5 Best Barbershop POS Software

Square comes with basic inventory management that should cover most small business needs. Some of the highlights include:

• Manage inventory by item
• Automatic restocks
• Enable bulk inventory
• View history
• Downloadable reports
• Editable modifiers

Square is an all-in-one POS system with loads of additional features that can help your barbershop. A few standout areas include:

• Integrated payment processing
• Smart Tips option including prepay
• Online booking site
• Commission tracking
• Square Contracts
• Team management
• Customer directory
• Square Marketing

Square Appointments has three pricing tiers.

• Free: Best for basic, single-location barbershops.
• Plus: Best for barbershops with multiple locations that need expanded features.
• Premium: Best for barbershops that need extensive reporting and commission tracking.

All you need to use Square Appointments is a smartphone (or tablet) and a free Square card reader. The other hardware options are reasonably priced and offer financing options for businesses low on cash.

• Recommended: Complete Buyer’s Guide To Square POS Hardware

Square Appointments uses Square’s payment processing. The free plan charges 2.6% + $0.10 per transaction. For the paid plans, you get a slight discount of 2.5% + $0.10 per transaction.

One of the biggest perks of Square is that there are no hidden fees or contracts and you can always pay month-to-month. There are no early termination fees to worry about

Lightspeed has offers an extensive set of inventory management tools. Here’s what you can expect to find:

• Multistore transferring
• Purchase order management
• Customizable tags
• Item variations
• Shipping tools
• In-depth inventory reporting

Lightspeed is a complete POS platform with a loaded feature set that should have you completely covered no matter what your barbershop needs.

Here are some of the areas where it stands out:

• Receipts
• Gift certificates and gift cards
• Discounts
• Advanced customer loyalty
• Returns and exchanges
• Global support
• Deep reporting

All plans come with one POS register software license. To add more registers to your plan, you’ll pay an extra monthly fee.

The integration of a booking app also comes with an additional monthly fee.

Lightspeed has multiple hardware bundles to fit all of your needs and sells individual items through its website as well. However, you will need to call to get complete pricing details.

Note: Lightspeed Retail now requires all new and existing qualified merchants using Lightspeed Retail in the US and Canada to sign up for Lightspeed Payments, Lightspeed’s payment processor. If you currently use a card reader from a third-party payment processor, you can’t use it anymore. Since you can’t use any existing payment terminals (card readers) with Lightspeed Payments, Lightspeed is currently running a free terminal replacement promotion for eligible merchants that includes two free Lightspeed POS terminals (card readers) per qualified merchant.

Eligible merchants include business owners who process a minimum of $100/day in credit card payments, as measured by a monthly average. Apple products are not included in this promotion, so you’ll still need to source an iPad to take sales.

Lightspeed has its own processing service that starts at 2.6% + $0.10 for in-person payments and 2.9% + $0.30 for online payments.

Note: Lightspeed will buy out payment processing contracts, paying off merchants’ early cancellation fees if you process a minimum of $25,000 in card sales and then submit documentation of your previous payment processing contract that states your early termination fee within six months of meeting this minimum processing amount.

It’s important to note that the “paying off” comes in the form of discounted payment processing fees, not a chunk of cash that goes towards your termination fees when you decide to switch to Lightspeed Payments.

Lightspeed allows you to purchase software on a month-to-month basis with no long-term contracts, but there is a discounted fee for annual contract holders. You will be charged an early termination fee if you cancel your plan early, so consider signing up for a monthly plan before committing long-term.

If you purchase POS hardware from Lightspeed, you must confirm that you have received your purchase within five business days of receiving it. If you don’t, the hardware will not qualify for Lightspeed’s 30-day hardware warranty (14 days for Apple products).

Like all things Clover, you can download an app to help with your inventory. Shopventory is one of the more popular inventory management apps and Clover also integrates with Shopify and Square. Through Shopventory you get these inventory benefits:

• Item variants
• Invoicing
• Sales analytics
• Profitability reports
• Sales channel management
• Low stock alerts
• Auto re-ordering

Clover is a one-stop shop for POS needs. Through its app-based software you can get everything you need to run your barbershop and potentially find some things you didn’t even know existed that can help you out. Here’s what Clover has to offer:

• Advanced reporting
• Gift cards
• Excellent loyalty
• Customer database
• Virtual terminal
• Full customization
• Multi-store selling

Clover has a wide variety of software options. If you don’t want to purchase hardware outright, monthly leasing plans that include hardware and software are also available.

• Recommended: The Complete Clover Pricing Guide

Clover has numerous intuitive and convenient hardware offerings to help you take payments and store information. You can choose from the Clover Go Card Reader, Clover Flex payment terminal, Clover Mini mobile POS system, and the complete POS system Clover Station Solo.

Clover is sold in conjunction with a Fiserv merchant account which has a sketchy history with customer service. We recommend going through other Clover merchant providers for processing to get a more competitive rate.

Clover’s processing rates will vary depending on the services you use, but for in-person payments, they start at 2.3% – 2.6% + $0.10% per transaction and 3.5% + $0.10 per transaction for manual-entry payments.

As mentioned, Clover is sold through Fiserv, which doesn’t always have the best reputation in the industry, particularly with customer service. Definitely do your research on Clover and on Fiserve processing before signing any contracts.

• Recommended: Can I Buy A Used Clover POS? How To Avoid Scams

Shopify also runs its inventory management through an add-on app called Stocky. With Stocky, Shopify provides these inventory features:

• Purchase order
• Demand forecasting
• Transfers
• Low stock reports
• Inventory analysis
• Stock adjustments
• Sale item suggestions

Shopify’s POS product is a great addition to your business if you’re already using Shopify for eCommerce. Here are a few other ways Shopify POS can help your barbershop run smoothly:

• Custom payment options
• Multi sales channels
• Custom receipts
• Automatic tax calculations
• Order histories
• Staff roles
• Customer profiles
• Barcode support

Shopify offers multiple pricing tiers, with a discount available if you pay for a year upfront.

Shopify has multiple bundle options available on its website and individual items such as card readers and scanners. You will need to contact them directly for pricing.

Shopify has its own processing plan that you can use with rates ranging from 2.4 – 2.9% depending on the plan you’ve chosen. Shopify also integrates with other payment processors, allowing you to shop around. However, note that using an outside processor incurs additional fees.

Like most services, Shopify allows you to purchase its software month-to-month but it does offer discounts for signing up annually.

Franpos is a fully functional POS system with solid back-end features. This includes a decent set of inventory management features like:

• SKU auto-generation
• Multi-location transfers
• Low stock reports
• Auto-reordering
• Check inventory remotely

Franpos’ full feature set is impressive and many of those features were built specifically with places like salons and barbershops in mind. Here are some of Franpos’ best POS features:

• Extensive reporting
• Omnichannel selling
• Loyalty and gift cards
• Targetted marketing
• Integrations and open API

Both plans come with basic features like the Franpos loyalty program and gift card management, 24/7 customer service, online management, and more. Additional features can be added to your plan for an extra monthly fee, including support for unlimited terminals and eCommerce.

Franpos offers a convenient Android-based hardware bundle for franchise systems. There is no pricing information included on the website.

Franpos integrates with popular processors including Square, Fiserv, TSYS, Elavon, and Worldpay.

Franpos lets you purchase your software plan on a month-to-month basis without a contract. There are no other terms listed on the site.