Comparison

Kessel vs Shopify POS

Excellent, if the store is the business.

Kessel vs Shopify POS, in short

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.

Kessel software: $49 / monthPer location, every feature, unlimited staff.
Kessel cards: 0.60% + 30¢On top of interchange, passed through at cost.
To start: NothingTap to Pay on the phone you own.
Kessel contract: NoneMonthly. A hardware lease has a term; software does not.

Credit where it is due

What Shopify POS is good at

Shopify POS is the physical end of an e-commerce platform, and if you already sell online through Shopify it is close to unbeatable: one catalog, one inventory pool, one customer record across web and counter. That single source of truth is a genuine advantage.

The crux

A counter is not a web store with a card reader attached

Food service is where the difference shows. A dining room needs tables, seats, courses, several open checks on one table, a bill split four ways after the fact and a kitchen screen that keeps up. None of that is an e-commerce concept, and bolting it onto one costs you apps, money and a support surface. Kessel treats the counter, the floor and the kitchen as the product rather than as a channel.

Side by side

Kessel and Shopify POS, dimension by dimension

Models, not digits. We do not publish Shopify POS’s rates: they change, and a stale number here would be a lie told at your expense. Check theirs on their own site and put it into the estimator below.

Compared on the same nine dimensions as every other page here
Dimension	Kessel	Shopify POS
Card pricing model	Interchange plus 0.60% + 30¢. The networks’ cost passes through untouched and our margin is one visible line.Kessel	Shopify Payments at a published blended in-person rate, with a third-party gateway fee if you process elsewhere.
Software fee	$49 per month per location. One plan, every feature, unlimited staff.Kessel	A Shopify plan, plus POS Pro priced per location for the retail features.
Cost to start taking cards	Nothing. Tap to Pay on the phone in your pocket, today.Kessel	A reader, bought up front.
Hardware	Stripe Terminal at Stripe’s price. Buy it, or lease or finance it and pay nothing on the day.Kessel	Shopify hardware, bought up front.
Contract	None on the software. Monthly, cancel whenever you like. A hardware lease has a term; the software does not.About even	Monthly or annual, on the Shopify plan.
Accounting	A real double-entry ledger. Every sale posts a balanced transaction or it does not post at all.Kessel	Commerce reporting, with accounting apps for the ledger.
Inventory	A stock ledger you can audit, with purchase orders, suppliers, cost layers and real margin per line.Kessel	One inventory pool shared with the online store, which is their real strength.
Getting your data out	CSV export of catalog, orders, customers and ledger, plus a read/write API. No exit fee.About even	Export and a strong API, plus a large app ecosystem.
AI	Proposes, never applies. Catalog Studio, add-on suggestions measured from your own baskets, dispute drafts. A person clicks Apply.About even	Assorted assistive features across the platform.

Where the money goes

One sale, two routes

The difference is not how much a card costs. It is whether you can see how much a card costs.

When Shopify POS is the better choice

One clean rule decides this one.

Online is your main channel and the shop is the smaller half. One catalog, one inventory pool and one customer record across both is worth more than a card-rate difference.
You depend on the Shopify app ecosystem for shipping, subscriptions, marketplaces or fulfilment.
You are a pop-up extension of an existing web store rather than a permanent counter.

Moving across

There is no one-click Shopify POS import

There is no one-click Shopify import yet. Export products, variants, inventory and customers as CSV, which Shopify makes easy, and we will map them with you. If you intend to keep selling online through Shopify, tell us before you start: running a shared catalog across two systems is a decision to make deliberately rather than discover.

Export

Get your catalog and customers out of Shopify POS as CSV.

Map

Send it to us. We map items, variants, modifiers and taxes with you, usually in an afternoon.

Sell

Tap to Pay works the same day. Readers ship after.

Your numbers

Put your Shopify POS statement into this

Total fees divided by total card volume gives your real effective rate. That is the only honest number to compare against, and it is the one we ask for.

Card volume a month$45,000

Average sale$34

About 1,324 card transactions a month. This is the input that decides the answer, so use your real one rather than a round number.

Your current rate2.60% + $0.10Their per-transaction fee$0.10

Both halves, off your own statement. A percentage on its own cannot describe any real rate card, and on a small sale the fixed fee is most of the bill: 2.6% + $0.10 on a $3 coffee is 5.93% effective, not 2.6%. On your numbers it works out at 2.89% effective.

Assumed interchange on your mix1.55%

The one figure here we cannot know. Interchange depends on your own card mix, and a debit-heavy counter sits well below a rewards-credit-heavy one. Default is a typical United States card-present blend, plus $0.12 per transaction. Send us a statement and we will replace this guess with your actual mix.

What you pay now: $1,302 / month

Kessel, all in: $1,572 / month

+$270

a month WORSE on Kessel at this average sale, and we would rather show you that than hide it.

Break-even is an average sale of about $93.81. Above that Kessel is cheaper; below it, the fixed 30¢ costs you more than the percentage saves, and a flat rate is the better buy.

An estimate, not a quote. It assumes your whole volume is card present, and the interchange figure above is an assumption you can change. The two numbers that are not assumptions are ours: interchange + 0.60% + 30¢ and $49 a month.

Questions

Kessel and Shopify POS

Should I use Shopify POS or Kessel?

If online is your main channel, use Shopify POS: the shared catalog, inventory pool and customer record across web and counter are worth more than the card rate. If the counter is your main channel, and especially if you serve food, Kessel is built for it, costs $49 per location per month and prices cards at interchange plus 0.60% + 30¢.

Can Kessel run a restaurant floor? Shopify POS cannot.

Yes. Tables, seats, courses, several open checks on one table, bills split evenly or by amount, item or seat, a kitchen display and a now-serving board are all in the $49 plan.

Can I keep my Shopify store and use Kessel at the counter?

You can, but decide it on purpose. Two systems means two catalogs unless you keep them in step through the API, and a stock number that is right in one place and wrong in the other is worse than either. Talk to us before you set it up that way.

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