What's the best POS system for a bakery in 2026?

Square leads because it gets the basics of a bakery counter right without charging you a monthly fee. The Free plan costs $0 a month and charges 2.6% + 15¢ per in-person payment. Plus costs $49 a month per location at 2.5% + 15¢, and Premium $149 a month at 2.4% + 15¢. There's no long-term contract on any plan, which matters in an industry where hardware leases trap a lot of owners.

Two features earn it the top spot for a bakery. Weight first: you can type a weight, connect a scale, or scan the label printed by a label scale such as the Hobart HTi or the Bizerba X-Class, on Square Terminal and iOS devices. That covers cookies by the pound and bread by the slice. Offline second: Square Register, Terminal, Handheld, Stand and the 2nd-generation Reader keep taking cards when the internet drops, with 72 hours to reconnect. For a 7 a.m. line, that's the feature you hope you'll never need.

The gap is preorders. Square's bakery page describes online orders with a prep time and a daily cutoff, but we found no deposit flow for custom cakes at the counter, and an older thread on Square's own forum shows bakeries asking for in-POS preorders. Check how it works today in a demo. The other weak spot is payouts: on one large public review site, Square sits at 3.6 out of 5 across 7,514 reviews, and the top complaint is money held "under review". To push sales into a spreadsheet, our Square integration guide for Make covers the triggers.

Shopify POS makes sense for one kind of bakery: the one with a real online business. In-person selling is included in every paid Shopify plan, from Basic at $39 a month, or $29 billed yearly. Your products, customers and stock already live there, so when the last tin of holiday shortbread sells at the counter, it disappears from the site. New accounts get 3 days free, then 3 months at $1 a month.

Its hidden advantage is the fee. In-person rates are 2.6% + 10¢ on Basic, where Square charges 15¢. On a $4 coffee, that 5¢ gap is more than 1% of the sale. At 1,500 payments a month, it's $900 a year (our math). That's why Shopify POS comes out cheapest of the card-inclusive options in our budget below, even with the subscription. POS Pro, at $89 a month per location billed yearly, adds staff roles and stock tools.

Two limits for a bakery. Weight first: Shopify POS doesn't sell by weight natively. On its community forum, a food market owner explains that weighed products only count as pieces and that scale labels don't scan; the fix is variants or a paid third-party app. Second, we found no documented offline mode for in-store selling, and no counter flow for cake deposits. If you're still choosing your online shop, our ranking of ecommerce platforms for small business compares Shopify with its rivals.

Toast is built for restaurants, and that's exactly why some bakeries pick it. If you serve breakfast sandwiches, soups and lattes at tables, you need what Toast does best: table maps, kitchen routing and ordering at the table. Your counter staff rings up a croissant while the kitchen gets the egg sandwich on its screen. No other system on this page handles a dining room as well.

Slow down on the price. Toast lists an entry point at $0 a month; other plans cost more, and larger setups are quoted. The $0 route isn't free: if you don't pay for hardware upfront, you pay a higher card rate for as long as the contract runs. Say, as an example, it adds 0.6 points: on $15,000 a month by card, you pay $90 more each month, or $1,080 a year (our math). Ask for two quotes, $0 hardware and prepaid hardware, and compare them on your own volume.

The other cost is commitment. Owners report contracts of two to three years, and the system expects Toast's own hardware, network router included, so the iPad you already own won't do. For a cake shop or a retail bakery without seating, all that restaurant machinery is weight you'd pay for and never use. We found nothing official on cake deposits or offline selling in what we read, so put both on your demo list.

BakeSmart is the only system on this page built for bakeries, and its feature list reads like a baker wrote it. The Cake Matrix prices custom cakes from a set grid, so your counter staff quotes the same price you would. Order Inquiries collects custom cake requests before they become orders. eCommerce and Same Day eCommerce take online orders, and Wholesale handles the café and grocery accounts you deliver to every morning.

Its pricing is public, which is rare for a specialist. The platform starts at $99 a month per location, with a one-time setup from $499. So the first year costs at least $1,687 in software for one shop (our math). Watch the add-ons: time cards cost $3 per user per month, and gift cards cost 3% of every amount loaded. Sell $10,000 of gift cards over the holidays and that's $300 (our math). The pricing page doesn't list prices for the eCommerce and Wholesale modules, and doesn't say how long the contract runs.

Why isn't it higher? Because the counter side is thin in what we read. Card processing rates, scales and offline mode aren't on the pricing page, and public reviews are too few to judge support. Before you sign, get in writing the card rate, the contract length, the price of each module you need, and whether your scale and cash drawer are supported. If custom cakes are half your revenue, those answers are worth an hour.

KORONA POS has one thing a bakery owner burned by a three-year lease will love: a plain price with no forced contract. KORONA Core costs $59, Retail $79 and Plus $99, each per register per month, month-to-month, with a discount if you pay yearly. KORONA Food adds $10 per register for food businesses. With one register on Retail plus Food, you pay $1,068 a year in software (our math).

Read its bakery content with care. KORONA's own blog admits it's a weaker fit for bakeries with a big savory menu, which is honest, and tells you where it belongs: the bakery that sells like a shop, with packaged goods, breads and pastries at the counter. Its rank here comes from its scores like every other card.

The per-register model cuts both ways. Add a second register for weekend mornings and the software bill doubles, while Square charges per location. And the pricing page doesn't mention scales, preorders or offline selling, so each one is a question for the demo. If KORONA answers them in writing, it's a fair, contract-free alternative to Square.

Clover shows up in almost every bakery POS roundup, and the hardware is genuinely good. The device lineup runs from a handheld reader to a two-screen counter station, and the software covers counter service and inventory. If your bank offers you Clover on clean terms, it can run a bakery counter well.

The problem is how it's sold. Clover lists an entry point at $0 a month on some plans, with card fees; other plans cost more, and your price, rate and contract depend on the bank or reseller that signs you up. On one large public review site, Clover sits at 1.9 out of 5 across about 2,200 reviews. Owners describe 36-month contracts they can't leave, $750 charged after cancelling, and a card rate different from the one promised. On small bakery tickets, a rate that drifts by half a point adds up to $75 a month at $15,000 by card (our math).

There's a hardware trap too: Clover devices are set up by your processor, and merchants who switch processors often have to buy new hardware. Before you sign, get four answers in writing: who processes my payments, how long is the contract, what does leaving cost, and is the hardware mine? Already on Clover? Our Clover integration guide for Make covers the automations.