Comparison
Point-of-sale software comparison
Software advertised as free almost always hides a paid line: a cut of every payment, inventory sold as an add-on, hardware you have to buy. This table compares what ends up on your invoice, with the official source next to each figure.
Data checked on July 28, 2026
| Criterion | digabloPos DIGABLO (France / DR Congo) Our software | Loyverse POS Loyverse | Square Block, Inc. | SumUp SumUp | Hiboutik Hiboutik (France) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Software price | Free | Free core POS (source) | Free app, Restaurants plan from €59/month excl. tax per location (source) | Free app | Free plan, advanced plans from €9.90/month (source) |
| Card payment fees | Depends on your local payment provider | Depends on the connected payment provider | France: 1.65% in person (EU/EEA cards), 1.4% + €0.25 online (source) | Around 1.69% per transaction (UK and eurozone) (source) | Depends on the connected payment provider |
| Offline operation | Full: sales, inventory and reports stay available with no network | Partial: sales go through, but refunds and inventory are unavailable (source) | Limited: degraded offline checkout, sync required | Limited | Limited |
| Mobile money | M-Pesa, Orange Money, Airtel Money built in | No native integration | Not supported | Not supported | Not supported |
| Inventory management | Included | Basic included, advanced at $25/month per store (source) | Included | Basic | Included, multi-store on paid plan |
| Employee management | Included | Paid add-on, $5/month per employee (source) | Included depending on plan | Limited | Depending on plan |
| Hardware required | None: your existing phone, tablet or computer | None required, compatible hardware optional | Square reader needed to take cards | SumUp reader needed to take cards | None required |
| Markets covered | Africa and Europe, built for unstable connectivity | International | Card payments in 8 countries, hardware in 4 | Europe and a few markets beyond | Mainly France |
How this comparison is built
Every figure comes from the vendor’s official pricing page where it is public, otherwise from a third-party source linked next to it. Anything we cannot source is not shown. digabloPos is our own product: it appears in the table, flagged as such, judged on the same criteria as the rest.
Frequently asked questions
- What is the best free POS software in 2026?
- None of them wins on every criterion. Loyverse offers the most complete free POS for a connected store, but charges $5 per month per employee for staff management and $25 per month per store for advanced inventory. Square is free to install but takes a cut of every card payment, 1.65% in France. digabloPos is free with no paid module and runs offline with mobile money built in, which matters where connectivity is unreliable.
- Why do transaction fees matter more than the subscription?
- Because they scale with your business. A 1.65% fee on €100,000 of annual revenue is €1,650 a year, far more than any monthly subscription on the market. The right calculation is to add the subscription to the estimated commission on your real volume, then compare over three years.
- Which POS systems really work offline?
- Most advertise an offline mode, but it often means little more than taking payment while waiting for the network to return. With Loyverse, sales go through while refunds and inventory lookups are unavailable offline, according to its own documentation. digabloPos keeps sales, stock and reports available with no network, because it was built for markets where outages are the norm rather than the exception.
- Which POS software accepts mobile money?
- Of the five systems compared here, digabloPos is the only one with native M-Pesa, Orange Money and Airtel Money support. US and European vendors target markets where mobile money is marginal, so they do not offer it, which forces African merchants to key in the amount manually after every payment and creates till discrepancies.
Still unsure?
Tell us how you take payments today: how many locations, which payment methods, how reliable your connection is. We will tell you which system holds up in your situation, even when it is not ours.
Tell us about your business