5 best PayPal Zettle POS alternatives with robust features in 2024

Yes. Paypal has its own POS systems to offer their customers.
Previously, PayPal Here POS, including a free app and PayPal POS card readers, offered by PayPal allows merchants to process online and in-person payments with smartphones or tablets. As of 2021, PayPal Here point of sale yields to PayPal Zettle, a more upgraded POS system with more features. PayPal states that Paypal Here is officially discontinued from Sept 30, 2023, and recommends using the PayPal Zettle POS app, which also comes with its own PayPal POS devices, to continue accepting payments, tracking sales, and managing inventory.

PayPal Zettle is not only a PayPal iPad POS but also runs well on Android smartphones or tablets, thus allowing merchants to accept numerous in-person payments via their PayPal account anywhere and oversee all of their payments from different sales channels in one place. Besides, this PayPal business POS also brings small business owners other basic features for inventory and staff management, as well as sales reporting.

However, what PayPal Zettle offers is not enough to meet the requirements of a business with more complex operations. Medium and large sellers demand more advanced POS functions to help them manage their businesses effectively like multi-store inventory control, loyalty programs, omnichannel order fulfillment, and offline mode. In this circumstance, a wise choice is to switch to another POS system that can provide merchants with the necessary features while still integrating smoothly with PayPal to handle customer payments.

The core features of PayPal Zettle are as follows.

Key features

• Accept contactless payments and in-person cards using PayPal POS equipment
• Provide digital and paper receipts
• Apply discounts and add multiple products for fast checkout
• Add products with information like prices, photos, descriptions, and barcodes
• Organize products into lists or groups for easy management
• Allow importing products in bulk from spreadsheets
• Track and update stock levels automatically and set restock alerts
• Manage employee schedules, working shifts, and performance
• Monitor sales and refunds for different payment methods in one place
• Generate customizable detailed reports for business insights
• Can integrate with some 3rd-party apps and systems

Pros and cons

PayPal transaction fees

Though the PayPal Zettle app is free, you’ll have to pay a considerable amount of the PayPal POS fees, including the transaction costs detailed as below.

• Card-present transactions: 2.29% + $0.09 per transaction
• Manual card entry transactions: 3.49% + $0.09 per transaction
• QR code transactions: 2.29% + $0.09 per transaction
• Invoicing (PayPal payments): 3.49% + $0.49 per transaction
• Invoicing (cards and alternative payment methods): 2.99% + $0.49 per transaction

With basic functionality, PayPal Zettle is more suitable for small businesses that only need to accept payments or manage employees and inventory at basic levels. For medium and large businesses with more complex operations, 5 following PayPal POS might be a good replacement.
These POS are put in ascending order of pricing. Let’s take a look!

1. Magestore POS: Best for medium and large Magento retailers

In the first place is Magestore Magento POS, a POS system that has both advanced features and integration capabilities to satisfy your ever-changing business demands.

The POS may take many users by surprise with its great customizability and ability to integrate seamlessly with a variety of 3rd-party services. Besides connecting well with other systems like ERP, accounting, and marketplaces, Magestore POS makes PayPal POS integration a breeze. As a result, it can be said that the POS functionality expands in line with your business growth.

In addition, this POS with PayPal integration offers more than just the essentials, making it a good fit for medium and large businesses. It can help you keep inventory, customers, and orders consistent between your POS system and online stores, support omnichannel order fulfillment like click and collect, manage inventory from different channels and locations, and provide loyalty programs to encourage repeat purchases.

Highlight features

• Create and process orders in no more than 1 minute
• Real-time customer, order, and product data sync between channels
• Manage inventory across channels and locations
• Accept numerous payment methods like cash, credit and debit cards, partial payment, split payment, layaway
• Support refunds, returns, exchanges
• Offer omnichannel order fulfillment options like store pickup, buy in store ship to home
• Provide customer loyalty programs with reward points, store credits, gift cards
• Manage employee schedules, working shifts, and performance
• Manage products, stocks, and inventory with barcodes and bin system
• Compatible with a range of PayPal POS hardware
• Generate real-time detailed reports
• Integrate smoothly with a host of 3rd-party services, including ERP (NetSuite, SAP), accounting (Xero, QuickBooks), marketplaces (Amazon, eBay, Etsy), shipment (ShipStation, FedEx), payments (PayPal, Adyen, Stripe, Square)
• Work well in offline mode and popular devices
• Scalable and customizable to your changing demands

Pricing

Magestore charges fees depending on your business complexity, store numbers, and the support and service levels you want. To get accurate pricing for your business, you can contact Magestore.

What outperforms PayPal Zettle POS?

• Have many advanced features for complex business operations: multi-store inventory management, omnichannel loyalty programs
• Pay once for POS license and add unlimited accounts, users, and devices with no extra fees
• Charge no transaction fees
• Easy to scale and customize to unique business requirements
• Can integrate with various 3rd-party services
• Expert consultation and support tailored for each business

2. Erply POS: Best for small businesses and retailers

In addition to the capability to integrate with PayPal, Erply POS has many functions to help merchants streamline their business operations and deliver ultimate services to their customers. This PayPal POS system allows you to manage and search for products across locations, offer partial or full returns for any purchase, and view recent sales data. With Erply POS, you can let your customers buy online and pick up in store, thus giving them more flexibility and convenience.

Key features

• Sync all transaction data in real time
• Oversee cash flow with reports
• Track employees’ working hours with built-in time clock
• Support customizing and managing many layaway orders
• Support buying online, picking up in store, and managing in-store pickup orders
• Allow quick access to recent sales and views on sales of each or all stores
• Let users quickly find product data and stock levels from different locations
• Provide customizable quick select keys for faster product selection
• Allow returns in part or in full on any purchase
• Manage store opening and closing across locations
• Can integrate with 3rd-party services like PayPal
• Support loyalty and reward programs, and promotions

Pricing

Small shops without inventory can use Erply POS for free, with access to 1 user account and 1 point of sale terminal. On the other hand, large enterprises or franchises can contact Erply for PayPal POS pricing details. Besides, there are other plans as below.

• Inventory for eCommerce: $59/month if paying monthly, $39/month if paying yearly for 2 user accounts, 1 warehouse license
• Inventory and retail POS: $79/month if paying monthly, $69/month if paying yearly for 2 user accounts, 1 POS with inventory license

What outperforms PayPal Zettle POS?

• Omnichannel features like buying online, picking up in store
• Multi-location product search
• Offer loyalty and reward programs, and promotions

3. Shopify POS: Best for Shopify merchants

Owning many useful functions, Shopify POS has become the favorite of many Shopify merchants. The POS also works well with other 3rd-party services, including PayPal, to enhance its functionality.

As a good match for sellers with Shopify stores, this PayPal point of sale system syncs order, customer, and inventory data across locations and channels, ensuring a unified view of key business metrics. Moreover, the POS facilitates many omnichannel selling options, including local pickup, buying in store, and shipping to customers. It also helps manage inventory, generate demand forecasts, and create purchase orders.

Key features

• Accept popular types of payments, including gift cards and contactless payments
• Facilitate omnichannel selling, like buying online, returning in store
• Track stock levels and forecast demands to suggest purchase orders
• Create transfer requests and track inventory movement between locations
• Oversee employee performance and permissions from one place
• Support discount codes, custom SMS or email receipts, and order notes
• Sync inventory, orders, customers across locations and channels
• Enrich customer profiles and provide them with loyalty programs
• Generate different types of reports on daily sales, cash flows, and more
• Can integrate with 3rd-party apps, including PayPal

Pricing

Below are the pricing details of Shopify POS.

• Sell in person:
  • Starter plan: $5/ month for 1 POS login and limited online store
  • Retail plan: $89/ month if you pay monthly and $79/ month if you pay yearly for unlimited POS logins and limited online store
• Sell everywhere:
  • Basic plan: $25/ month + $89/ month for each POS Pro location for unlimited POS logins and full-featured online store
  • Shopify plan: $65/ month + $89/ month for each POS Pro location for 5 additional staff accounts, unlimited POS logins, and full-featured online store.
  • Advanced plan: $399/ month + $89/ month for each POS Pro location for 15 additional staff accounts, unlimited POS logins, and full-featured online store.

What outperforms PayPal Zettle POS?

• More advanced features for inventory, employee, and customer management
• Support omnichannel fulfillment options like buying online, and returning in store
• Provide different plans for different needs

4. Hike POS: Best for growing retailers

Hike POS is a PayPal POS software that gives you the power to manage many aspects of your retailing regardless of where you’re selling your products, online or in store. One of its most noticeable features is inventory management which assists you in managing inventory and purchase orders, tracking stock levels, and transferring inventory between stores.

Additionally, the POS syncs order, product, and customer data across sales channels, and supports bulk product import. Extending the functionality of this PayPal POS is feasible as it works well with many 3rd-party service providers like Square, PayPal, and Worldpay.

Key features

• Can work in offline mode and on many devices like iPad, PC, Mac
• Integrate with many payment providers, including PayPal, Square
• Support many payment methods like contactless payments, and loyalty points
• Allow importing and exporting products in bulk
• Manage inventory and purchase orders
• Track stock levels and inventory transfer between stores
• Sync orders, products, and customers across sales channels
• Support refunds using the original payment method of customers
• Enable importing customer data in bulk from CSV files
• Track customers’ purchase history and offer loyalty rewards programs
• Deliver reports on sales and transactions with powerful analytics

Pricing

Hike PayPal point of sale charges fees based on your region, the number of locations and registers. Below are the fees for 1 location and 1 register in the U.S.

• Essential plan: $59/ month if paid yearly and $69/ month if paid monthly. The Essential plan doesn’t support integration with eCommerce platforms, marketplaces, customer loyalty programs, etc.
• Plus plan: $99/ month if paid yearly and $119/ month if paid monthly
• Enterprise plan: Custom pricing

What outperforms PayPal Zettle POS?

• More inventory management features, including managing purchase orders and tracking stock movement between stores
• Cross-channel order, product, and customer data sync
• Work in offline mode

5. Quid POS Smart Vendor: Best for small retailers and service providers

Quid POS Smart Vendor is a cloud-based PayPal point of sale that runs on Android devices and web browsers. The strength of Quid POS lies in its range of helpful tools that enable you to manage your inventory by categories, track the entire inventory movement, from purchase orders to sales, and generate detailed inventory reporting. What’s more, you can access currency converter registers from mobile devices or computers to accelerate order processing. Quid POS also connects with PayPal to offer your customers their preferred payment methods.

Key features

• Provide multiple cashier views with customizable options
• Offer currency converter registers accessible from mobile devices or computers
• Offer a category builder to manage products by types
• Track inventory flows, from purchase orders to sales
• Supply inventory import tool and detailed inventory reporting
• Allow giving permission to different staff roles
• Assist in maintaining relationships with customers via emailing invoices, or adding sales to the customer database
• Provide many addons for more features, including Team Member, Online Store
• Integrate with multiple payment processors, including PayPal, Stripe, and Square

Pricing

This PayPal POS app charges you $250/ month if you pay yearly and $299/ month if you pay monthly. Besides, Quid POS Smart Vendor has 4 addons with the prices as below.

• Online store: $19/ month if paid annually and $23/ month if paid monthly
• Team members: $1/ member if paid annually and $2/ member if paid monthly
• Link registers: $19/ month if paid annually and $23/ month if paid monthly
• Reservations: $10/ month if paid annually and $12/ month if paid monthly

What outperforms PayPal Zettle POS?

• Offer addons for more advanced features
• Have many tools for advanced inventory management like tracking purchase orders, inventory reporting
• Provide a cloud-based currency converter register for faster checkouts

Which one is the best PayPal POS is up to what POS features your business needs to operate effectively and how much you’re willing to invest in a PayPal POS solution. Besides the capability to integrate well with PayPal payment, the best POS should possess enough functions to run your business smoothly without creating financial burdens.

For example, while small stores with tight budgets can find PayPal Zettle POS an appropriate system, larger businesses that sell both online and offline or have multiple retail stores, tend to choose other PayPal point of sale apps like Magestore or Erply POS to accommodate their business needs.

Also read: Best Tyro POS solutions for real time data sync

What is a POS in PayPal?

A POS in PayPal, or a PayPal POS, refers to a point of sale system that can connect seamlessly with the PayPal payment service provider to accept and process payments.

Can you use PayPal as a POS system?

No, PayPal is an online payment system, so you can’t use it as a POS system. However, PayPal offers PayPal Zettle, a free PayPal mobile POS app to process payments, available for your use.

Does PayPal Zettle charge a fee?

No, PayPal Zettle doesn’t charge monthly fees for its POS app. Nevertheless, you need to buy PayPal POS readers and pay PayPal point of sale credit card processing fees for each transaction. For example, each card-present transaction often costs 2.29% + $0.09.

How does PayPal Zettle differ from PayPal Here?

PayPal Zettle has more features than PayPal Here. In particular, PayPal Zettle supports employee accounts, customizing receipts, and integration with other 3rd-party apps like QuickBooks, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, and Shopify.
Besides, the PayPal point of sale readers of Zettle are faster and more secure than those of PayPal Here.