Tableside vs Epos Now: True Cost Comparison for Restaurants (2026)
Epos Now sells exactly what budget-conscious operators ask for: an affordable cloud POS with per-terminal pricing, Android-friendly hardware, and an app store to bolt on what you need. For a single location running counter plus tables, though, the Epos Now stack has its own economics: monthly software per terminal, hardware bundles or terminals to buy, standard card processing on every ticket, and paid apps for loyalty, stock, or advanced reporting that most locations end up adding. The Year 1 math is not the low monthly headline alone — it is the subscriptions plus the hardware plus the processing plus the apps, and together they change the picture next to a flat-rate stack.
The Numbers That Matter: Per-Terminal SaaS, Hardware, and Paid Apps
Epos Now economics live in three lines most shoppers skim past:
- **Monthly software per terminal** — Epos Now pricing is commonly cited in the roughly $40–$60/month range per terminal for the core POS software. One counter terminal is modest; add two more terminals plus back-office and kitchen screens and the monthly line triples before a single guest is served.
- **Hardware bundles and processing on every ticket** — terminals, cash drawers, printers, and kitchen displays are commonly sold as bundles running into the low thousands per location. Card revenue still flows through integrated payments at standard rates (around ~2.7% + per-transaction on ~$10K monthly card volume ≈ $3,000+/yr) — never included in the software quote.
- **Paid apps for the rest of the stack** — loyalty, advanced stock control, staff rotas, and integrations commonly arrive via the Epos Now AppStore with their own monthly fees per app. Online ordering, gift cards, and review management each add another line — or another vendor — on top.
Ask any vendor for three numbers in writing: the monthly SaaS total for your real terminal count including apps, the all-in hardware total for your real station count, and the all-in Year 1 figure including processing at your real volume. Compare those — not the per-terminal headline alone.
Starter Tier: Side by Side
Single location, 3 terminals, 250 orders/month, $10K monthly card revenue, annual billing:
- **Tableside Starter + Ordering — $325/mo, ~$1,350 setup, Year 1 ~$5,250.** Published pricing, no per-order fee, no mandatory processing markup.
- **Epos Now realistic all-in — ~$120–$180/mo in software for three terminals, ~$2,000–$4,000 in first-year hardware bundles amortized across Year 1, ~$3,000+/yr in standard processing on $10K monthly card volume plus paid apps, Year 1 commonly ~$7,500–$10,000+** once every line is counted.
So the working Epos Now stack lands at roughly 1.5–2x the Year 1 cost of Tableside — while the per-terminal headline suggested it was the budget pick.
What Else to Weigh
An app store vs. one stack. Epos Now covers the counter well; loyalty, gift cards, ordering, and review responses arrive as separate apps with separate bills and separate logins. Tableside pairs ordering with the whole operation: POS, loyalty, gift cards, review responses, and an AI assistant that acts on all of it — you approve, it publishes — backed by a 90-day guarantee. Software that only covers the till leaves the rest of the shift on your staff's plate.
Per-terminal growth vs. flat growth. Every Epos Now terminal and every paid app grows the monthly bill — your busiest expansion is your most expensive month. Tableside ships one restaurant stack — POS, ordering, loyalty, gift cards, review responses, and AI updates — on one bill.
The Year 2 picture. Epos Now software, apps, and processing renew every month, and menu management stays on your staff's shift time. Tableside keeps updates done-for-you at the same flat rate, so growth in covers never grows the software bill or the back-office workload.
Who Should Pick Which?
- **Pick Epos Now** if you want a low-entry cloud till for a simple counter operation, are comfortable assembling hardware bundles and AppStore add-ons yourself, and have budgeted the full Year 1 stack: software per terminal plus hardware plus processing plus apps, not just the monthly headline.
- **Pick Tableside** if you want one stack — POS, ordering, loyalty, gift cards, review responses, and AI updates — with published pricing at $325/month flat, where one saved Friday-night rush a week pays for it.
Next Steps
Add up monthly software for your real terminal count plus apps, hardware bundles, and processing at real revenue — then ask what budget POS actually costs all-in. If the total surprises you, request a demo and we will walk through the Tableside equivalent line by line — no per-order fee, no mandatory processing markup.
