Best POS system for clothing stores in 2026

Square leads because a new boutique can start for $0 a month and keep the same system as it grows. The retail plans scale in clear steps. The Free plan costs nothing a month and charges 2.6% + 15¢ per in-person payment. Plus costs $49 a month per location for 2.5% + 15¢ and adds inventory management and purchase orders. Premium costs $149 a month for 2.4% + 15¢ and adds returns and transfers between locations. Square states there's no long-term contract on any plan.

For a clothing store, the step from Free to Plus is the one to watch. On Free, you can sell and take payments, but the stock tools that save you an afternoon at every delivery live on Plus. Premium makes sense the day you open a second boutique and want a customer to return a dress at either one. Before you buy a label printer, check which plan includes barcode label printing in your account: it's the feature boutique owners ask about first.

Do the math before upgrading. At $20,000 a month in card sales with a $75 average ticket, the Free plan costs about $560 a month in fees. Plus costs about $540 in fees plus $49, so about $589 (our math). The lower rate doesn't pay for the plan: you pay for the stock tools. The 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". Keep a cash cushion for the first months. To send your sales into a spreadsheet or your accounting, our Square integration guide for Make covers the main triggers.

Lightspeed Retail is the most apparel-minded system in this ranking. Its page for clothing stores shows what the others leave out: variants grouped by attributes like color and size under one product, custom fields for fabric, season or collection, stock synced between your stores and your website, click and collect, and selling on Instagram and Facebook. Lightspeed lists a label printer in its hardware lineup. Every plan includes one register, integrated payments, inventory and an ecommerce site, which is basic on the entry plan.

The price is the barrier. Basic starts at $89 a month billed yearly, Core at $149 and Plus at $289, also billed yearly. Lightspeed says yearly billing saves up to 18%, so monthly billing costs more. Extra locations are an option whose price isn't shown on the pricing page. Over a year, Basic alone is $1,068 in software (our math), before hardware and card fees. Get the card rate in writing on your quote, because that's where reviews complain.

Those reviews describe a pattern worth knowing before you sign. Card rates raised without notice, from 2.2% and 2.4% to 2.5% and 2.7%. Frequent price increases. Support tickets closed without a fix. One owner of five stores says she was refused a refund for an unused month. None of that rules it out if your catalog is deep: it means you get every number on paper. For a single small boutique, it's more system than you need. To push sales or stock into other tools, the Lightspeed Retail integration guide for Zapier shows what you can automate.

Shopify POS has one argument nobody else here matches: your store and your website share the same catalog, stock and customer list without any connector. If your brand already sells on Shopify, in-person selling is included from Basic at $39 a month, or $29 billed yearly. Your size and color variants already exist, so there's nothing to re-enter. For a two-week pop-up, that's hard to beat. In-person rates are 2.6% + 10¢ on Basic, and that 10¢ fixed fee is lower than Square's 15¢.

The trap is exchanges. Without POS Pro, a return can only be processed at the store where the item was sold. POS Pro, at $89 a month per location billed yearly, adds returns and exchanges at any location, purchase orders, low-stock alerts, in-store pickup and staff roles. On Shopify's community forum, a merchant explains she couldn't exchange an item that was too small without POS Pro, and the suggested workaround was a refund followed by a new sale at the right size.

Run the numbers for two stores. Basic billed yearly plus POS Pro on both locations is $29 + $178, or $207 a month before card fees (our math). That's more than Square Premium at $149, but your website is included. For a store without a website, paying for an ecommerce plan to get a register makes no sense. If you're still choosing where to sell online, our ranking of ecommerce platforms for fashion brands puts Shopify next to its rivals.

Loyverse gives away its register software. For $0 you get inventory with low-stock alerts, a loyalty program that runs on a customer barcode, and support for label printers. You pay per store only for add-ons: unlimited sales history at $7 a month, employee management at $25 and advanced inventory at $25. Each one has a 14-day free trial. For a boutique that's just starting, that's the lowest fixed cost in this ranking.

For a clothing store, the questions are about variants and exchanges. We didn't find Loyverse's handling of size and color variants or size exchanges described on the pages we compared, so ask support to show you a style in five sizes and three colors before you load your catalog. The advanced inventory add-on, at $25 a month per store, is the one a growing boutique ends up paying for. Card fees come from whichever processor you connect, so put that rate next to Square's 2.6% + 15¢.

The other limits come from merchants. On one large public review site, Loyverse sits at 3.1 out of 5 across 106 reviews. People praise the chat support. They complain about features that became paid add-ons, reliance on Loyverse's servers and trouble opening or closing shifts. To send sales into a spreadsheet, our Loyverse integration guide for Make shows how.

Clover shows up in almost every clothing store POS guide, and the hardware explains why. It's polished, it looks good on a boutique counter, and the software covers retail. On paper, it would sit higher. It ranks last because of how it's sold. Clover is often sold through banks and independent resellers, and your price, rate and contract depend on who signs you up.

That's where the complaints come from. Clover lists plans from $0 a month for some business types, with card fees, and other plans cost more; hardware and rates vary with the seller. Hardware deals are often tied to three-year contracts with early termination fees. 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. We couldn't find Clover's variant or exchange features described on an official page, so ask for a demo with your own catalog.

The hardware trap is the one to understand. Clover devices are set up by your processor, and merchants who change processor often have to buy new hardware. Before you sign, ask four questions: who processes my payments, how long is the contract, what does leaving cost, and is the hardware mine? Get all four answers in writing. Already on Clover? Our Clover integration guide for Make covers the automations.