How much does an EPOS system cost a pub in 2026? Four published price lists, card fees in, and the number that matters more than the monthly fee

A pub EPOS system costs anything from £0 to about £69 a month per site in software on the published price lists, plus hardware from £29 for a card reader to £299 and up for a full till. But the monthly fee is the small number. On a pub taking £4,000 a week on cards, the card rate costs about £3,600 a year, roughly four times what the software costs. Pick the till on the card rate and the total, not the monthly price on the advert.

Every "how much does an EPOS cost" page I found is either a reseller who wants your phone number or a comparison site that lists "from £X" without doing the sum. So I took the four systems with prices you can actually read on their own websites, checked them on 26 October 2026, and worked out what each one costs a pub over a week and a year, card fees in.

The published prices, side by side

EPOS prices as listed on each provider's UK site, checked 26 October 2026

System	Software per month	Card rate in person	Hardware	Worth knowing
Square for Restaurants, Free	£0	1.75%	Square Stand from £99 + VAT (iPad not included)	Kitchen screens £15 a month each on this plan, weekday support only
Square for Restaurants, Plus	£69 per location	1.75%	As above	30-day free trial, 24/7 support, live sales reporting. Custom card pricing possible over £200,000 a year
SumUp Point of Sale Pro	£49, plus £19 for the Hospitality Module (tabs and tables)	1.69%, or 0.99% for another £19 a month on Payments Plus	Not on the POS pricing page	Prices exclude VAT. Stock, kitchen screen, loyalty and promotions are £19 add-ons each
PayPal Point of Sale (was Zettle)	No recurring fees	1.75%	Reader £29 for your first, then £69. Terminal £149. All excluding VAT	No contracts
Epos Now, Complete Solution	From £54 (12-month payments, care and support subscription)	Not published on the pricing page	From £299, "was £849"	The pricing page runs countdown-timer offers

The bigger hospitality systems mostly don't publish a price. ICRTouch, for example, is sold through dealers, so the price depends on who's selling it to you. I went through that in stocktaking with ICRTouch. If a system won't show you a price, it isn't necessarily dear, but you'll need the full contract total in writing to compare it with this table.

What it actually costs a pub, card fees in

Here's the sum for a pub taking £5,000 a week with £4,000 of it on cards. Software plus card fees only, hardware left out because you buy it once. My arithmetic from the prices above.

Weekly and yearly cost on £4,000 a week of card takings (author's arithmetic)

Set-up	Software a week	Card fees a week	Total a week	Total a year
PayPal POS	£0.00	£70.00	£70.00	£3,640
Square Free	£0.00	£70.00	£70.00	£3,640
Square Plus	£15.92	£70.00	£85.92	£4,468
SumUp POS Pro + Hospitality, standard rate	£15.69	£67.60	£83.29	£4,331
SumUp POS Pro + Hospitality + Payments Plus	£20.08	£39.60	£59.68	£3,103

Two things jump out. The software is a third or less of the bill on every line. And the cheapest set-up in that table isn't the free one, it's the one with the lowest card rate, even after paying two monthly fees for it. SumUp says Payments Plus pays for itself if you take £3,000 or more a month on cards. My sum puts the break-even at about £2,700 a month (£19 ÷ the 0.70 point saving), so almost any open pub is past it.

Epos Now isn't in the weekly table because its card rate isn't on its pricing page. Ask for it, and ask for the total over the 12 months the subscription runs, hardware included. Ignore the countdown timer. A deal that ends in a day and 12 hours every time you load the page isn't ending.

For the card side in more detail, including what it costs per pint and the Dojo-style blended deals, see what card machines cost a pub.

The till in pints

I find it easier to judge a monthly fee in pints. On a £5.34 pint making about £2.45 gross profit, the figure from my electricity per pint guide, Square Plus at £69 a month is 28 pints a month to pay for, about six and a half a week. Not nothing, but if live sales reporting stops one bad Saturday going unnoticed, it's paid for itself. The card rate, by contrast, is a little bit of every single pint. At 1.75% that's about 9p on a £5.34 pint, forever.

Costs that don't show on the headline

• Add-ons you'll actually need. On SumUp, tabs and table management are in the £19 Hospitality Module, not the £49 base. On Square's Free plan, each kitchen display screen is £15 a month.
• Stock add-ons. Square's restaurant inventory, run by MarketMan, is another £79 a month per location on Plus. SumUp's Advanced Stock is £19.
• Contract length. PayPal POS says no contracts. Epos Now's headline price needs a 12-month subscription. Know which you're signing.
• VAT. SumUp and the PayPal hardware prices are shown excluding VAT. If you're not VAT registered, add 20% to compare like with like.

Will the till do my stock?

Partly. A till's stock module takes what you said you bought and subtracts what was rung through. That's useful for knowing when the tonic's running low. It isn't a stocktake, because it never counts what's actually in the cellar. Drinks poured and not rung, wrong buttons, spillage and line cleaning are invisible to it, and that's exactly where a wet-led pub loses money. You still need a count. I've written up how a count works alongside each of these tills: Square, SumUp, Zettle and Epos Now, and what an EPOS link does and doesn't give you in EPOS integration and stock control.

One idea worth trying

Before you change tills, work out your effective card rate. Take last month's statement from your card provider, add up every fee on it, and divide by your total card takings. That one percentage is the number to beat, and it's often higher than the headline rate once the extras are in. Then take this table, put your own weekly card figure in place of my £4,000, and the right till usually picks itself. If you're staying put, ring your current provider with that percentage and a competitor's published rate in front of you. It's a five minute call.

Common questions

How much does an EPOS system cost for a pub?

On published UK price lists checked in October 2026, pub EPOS software runs from £0 a month (Square Free, PayPal POS) to £69 a month per site (Square Plus), with SumUp at £49 plus a £19 hospitality module. Hardware runs from a £29 card reader to £299 or more for a full till.

What is the cheapest EPOS for a pub?

The lowest monthly fee isn't always the cheapest overall. On £4,000 a week of card takings, SumUp with its £19 Payments Plus plan at 0.99% came out about £540 a year cheaper than the free plans at 1.75%, because the card rate is most of the cost.

Are card fees more than the EPOS subscription?

For most pubs, yes. At 1.75% on £4,000 a week of card takings the card fees are about £3,640 a year, against £828 a year for a £69 a month software plan.

Does an EPOS system do stocktaking?

A till's stock module subtracts what was rung through from what you said you bought. It never counts what's actually in the cellar, so pours that weren't rung, wrong buttons and waste don't show. You still need a physical count.

Is EPOS pricing shown with or without VAT?

It varies. SumUp shows its POS prices excluding VAT and PayPal shows hardware excluding VAT. If you're not VAT registered, add 20% to those figures to compare like with like.