Every restaurant POS demo looks great. The difference shows up on a Friday night — when tickets stack up, a server needs to split a check three ways, and the kitchen printer decides it's done for the day. Here's how the systems we install most often actually compare.
SkyTab by Shift4 — the full-service workhorse
SkyTab is built for table service: floor plans, coursing, tableside ordering on handhelds, and a kitchen display that keeps the line moving. Pricing is one of the cleanest in the industry — $29.99/month per station, no upfront hardware fees, and with dual pricing you can run 0% processing. You get a 30-day trial before the standard 36-month agreement kicks in.
- Best for: full-service restaurants, bars, pizzerias
- Add-ons: kitchen display $29.99/mo, handheld SkyTab Mobile $20/mo, online ordering built in
- Why we recommend it: restaurant-first features without a five-figure install
Square — familiar, fast to launch
Square is the fastest path from "signed up" to "taking orders." The hardware is polished, staff already know the interface, and the free tier means a coffee cart can start at $0 software. For single-location restaurants we recommend the Plus plan at $49/month with unlimited stations. Processing is flat-rate at 2.6% + 10¢ in person.
- Best for: QSR, cafés, counter service, first-time owners
- Watch for: flat-rate processing costs more as volume grows — that's where a rate review pays off
Chively — F&B and retail, offered through NextPay
Chively is its own point of sale — offered through NextPay — built for food & beverage and retail. It covers the core restaurant flow (menus, modifiers, kitchen tickets) with straightforward pricing and hands-on setup from our team, which makes it a strong fit when you want one phone number for POS and processing.
The questions that actually decide it
- Counter or table service? Counter-service favors Square; table service favors SkyTab.
- Do you need handhelds? Tableside ordering pays for itself in turn time — SkyTab and Square both do it well.
- How do you feel about processing fees? If the answer is "make them go away," dual pricing on SkyTab or Chively gets you to 0%.
- Delivery and online ordering? Make sure it's native, not a bolted-on tablet farm.
Want the side-by-side? Our POS Systems page lets you compare every system we carry — or take the two-minute quiz and we'll shortlist it for you.