How much does POS software cost in Pakistan?

What does POS software cost in Pakistan?

POS software in Pakistan is sold two ways: a monthly subscription per shop, or a one-time licence fee paid up front. NexusTill is a monthly subscription — Rs 2,999 a month for Starter, Rs 6,999 for Growth, and Rs 11,999 for Scale, with no setup fee and no per-terminal charge inside your plan's limits. Separately from the software, a shop that wants to print receipts and scan barcodes should budget for hardware — a thermal receipt printer, a barcode scanner and a cash drawer — bought once, from a local supplier, at whatever the market rate is that month.

That's the short answer. The rest of this post is the part that actually decides what you pay: what a quoted price includes, what it quietly doesn't, and which costs only show up in month three.

One-time licence vs monthly subscription — which is cheaper?

A one-time licence looks cheaper because you compare one number against twelve. It usually isn't, because a licence covers the software as it exists today — updates, support and any server the system needs are normally charged separately, often as an annual maintenance fee. A subscription bundles those in, but you pay it every month for as long as you use it. The honest way to compare is to price both over three years, including support and updates in each.

• One-time licence: big first payment, then usually an annual maintenance or support fee. Often installed on one machine, which means your data lives on that machine — if it dies, that's your problem.
• Monthly subscription: small, predictable payment. Updates and support are normally included, your data sits in the cloud, and you can stop paying if it isn't working out.
• Free / "lifetime free" software: real, but the cost moves elsewhere — usually into paid support, paid printing, or a hard limit on products, users or invoices that you hit exactly when the business grows.

There's no universally right answer. A shop that will run the same single till for a decade and never needs help can do well on a licence. A shop that expects to change, add staff, or want somebody to answer the phone is usually better off subscribing.

What does each NexusTill plan actually include?

Three plans, priced per month in rupees for Pakistan. Every plan includes offline billing, unlimited products and customers, barcode scanning, inventory with low-stock alerts, quick and tax invoices, the customer credit ledger with email reminders, and the daily cash-up. The plans differ on how many people use it and how much the software has to think.

Starter — Rs 2,999 a month

One till, two users — you and one other, each with their own login. Everything in the list above, plus 90 days of report history. The AI assistant is not included on Starter. This is the plan for a shop where one or two people ring up every sale.

Growth — Rs 6,999 a month

Everything in Starter, plus up to 5 tills and 5 staff with their own accounts and roles, purchase orders and suppliers, analytics and profit/margin/dead-stock reports, promotions and gift cards, barcode label printing, 2 years of report history, and 30 AI assistant questions a day. Restaurant mode starts here — recipes, food-cost %, cook-to-order stock, raw materials and wastage, dining tables, the kitchen display and item modifiers.

Scale — Rs 11,999 a month

Everything in Growth, plus unlimited tills, staff and branches, multi-branch and warehouses, stock transfers between branches, branch-scoped managers, full double-entry accounting, unlimited report history, priority support, and 100 AI questions a day. If you run more than one shop, this is the tier that has it.

What are the hidden costs of a POS system?

The costs that surprise shopkeepers are almost never the software price. They are the setup, the hardware, the extra terminal, and the day nobody could sell because nobody knew how. Ask about every one of these before you sign anything.

1. 1Setup or installation fee — a one-off charge to get you running. Ask whether it exists and what it covers.
2. 2Per-terminal or per-user fees — some systems charge again for the second counter or the second cashier. Check what your price covers before you add a till.
3. 3Training — whether staff training is included, charged per session, or simply not offered. If the software genuinely needs a week of training, that's a cost even when nobody bills you for it.
4. 4Support — is it included, is it an annual percentage of the licence, and is there a human on the other end during your shop hours?
5. 5Data export if you leave — whether you can take your products, customers and sales out in a normal file. A system you can't leave is a system with an unpriced cost.
6. 6Hardware replacement — printers and scanners are consumables over a long enough horizon. Budget for a replacement eventually, not never.

What hardware do I need to budget for?

You can start with the device you already have — NexusTill runs in a browser on a laptop, tablet or phone, so there's no minimum machine to buy. What you add after that depends on how your counter works, and prices vary by brand, city and supplier, so get a current quote locally rather than trusting any number you read online.

• A thermal receipt printer — the single most worthwhile purchase for most shops. Prints a clean receipt in a second and needs no ink, just rolls.
• A barcode scanner — pays for itself in a shop with packaged goods and barcodes. Pointless in a shop selling mostly loose items by weight.
• A cash drawer — useful if you take a lot of cash and want it locked and tied to the till, unnecessary if you already have a system that works.
• Receipt rolls — a small, ongoing consumable. Not a big number, but it's the one people forget entirely.
• A UPS or power bank — in a load-shedding area this is arguably more important than the scanner. It's what keeps you selling.

The honest advice: buy the printer first, use the shop for a month, then decide whether the scanner and drawer earn their place. Most shops that buy everything at once end up with something in a box.

How to budget for a POS without regretting it

Work out the monthly software cost for the plan you actually need — not the biggest one — then add hardware as a one-time number, then add anything the vendor charges for setup, training or support. That total, over a year, is the real price. Compare that between vendors and the answers finally line up.

One more thing worth doing before you spend anything: run the software in your own shop, on your own connection, for a few days. NexusTill has a 7-day free trial with no card required to start, and it doesn't convert into a paid plan on its own — when the week ends, it ends, and you decide. A week at your own counter tells you more about the real cost of a POS than any price list.

The cheapest POS is the one your cashier can use on a busy evening. Everything else is just a number on a quote.

Written by The NexusTill team.