Epos Now Point Of Sale (POS) Review: Pros & Cons, Features, Ratings, Pricing and more

Ideal for small to mid-sized businesses

EPOS Now POS terminal
Image Credit: Epos Now
(Image: © Image Credit: Epos Now)

TechRadar Verdict

Epos Now is a reliable point-of-sale system for businesses. But, there’s not much that differentiates it from the competition; it’s just another POS system that you can choose.

Pros

  • +

    Easy to use

  • +

    Customizable

  • +

    Good reporting features

Cons

  • -

    UI needs improvement

  • -

    Customer service complaints

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Epos Now is the product of ePos Inc, a UK-based technology company. ePos was founded in 2011 and unveiled its POS (point of sale) system built for small and mid-sized retailers in the same year. 

Epos offers a flexible system for different types of businesses. The company offers different types of hardware that make it easy to receive payments from customers and run your business. It is based out of Norwich, England. 

Epos Now also have a multi-purpose Epos Now Order & Pay POS system.

Unsure which POS to choose? Read our guide on how to choose the right POS system for your business,

So let’s take a closer look at this UK-based POS outfit to see how it stacks up against the competition, and find out whether it’s the right fit for your business.

Epos Now POS: Plans and pricing

Epos offers specialized hardware to its customers, and you can buy them separately or in a single bundle. The company provides what it calls "The Complete Solution" and this bundle includes a Pro-C15 payments terminal, Epos Now software, a receipt printer, and a cash drawer. The typical cost of this bundle is £399, but Epos was running a discount when we reviewed it that brought down the price to £84.

If you don’t want to buy the bundle as a whole, you can pay separately for just the devices you need. A barcode scanner on the website was listed for £95. We found printers priced between £155 and £300. Weight scales were priced from £600 above and staff swipe cards were priced from £39 and above.

Some devices were listed for rent rather than outright purchase, including the Epos handheld POS terminal starting from £19 per month and a kitchen display system starting from £15 per month. Renting is a preferable option for businesses that don’t want to pay a significant price upfront. However, note that an upfront purchase is ultimately cheaper than renting the device for a long time (renting is best reserved for short-term use).

The good thing about Epos is that you must not use the company’s hardware. You can use your point-of-sale hardware and pay for the Epos software system. If you buy hardware from Epos, you can expect it to arrive between 5 and 10 business days after the order, and you can get help to install Epos Now on the hardware.

For transactions, Epos charges a flat fee of 2.6% + $0.10. Larger businesses can negotiate a smaller fee if they have such a high volume that Epos is willing to compromise on its fees to have them as a customer. 

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Epos Now POS pricing by region
RegionMonthlyAnnual
US$39$449
UK£25£399
AustraliaNA$999
Canada$55$549
Ireland€29 €399
New ZealandNA$999
Special Offer

Save money on a complete EPOS solution from eposnow

Setup

Epos Now offers a number of hardware bundles including industry specific ones for retail and hospitality (Image Credit: Epos Now) (Image credit: Image Credit: Epos Now)

Features

The features included with Epos Now depend on whether you choose the company's Retail or Hospitality package (Image Credit: Epos Now) (Image credit: Image Credit: Epos Now)

Epos Now: Features

Hardware

Epos offers different hardware options including

The Complete Solution

This is a bundle that includes 

- A Pro-C15 terminal running the Windows operating system. It has a water-resistant screen and solid-state drive to keep information.

- An all-metal cash drawer where you can safely keep your cash payments.

- A thermal printer to print customer receipts automatically.

- Epos Now payments software

This bundle is called “The Complete Solution” but in reality, it’s actually not. You have to get a separate device to accept payments from customers’ cards to make it complete. In that case, you can choose from one of Epos’s card machines; Link, Pro, and Pro+

- Link is a compact machine where customers can insert, swipe, or tap their cards to pay you.

- Pro is a device that allows customers to pay you by inserting, swiping, or tapping their cards. It has a built-in receipt printer, unlike Link.

- Pro+ allows you to both accept payments and access complementary features like sales reports.

Epos does not sell its hardware upfront. Instead, it rents them out starting from £15 per month. If you’re not comfortable with renting, then you can buy your own hardware upfront and connect it to the Epos platform. 

Reporting

As Epos Now is a cloud-based POS system, you can access your reports and back-office data from anywhere on any device with a web browser (Image Credit: Epos Now)

Payment Processing

Epos offers software to collect payments from your customers. You can charge all major credit and debit cards including the likes of Visa and Mastercard, or your customers can use digital wallets like Apple Pay and Google Pay. The platform's payment processor uses encryption to protect customers' details and is PCI-compliant.

The fee for processing payments is a flat 2.6% + $0.10 on every successful transaction. All transactions are collected at the end of each day and wired to your bank account after 2 days.

Integrations (App Store)

Epos lets developers build apps to add functionality to its software. You can download these apps from the official Epos App Store. Examples of such apps include LoyaltyDog to create and manage customer loyalty programs, Xero for accounting, and Appointedd for restaurants to take bookings.

Integrations

Epos Now has more than 80 integrations and with its API available to customers, you can even add custom integrations to the system (Image Credit: Epos Now)

Epos Now: Interface and use

One of the things you’ll hear Epos customers often talk about is the user interface, and not really in a positive way. We observed many complaints of the system being difficult to set up and understand. Epos needs considerable changes to make its system more user-friendly and intuitive.  

Epos Now: Support

Epos offers direct customer support through email and live chat. You can send a message to the company's support email address or login and get connected via live chat between 9 am-6 pm GMT on working days. There's also the Support Centre where you can access a plethora of articles and user guides concerning all the platform's features. Likewise, there's an official online community where you can seek help from other users. 

Epos Now: The competition

There’s no shortage of point-of-sale systems rivaling Epos. Toast POS and Shopify POS are two major competitors that we’ll highlight. Toast is designed specifically for restaurants and hospitality businesses and offers much more features than Epos in that arena. Shopify is a general point-of-sale solution that’s more intuitive and offers more features than Epos but costs more money. 

Epos Now: Final verdict

Epos is a run-of-the-mill point-of-sale system that’s suitable for all kinds of businesses; retail, hospitality, barber shops, etc. It lets you accept payments from your customers with ease and reasonable fees. Yet, there’s not much differentiating Epos from the competition. It’s just yet another point-of-sale system that you can adopt.  

Special Offer

Save money on a complete EPOS solution from eposnow

Further reading

You may also like our articles on the best POS systems for restaurants, small businesses, and retail, or How to choose the right POS system for your business and 9 inspiring ideas on how to use POS system customer data.

Stefan Ionescu

Stefan has always been a lover of tech. He graduated with an MSc in geological engineering but soon discovered he had a knack for writing instead. So he decided to combine his newfound and life-long passions to become a technology writer. As a freelance content writer, Stefan can break down complex technological topics, making them easily digestible for the lay audience.