Restaurant POS cost

Owners often take a list price, multiply by 12 and call that the yearly POS cost. For a venue that is only swapping one till, the shortcut can be enough. For a venue that is rebuilding the menu, adding stations and changing how the kitchen takes tickets, that line is the subscription, not the decision. TCO, total cost of ownership, adds launch work, hardware, staff time and what happens if the system never makes it into a normal shift.

Five rows worth putting on one sheet

A notepad or a spreadsheet only needs five lines:

1. subscription and starting plan,
2. modules you need for the next 6 to 12 months,
3. stations, licences and any hardware,
4. time for the team to work in the new setup,
5. correction cost if, a month later, the floor is back on paper tickets.

This is not a finance model. It is a filter so you do not compare a one-till quote with a floor, kitchen and direct-ordering setup. Public price lists from POSbistro, GoPOS and Dotykacka show how vendors split packages. They still do not fill in your station count or your launch hours.

The wider price-component picture, without the worksheet, is in restaurant POS prices. Here those rows get added up together.

Worksheet: four steps

Step 1. Enter the monthly plan fee

OrderNow list prices are:

• Start: from 199 PLN net / month,
• Pro: 399 PLN net / month,
• Enterprise: custom quote.

Multiply the chosen fee by 12 if you are costing a year. Stop before you treat that number as TCO. Direct online ordering is not in Start. If the venue wants orders from its own website, the subscription row has to sit against a plan that actually includes that channel.

Step 2. Write down the scope that must work in week one

This is where the numbers usually break. The venue picks a plan by price, not by what has to work on Friday night: floor, kitchen, menu, reservations or the direct channel. Starting scope comes from that list, not from buying extra "just in case".

If you are unsure which modules sit in which plan, the feature map is faster than guessing from the package name.

Step 3. Add launch work, not a speed promise

Count the work that will land on the venue anyway: menu build, roles, stations, the first shifts on the new setup. Manager and shift time belong in TCO even when the quote has no separate "implementation" line.

Do not type a vendor's "fast" into this row. Type the hours or days your team can actually give before go-live.

Step 4. Add bad fit

If a month later the waiter is scribbling notes on paper, the kitchen is still asking about modifiers, and the manager is building the report in a spreadsheet, the subscription does not describe the cost. It describes a fee for a tool the shift is not using. This row is awkward because there is no invoice. Name it anyway before you compare two quotes.

A 6 to 12 month scenario

Take, for example, a venue with two floor stations and one kitchen screen. Over the next year it also wants orders from its own website. Start at 199 PLN net a month does not close that scope, because the direct online channel sits outside Start. Comparing that with Pro at 399 PLN net a month is then a comparison of two different workloads, not of a "cheaper POS" and a "more expensive POS".

Add the second till, menu time and training. If Start would force a second rollout in season, the higher monthly fee can come out lower in TCO. That is a scenario, not a savings promise. Swap in your own assumptions: station count, period, and whether the direct channel is needed now.

If you want those assumptions against your floor rather than the example, that conversation is an OrderNow presentation.

When a detailed TCO is overkill

A food truck with one till and a short menu does not need a twenty-row sheet. Subscription, one station and time to set up the menu will do. A detailed TCO starts to earn its keep when you are comparing two different ways of working, moving several stations, or justifying the choice to a partner.

Not every restaurant needs the same resolution. The simpler the process and the smaller the change, the shorter the sheet. Skipping fit and onboarding is still a mistake, even in the short version.

Selection criteria, before you reach a spreadsheet at all, are in the restaurant POS guide.