SpotOn POS review for restaurants

Shortlist SpotOn if you run table service or a bar and want tough handhelds with 4G, an offline mode that keeps tickets reaching the kitchen, and 24/7 support at no extra cost. The plan you pick sets your card rate and your term, so price both printed plans at your own card sales before you sign.

Below: what SpotOn's own pages say it does well, a worked month on each plan, the terms you sign, the site setup its help center asks for, and a test list for your demo. Prices are for the United States. To set SpotOn beside Toast, Square and Clover, see our guide to choosing a restaurant POS.

SpotOn option	Price SpotOn prints	What comes with it	Start here if
All-In Plan	All-In: $0/station per month; card present 2.79% + $0.20; keyed 3.79% + $0.20	POS hardware included; processing minimums and a 2-year minimum term apply	You want no upfront hardware cost and can commit for two years
POS Essentials	Essentials: $55/station per month; card present 2.45% + $0.15 (Amex 3.19% + $0.15); keyed 3.45% + $0.15	Month-to-month; you buy the hardware and pay implementation	You want to own the hardware and pay a lower card rate
Build Your Own	Custom pricing and custom rates	A software bundle built for your operation	You run several units or high volume
Hardware	Station 15: $750 (was $995); Station 10: $415 (was $550); Handheld: $297 (was $495); wireless router: $300	Bought on Essentials and Build Your Own; implementation is extra, with no printed figure	You are pricing a counter or a dining room
Core Bundle	Core Bundle: $50/month + 20bps of GPV, capped at $200	Profit Assist, SpotOn Order online ordering, the GoTo Place app, Marketing Assist	You want direct online orders and marketing from SpotOn
Kiosk	Kiosk: $60 per month added to SpotOn POS, plus hardware	Countertop or freestanding kiosk synced to the POS menu	Counter guests order for themselves

What does SpotOn do well for restaurants?

The handheld gets the most detail. SpotOn's handheld page lists a 6.7-inch screen, an IP67 rating (submersible to 3 feet for 30 minutes), a 5-foot drop rating, up to 18 hours of battery, Wi-Fi 6E and 4G cellular, and a backlit card reader for dim rooms.

SpotOn's restaurant POS page says its offline mode switches on when the internet goes down, keeps stations and devices connected with orders firing to the kitchen, and syncs offline payments once the connection returns. Its FAQ names POS stations, KDS, handhelds, printers and kiosks as staying connected.

The same FAQ lists direct DoorDash and Uber Eats integrations, with Grubhub, Postmates and Caviar through Deliverect. For direct orders it offers SpotOn Order, the GoTo Place app and Order with Google. For the back office it names payroll links to Gusto, ADP, Paylocity and Paychex, and inventory links to MarginEdge and Craftable. The multi-location dashboard shares menus and loyalty across stores.

The kiosk page says an item marked unavailable on the POS drops off the kiosk, and kiosk orders go straight to the KDS or kitchen printers. The pricing FAQ says 24/7/365 support and software updates come at no extra cost.

What does a month cost on each plan?

Every input below is made up. One restaurant runs one Station 15 and takes $25,000 a month in card-present sales across 1,000 payments of $25, all Visa, Mastercard or Discover. The example leaves out tax, typed-in cards, Amex, the Core Bundle, implementation and the All-In processing minimum, which SpotOn does not print.

Line	All-In Plan	POS Essentials
Software	All-In software: $0	Essentials software: $55.00
Card fees	All-In fees: $697.50 + $200.00 = $897.50	Essentials fees: $612.50 + $150.00 = $762.50
Monthly total	All-In month: $897.50	Essentials month: $817.50
Hardware	All-In hardware: included	Essentials hardware: $750 once for the Station 15

At these sales, Essentials costs $80 a month less and earns back the $750 station in a little over nine months. Over 24 months, All-In comes to $21,540 and Essentials to $20,370 with the station, a gap of $1,170 before implementation.

The saving falls as sales fall. At a $25 average payment, Essentials saves 0.54 cents on each dollar of card sales, so its $55 fee breaks even at about $10,200 a month. Counting the station spread over 24 months, the break-even is about $16,000. If many guests pay with Amex, rerun the sums: Essentials charges 3.19% + $0.15 for Amex, above the All-In card-present rate.

The Core Bundle adds $50 plus 0.20% of card volume, so at $25,000 a month it costs $100. Its 0.20% part reaches the $200 cap at $100,000 a month. Our guide to what a restaurant POS costs runs SpotOn over three years beside Square and Clover.

What contract do you sign?

SpotOn's pricing page marks the All-In Plan with processing minimums and a 2-year minimum term, and POS Essentials as month-to-month. Its FAQ says All-In pays for hardware and software through the higher card rate. The restaurant page FAQ describes SpotOn pricing as having no long-term commitment, so get the term for your plan in writing.

SpotOn's merchant terms, last updated December 16, 2024, add these rules:

1. Fee changes: SpotOn can change any fee with at least 30 days' notice. You can end the contract before the change takes effect.
2. Leaving: if you end the contract for any reason other than SpotOn's breach, you owe the subscription fees for the months left in the term.
3. Discounted hardware: if you end within two years, SpotOn may charge the gap between list price and the discounted price you paid.
4. Rented or leased hardware: return it within 15 business days of the end, or pay a replacement fee.

SpotOn's point-of-sale terms, effective December 16, 2019, describe the restaurant system. They list a $400 deposit on approval, refundable until installation. They say a restaurant that cancels within one year of installation pays the gap to full hardware list price, and that keeping SpotOn with another card processor costs a $995 conversion fee and doubles the software license cost. Installs run Monday to Thursday, cabling is your job, and cancelling within seven days of an install date adds a service fee. The terms include 1 GB of LTE backup data a month, with overages at $15 per GB. The two documents give different hardware windows (one year and two years), so ask which one your order uses.

What does SpotOn ask you to prepare?

SpotOn's site readiness guide lists what must be done before install day:

1. Internet of at least 25 Mbps down and 10 Mbps up, or 50 Mbps down with four or more stations, handhelds or kitchen screens.
2. A separate Ethernet cable run from the modem to every station, printer, KDS and access point. Only the handheld runs on Wi-Fi.
3. A power outlet within 5 feet of each station, printer and kitchen screen.
4. Finished construction, counters with cable holes, and wall mounts in place. SpotOn's installers do not bring ladders or drills.
5. At least one access point per floor and one for each patio.

Two more limits come from SpotOn's pages. The pricing FAQ says you cannot run SpotOn on your own hardware or tablets, and recommends a backup 4G router in most cases. The help article on pre-authorizing a card warns that a pre-auth finalized without the card present is treated as manual entry, carries no chargeback protection and may cost more. SpotOn advises closing the tab with the chip card inserted.

What should you test in a SpotOn demo?

1. Rerun the table above with your own sales, average payment and Amex share. Ask for the All-In processing minimum in writing.
2. Ask which terms govern your order, and what you would owe if you left in month 12 or month 20.
3. Start a tab with a pre-auth on the handheld, add a round, then close it with the chip inserted.
4. Turn off Wi-Fi on the handheld and send an order over 4G.
5. Unplug the internet. Ring an order, check it reaches the KDS, and take a card. Reconnect and check the payment synced.
6. Mark an item unavailable on the POS and check it leaves the kiosk and online ordering.
7. Send a DoorDash order and a SpotOn Order order and check both print in the kitchen.
8. Get a written total: stations, handhelds, router, implementation, Core Bundle at your volume, kiosk and term.

If you take phone orders, Maple Pro lists SpotOn among the POS systems it writes phone orders into. See the SpotOn integration page.

Published by Maple. This AI-assisted review combines SpotOn's own US pricing, product, hardware, terms and help-center pages with an original plan table, a worked example using made-up sales, and a demo checklist. It does not use third-party review scores or SpotOn's own ratings claims, report a quote from SpotOn, or claim anyone tested SpotOn hardware.