# Kessel

> Kessel is a point-of-sale system for cafés, shops and restaurants. Take card payments on Stripe Terminal or Tap to Pay, run real inventory and a real ledger, and move off Square in an afternoon. $49 a month, 30 days free, and nothing to pay for hardware on day one.

## What Kessel is

Kessel is a point-of-sale system for cafes, shops and restaurants. It runs the counter, the floor and the kitchen on one register, takes card payments through Stripe Terminal or Tap to Pay on a phone, and keeps a double-entry ledger rather than only a sales report.

## Facts

- Software price: $49 per location per month, after 30 days free. One plan, every feature, unlimited staff accounts.
- Card rate: interchange plus 0.60% + 30c. Interchange is set by the card networks and passes through at cost.
- Other fees: none. No setup fee, no PCI fee, no statement fee, no early-termination fee, no charge for support.
- Hardware: Stripe Terminal readers at Stripe’s price, buyable, leasable or financeable. A lease or finance plan is collected out of card volume, capped at 10% of any payment, so nothing is owed on day one.
- No hardware is required to start: Tap to Pay on iPhone and Android takes contactless cards with no reader.
- Payments are processed by Stripe. Kessel is not a processor, a bank or a money transmitter.
- Square migration: read-only import of items, variations, categories, modifiers, taxes, discounts, stock counts and customers, reviewed as a diff, undoable for seven days.
- Contract: none on the software. Monthly, cancel any time. A hardware lease has a term; the software does not.
- AI features propose and a person applies. Nothing is written without a human clicking Apply.
- Countries: United States and Canada.
- Honest caveat: below roughly a $15 average sale, a blended rate with a smaller fixed fee can beat interchange-plus. Kessel will match a comparable processor’s effective rate on your own volume, or say you are better off where you are.

## Comparisons

Kessel publishes comparison pages that describe competitors’ pricing MODELS and never quote their rates, because rate cards move. Each page also states where the other product is the better choice.

- [Kessel vs Square](https://usekessel.com/vs/square/): Kessel and Square are both point-of-sale systems for cafes, shops and restaurants. The difference is how the card rate is built and when you pay for hardware. Square charges a flat blended rate, so the cheap cards subsidise the expensive ones and the spread is theirs; Kessel charges interchange plus 0.60% + 30¢, so the networks’ cost passes through at cost and the only number that is ours is visible on every statement. Square sells hardware up front; Kessel lets you lease or finance a reader and collects it out of the volume it takes, so you pay nothing on day one. If your average sale is small, a flat rate with a lower fixed fee can still win, and we will tell you so.
- [Kessel vs Toast](https://usekessel.com/vs/toast/): Toast and Kessel are both point-of-sale systems that run a restaurant floor and kitchen. Toast is restaurant-only, sells its own proprietary hardware, and is typically sold as a quoted package on a multi-year term. Kessel is a single published plan at $49 per location per month with no software contract, runs on Stripe Terminal or on the phone you already own, and prices cards at interchange plus 0.60% + 30¢ so the network cost is visible rather than blended. Toast has the deeper restaurant feature set; Kessel has the shorter commitment and the transparent rate.
- [Kessel vs Clover](https://usekessel.com/vs/clover/): Clover and Kessel are both point-of-sale systems, but they are sold in completely different ways. Clover hardware is distributed through banks and independent sales organisations, so two merchants with identical Clover terminals can be on entirely different rates and contracts depending on who sold it and the devices are usually locked to that reseller’s processing. Kessel publishes one rate, interchange plus 0.60% + 30¢, and one software price, $49 per location per month, with no reseller in between. Clover’s app marketplace is deeper; Kessel’s pricing is knowable before you sign.
- [Kessel vs Lightspeed](https://usekessel.com/vs/lightspeed/): Lightspeed and Kessel are both point-of-sale systems for retail and hospitality. Lightspeed is sold as tiered plans, commonly on an annual term, with capabilities such as advanced reporting, loyalty and e-commerce priced as higher tiers or add-on modules. Kessel is one plan at $49 per location per month, month to month, with every feature included and cards priced at interchange plus 0.60% + 30¢. Lightspeed goes deeper on large-catalog multi-store retail; Kessel is cheaper to start, cheaper to leave, and clearer about what a card costs.
- [Kessel vs Shopify POS](https://usekessel.com/vs/shopify-pos/): Shopify POS and Kessel are both point-of-sale systems, but they start from opposite ends. Shopify POS extends an e-commerce store onto a counter and is priced as a Shopify subscription with POS Pro added per location; it is the right answer when online is your main channel. Kessel is built counter-first for cafes, shops and restaurants, with tables, courses, a kitchen display, a double-entry ledger and cards at interchange plus 0.60% + 30¢, at $49 per location per month. If online is the business, use Shopify. If the counter is the business, Kessel is the cheaper and more direct answer.

## Pages

- [Kessel — The point of sale that pays for its own hardware](https://usekessel.com/): Kessel is a point-of-sale system for cafés, shops and restaurants. Take card payments on Stripe Terminal or Tap to Pay, run real inventory and a real ledger, and move off Square in an afternoon. $49 a month, 30 days free, and nothing to pay for hardware on day one.
- [Kessel pricing — $49 a month, interchange + 0.60% + 30¢](https://usekessel.com/pricing/): Kessel costs $49 per location per month after 30 days free, and cards are interchange + 0.60% + 30¢. No setup fee, no PCI fee, no statement fee, no termination fee. Worked examples for United States.
- [Kessel compared — Square, Toast, Clover, Lightspeed, Shopify POS](https://usekessel.com/compare/): Honest point-of-sale comparisons: how each system builds its card rate, what hardware costs on day one, what the contract is, and where the other product is the better buy. No competitor rates quoted, because rate cards move.
- [Kessel vs Square — an honest comparison (2026)](https://usekessel.com/vs/square/): Kessel and Square are both point-of-sale systems for cafes, shops and restaurants. The difference is how the card rate is built and when you pay for hardware. Square charges a flat blended rate, so the cheap cards subsidise the expensive ones and the spread is theirs; Kessel charges interchange plus
- [Kessel vs Toast — an honest comparison (2026)](https://usekessel.com/vs/toast/): Toast and Kessel are both point-of-sale systems that run a restaurant floor and kitchen. Toast is restaurant-only, sells its own proprietary hardware, and is typically sold as a quoted package on a multi-year term. Kessel is a single published plan at $49 per location per month with no software cont
- [Kessel vs Clover — an honest comparison (2026)](https://usekessel.com/vs/clover/): Clover and Kessel are both point-of-sale systems, but they are sold in completely different ways. Clover hardware is distributed through banks and independent sales organisations, so two merchants with identical Clover terminals can be on entirely different rates and contracts depending on who sold 
- [Kessel vs Lightspeed — an honest comparison (2026)](https://usekessel.com/vs/lightspeed/): Lightspeed and Kessel are both point-of-sale systems for retail and hospitality. Lightspeed is sold as tiered plans, commonly on an annual term, with capabilities such as advanced reporting, loyalty and e-commerce priced as higher tiers or add-on modules. Kessel is one plan at $49 per location per m
- [Kessel vs Shopify POS — an honest comparison (2026)](https://usekessel.com/vs/shopify-pos/): Shopify POS and Kessel are both point-of-sale systems, but they start from opposite ends. Shopify POS extends an e-commerce store onto a counter and is priced as a Shopify subscription with POS Pro added per location; it is the right answer when online is your main channel. Kessel is built counter-f
- [Terms of Service — Kessel](https://usekessel.com/terms/): Kessel terms of service, 1.0, effective 2026-09-10. $49 per location per month after a 30-day free trial. Cancel any time; there is no software contract and no termination fee.
- [Privacy Policy — Kessel](https://usekessel.com/privacy/): Kessel privacy policy, 1.0, effective 2026-09-10. We never see or store a full card number. Card data goes from the reader or the browser to Stripe and never touches our servers.

## Canada

Canadian pages live under https://usekessel.com/ca/ and differ only in the readers Stripe offers there, the shape of Canadian interchange (Interac debit is a flat fee, not a percentage), the currency and the spelling.

## Contact

- Made by WayPoint Labs, a technology holding company: https://waypointlabz.com
- Sign up: https://app.usekessel.com/signup
- Live demo, no account needed: https://app.usekessel.com/demo
- Email: hello@usekessel.com