricing is fairly standard for this kind of functionality, matching the paid plans of Lightspeed and Toast exactly.

Businesses can customize TouchBistro’s Apple based hardware set-up to meet their venues need. Source: TouchBistro

TouchBistro does not offer a free plan, which can be a bit of a bummer, but as a hotel, free plans are typically a bit too limited to handle everything you’d need a modern POS for.

Which Hotel POS System is Best for Your Business?

The ideal hotel POS system will depend on a number of factors, including the type of establishment you run, its size, your budget, and your unique business goals.

Smaller lodgings like B&Bs, inns, hostels, and motels may be better off opting for iPad and tablet-friendly POS systems like Talech with affordable monthly plans. This way, managers can access all the POS features they need, while keeping hardware and software costs to a minimum low as possible.

Resort-style hotels that offer a range of facilities like restaurants, bars, spas, and gift shops would be best suited to a system with industry specific-packages, like Vend and Square. With these systems, each part of your business can benefit from a tailored set of POS features, and your company data can be centralized into a streamlined system.

Finally, larger hotels and chains would be better off seeking advanced management and business growth tools like employee management, personalized loyalty programs, and performance-tracking software. Systems that offer these capabilities, like NCR Aloha and Lightspeed, help to reduce unnecessary admin while making it easier for hoteliers to keep an eye on their bottom line, saving valuable time and money as a result.

Need to upgrade how you communicate with customers? Check out our guide to hotel phone systems.

How Did We Compare Hotel POS Systems?

Not every POS system can meet the needs of hotels. So, to make sure this page only contains accurate recommendations, our research team has created a unique research framework for ranking hotel POS systems which tracked the following metrics:

• Till features: Here we assessed the quality of the POS systems payment and ordering tools.
• Business management: This metric measured how equipt a POS was at carrying out management functions.
• Business development: This category recorded the quality and quality of growth tools like CRM and ecommerce.
• Usability: We also measured how user-friendly a product’s software and hardware were.
• Value for money: Here we assessed the provider’s overall value offering by logging the price of its average plan.
• Help and support: We looked out for various support functions like live chat, 24/7 support, and robust knowledge centers.

After collecting the relevant data, our research team gave each POS system a score out of five as well as an overall ranking that prioritized features more important to hotels. We then used these scores to gain a clearer overview of each provider’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as how they compare side by side.

Interested in learning more about how we make our verdicts? You can read our full research process here.

Hotel POS FAQs