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Running a bakery means juggling a fast counter line, custom orders, online pre-orders, gift cards for regulars, and the occasional wholesale account — all before the morning rush clears. A good POS has to move quickly at the counter, handle online ordering, and give you enough reporting to know which items are worth the oven time. Here’s how the main contenders stack up, grounded in what their feature data actually shows.
A note on third-party reviews: None of the tools in this guide had usable third-party review data available to us at research time, so we’ve left ratings and review verdicts out entirely. We’re working from captured features and published pricing only.
Pricing at a Glance
| Tool | Entry Price | Next Tier | Top Published Tier |
|---|---|---|---|
| Toast | $0/month (Starter Kit, billed monthly) | $69/month (billed monthly) | Custom quote |
| Square | $0/month (Free, billed monthly) | $49/month (Plus, billed monthly) | $149/month (Premium, billed monthly) |
| SpotOn | $0/month per station (billed monthly) | $55/month per station (billed monthly) | Custom quote |
| Lightspeed | $69/month (billed monthly) | $189/month (billed monthly) | $399/month (billed monthly) + Enterprise quote |
| UpMenu | $49/month (billed monthly) | $89/month (billed monthly) | $169/month (billed monthly) |
| OpenTable | We weren’t able to capture OpenTable’s current pricing — their site blocked our automated research, so check it directly on their site. | — | — |
The Tools, One by One
Toast
Toast combines hardware, software, and payment processing in one platform, and its captured feature list explicitly names cafe and bakery as a supported format — so it’s not a stretch to say this was built with your use case in mind. Features include a point of sale, online ordering, a branded mobile app, gift cards, email marketing, a guest CRM, tips management, a kitchen display system, self-ordering kiosk, Toast Mobile Order & Pay, and xtraCHEF cost analytics. It also covers inventory management, multilocation management, and a payroll suite, plus delivery connections including Grubhub, Uber Eats, and DoorDash.
The entry-level Starter Kit is $0/month billed monthly, and the Point of Sale plan is $69/month billed monthly. Hardware and payment processing are separate, and a custom quote is available for larger setups.
Best for: Bakeries that want a purpose-named solution with a broad feature set — particularly if you want to grow into online ordering, delivery, or multiple locations without switching systems.
Square
Square’s restaurant POS positions itself as an all-in-one system to manage restaurants efficiently. Captured features include taking payments, managing orders from one place, keeping customers coming back, scheduling and paying your team, managing cash flow, tracking inventory, adding revenue streams, and tracking performance. Hardware options include a reader for contactless and chip and a reader for magstripe. Add-ons in the pricing data include a Square KDS app (at $30/month for Plus or $20/month for Premium), a Square Kiosk app (at $50/month for Plus or $30/month for Premium), and Square Restaurant Inventory by MarketMan (at $99/month for Plus or Premium). Physical and eGift cards are listed across all tiers.
The Free tier is $0/month billed monthly per location. Plus is $49/month billed monthly and Premium is $149/month billed monthly.
Best for: Bakeries that want to start at no software cost and layer in hardware and add-ons as they grow. The Free tier is a genuine $0/month entry point, which is hard to argue with if you’re opening your first counter.
SpotOn
SpotOn explicitly names cafe & bakery among its supported restaurant formats, alongside fast casual and quick service — formats that share DNA with most bakery counters. Its feature list covers payment processing, online ordering, an ordering app, mobile pay, gift cards, tip management, tip access, employee tools, marketing campaigns, dynamic reporting, remote management, profitability analysis software, and an AI menu assistant. It also highlights an advanced offline mode that switches on automatically when internet goes down, keeps all stations connected, and syncs offline payments once connectivity returns — a practical feature for high-traffic morning rushes where connectivity can be unpredictable.
The All-In Plan is $0/month per station billed monthly, and POS Essentials is $55/month per station billed monthly.
Best for: Bakeries that want the named cafe & bakery fit, a strong offline mode, and marketing tools built in — especially if you’re running multiple stations.
Lightspeed
Lightspeed positions itself as a flexible, customizable restaurant point of sale, payments, and restaurant management platform. Its feature list covers point of sale, inventory management, kitchen display system, tableside ordering, online ordering, QR code ordering, workforce management and payroll, advanced insights, Lightspeed Pulse, Lightspeed AI, menu optimization, tracking customer behavior, identifying top-performing staff, benchmarks and trends, and support for multiple locations. The Restaurant category in the captured data includes cafe as a named format.
Plans run from $69/month (Starter, billed monthly) to $189/month (Essential, billed monthly) to $399/month (Premium, billed monthly), with an Enterprise tier available by quote.
Best for: Bakeries that prioritize deep reporting, menu analytics, and multi-location management — the feature set here skews toward operators who want to make data-driven decisions about what’s on the menu and how staff is performing.
UpMenu
UpMenu is built around online presence and digital ordering rather than a traditional counter POS. Its features include an online ordering system (commission-free ordering direct from your website), a mobile app (branded iOS and Android), a website builder (drag-and-drop editor with 40+ templates), a QR code menu, delivery management, order aggregation across multiple delivery platforms, email marketing, SMS marketing, a loyalty program, a restaurant CRM, gift cards, analytics and reporting, and a feedback system. A restaurant POS is listed in the features, though it’s noted as “Coming soon.” Chains and franchise management is also a named capability.
Plans are $49/month (BASIC, billed monthly), $89/month (STANDARD, billed monthly), and $169/month (PREMIUM, billed monthly).
Best for: Bakeries that want to build a strong direct online ordering and marketing channel — custom website, branded app, loyalty, email, and SMS — and are less focused on replacing an in-store POS today (given the POS feature is still listed as coming soon).
OpenTable
OpenTable is a well-known name in restaurant tech, but we weren’t able to capture its current pricing or features — their site blocked our automated research tool. It’s worth evaluating directly at their site if reservations or a table management angle is relevant to your bakery (a café-style bakery with seated service, for example), but we can’t ground any feature or pricing claims here.
Grounded “Best For” Picks
Best for Starting at $0
Both Toast (Starter Kit) and Square (Free tier) and SpotOn (All-In Plan) all publish a $0/month entry point. Each gets you off the ground without a software commitment — the differences come down to which add-ons you’ll need and how processing fees shake out, which you’ll want to confirm directly with each vendor.
Best for Bakeries Named in the Feature Data
Toast (cafe and bakery named explicitly), SpotOn (cafe & bakery named explicitly), and Lightspeed (cafe named in restaurant formats) all call out the bakery/cafe format directly in their captured features. That’s a meaningful signal that the workflow assumptions baked into those products were shaped with this type of business in mind.
Best for Online Ordering and Digital Marketing
UpMenu is purpose-built around commission-free direct online ordering, a branded mobile app, email and SMS marketing, a loyalty program, and a restaurant CRM. If your bakery’s growth strategy runs through a direct web and app channel rather than third-party delivery marketplaces, UpMenu’s stack addresses that specifically. Note its in-store POS is listed as coming soon, so most bakeries would pair it with a counter solution.
Toast also covers online ordering, a branded mobile app, email marketing, guest CRM, and delivery connections (Grubhub, Uber Eats, DoorDash) as part of its broader platform.
Best for Reporting and Multi-Location Growth
Lightspeed captures the most explicitly named analytics and management features in this set — advanced insights, menu optimization, tracking customer behavior, identifying top-performing staff, benchmarks and trends, and support for multiple locations. If you’re operating or planning to operate more than one bakery location and want detailed performance data, Lightspeed’s feature positioning points here. Toast also captures multilocation management and xtraCHEF cost analytics if you want to compare both directly.
Bottom Line
For most single-location bakeries, the practical shortlist is Toast, Square, or SpotOn — all three start at $0/month, explicitly name cafe or bakery in their feature data, and cover the counter-service fundamentals. If you want the deepest reporting and multi-location tools, Lightspeed is worth the higher entry price. If building a direct online ordering channel is your priority, UpMenu addresses that specifically, though you’d want to revisit its POS status once that feature ships. And if OpenTable is on your radar, go straight to their site for current pricing and features — we simply can’t give you grounded numbers here.
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