Is Epos Now Worth The Hype? Read Our Review

Things we like:

Robust POS system
Easy to use
Dedicated features for retail and hospitality
Quality hardware options available
Pricing displayed on website

Things we don’t like:

Extra charges for additional features
No import option as standard (you have to pay for the import module)
Poor customer service reviews

Epos Now Overview

Epos Now is a fast growing EPOS provider, specialising in software and hardware for small businesses in the retail and hospitality industries. The company has established itself as a market leader and it’s hard to find a POS provider that offers the same quality of EPOS software and hardware with specialist features for retailers, restaurants and other businesses in the hospitality sector.

The hardware options are particularly impressive, with in-house and third-party payment processing options, so if you’re after an all-in-one EPOS and checkout system, Epos Now is going to be a tempting option.

On the software side, you get a highly customisable and easy-to-use platform, which is a design achievement in itself. Normally, customisation comes at the price of complexity, but Epos Now has hit something of a sweet spot with its EPOS software in this regard.

At the same time, there are a few weaknesses in Epos Now’s software that you should be aware of before you make any decisions. Whether these weaknesses matter to you or not, depends on what you need from an EPOS system but all will become clear by the time you’ve finished reading this review.

Epos Now Products & Services

Epos Now offers a solid range of hardware options if you want to set up fixed till or portable sales points. There are three ways to set up Epos Now as a point-of-sale system. First, you can simply install the software on any compatible PC, Mac, iPad, or Android device and use the POS with your existing hardware setup.

You can also create a basic checkout system using Epos Now on a tablet with a stand, which makes for a highly portable system if you combine it with a mobile card reader. Finally, if you’re after a fixed till setup then Epos Now’s Countertop solutions come with touchscreen terminals, built-in receipt printers, and cash drawers.

In terms of Epos Now’s POS software, here are the key features you need to know about:

Integrated payments: Accept cash, credit card and debit card payments.
Inventory management: Create and manage your inventory of stock from any device.
Automatic purchase orders: Set up automatic purchase orders so you never run out of stock.
Authorisation levels: Create user profiles for your staff and set different access levels.
Customisable dashboard: Customise your dashboard so all the data you need is accessible.
Real-time reports: Keep track of products, sales and employee performance – all in real-time.
Cross-device: Manage your system from any device, anywhere in the world.
Repeat business features: Create profiles for customers, offer special discounts, run loyalty points programmes and other incentives to keep customers coming back for more.

Epos Now tailors its POS system with specialist features for retail and hospitality brands, so let’s take a quick look at what’s on offer.

Epos Now Retail Features

Promotions: Run promotions for specific items or product categories.
Barcoding: Create, customize, and print barcodes for your products.
Pay on account: Assign credit limits to regular customers.

Online store integration: Sync with your eCommerce platform to keep your inventory up-to-date.

Epos Now Hospitality Features

Online booking system: Ideal for hotels and B&Bs.
Online ordering and delivery options: Add-ons for table ordering and delivery sales.
Table management: Create a table plan that matches the layout of your restaurant and manage orders by table.
Promotions: Create meal deals, happy hours and other promotions easily.
Split bills: Give your customers the choice to pay separately or all together.
Raw ingredient management: Keep track of ingredients and manage stock based on customer orders.
Loyalty features: Reward points systems with branded cards for repeat customers.

That’s a pretty solid offering for most retail and hospitality businesses, but some key features are missing, such as a virtual terminal that can be useful for retailers to accept payments over the phone. Although Epos Now Payments has pay-by-link, the e-commerce integrations can process sales, too

You can get bulk imports, but you have to pay an extra fee for this module, which brings us to the main downside of Epos Now’s software. You have to pay extra for a number of specific features, such as email marketing integration or Sage, Xero, or Quickbooks accounting features, and your total cost can easily be more than the standard monthly fees you expect to pay.

Some of these features are standard with other providers, and a number of specialist retail and hospitality POS providers offer a lot more in terms of features.

If Epos Now offers everything you need as standard, this isn’t a problem but you will need to do your homework to get a definitive answer on this.

Epos Now Fees

Unlike many POS providers, Epos Now openly displays its fees on its website, which we always like to see. Another major plus is that every version of Epos Now allows you to manage an unlimited number of products, users and customers.

They charge £25 per month for payments and a standard support subscription (otherwise, it’s £39 per month for 24/7 support coverage).

Epos Now Contracts & Early Termination Fees

Epos Now offers a monthly subscription payment system, which means you’re not tied into any contract for the EPOS platform. This also means you don’t need to worry about any early termination fees, but if you opt to include in-house payments you’ll still be getting a long-term contract with Epos Now, and this is where you need to be careful about contracts. Epos Now Payments, Epos Now’s in-house payment processor, offers a way to get your entire POS, including card transactions, from one provider, which simplifies your contract and your system and means all your technology is built to work together.

There are a growing number of contract-free payment providers, such as Zettle, Square, and you should take a look at these if you process a relatively small amount of card transactions. .

Epos Now Payments explain they have one fixed rate on Visa and Mastercard transactions, and a second fixed rate you can opt-in to for Amex, JCB, Diners Discovery and UnionPay. This could provide a simple, affordable payment experience for your business.

Either way, these companies normally operate on a contractual basis with early termination fees. So, while you don’t need to worry about these problems with Epos Now, it’s important to understand what kind of payment processor you’re integrating it with and the contractual requirements it comes with.

Epos Now Sales & Transparency

As we mentioned in the Epos Now fees section, this is one of the few POS system providers to openly list its fees on its website, and we commend the company for that. The problem is that the website doesn’t make it entirely clear that many of the integrations and add-ons require you to pay additional fees, and these can quickly stack up. Though the fees are available on the Back Office page for the integration.

Hopefully, you can speak to a sales rep to find out exactly what you’re getting, and reviews of the company’s sales team are generally positive although there are some reports of false promises being made and misleading information being provided. In most cases, these complaints revolve around sales teams telling customers Epos Now will integrate with their existing system and then running into problems.

Epos Now Customer Service & Technical Support

By far the most common complaint about Epos Now relates to the company’s customer service. In fact, even a lot of customers who leave positive reviews about its overall products and services leave a note about it being difficult to get a fast response from the customer service and technical support teams, but the company does offer extensive support guides, phone, and chat support.

Essentially, customers who don’t run into any technical issues tend to have a very positive experience with Epos Now.

Unfortunately, there are cases of customers who ran into problems and struggled to get a quick resolution. Even customers who are paying for premium support have been known to complain about the time it takes to get a response from either team, and this can be particularly frustrating when you run into technical issues and integration problems. Another common problem some customers have reported is the time it takes for technical support to successfully fix issues, during which customers continue to be charged.

That said, there are also plenty of positive reviews about the company’s support team, quick responses and resolutions, and reviewers mention a number of staff members by name, powering a 4.4 out of 5 score on Epos Now’s Trustpilot page.

Epos Now Reviews & Reputation

Online reviews of Epos Now are largely positive and the company actively encourages customers to leave reviews on Truspilot.com where it has a 5 star review from 83% of over 16 thousand reviews at the time of writing. You can see the split of reviews from the last 12 months below.

That said, we have to take sites like Trustpilot with a pinch of salt because companies can pay to gain a certain level of control over the reviews displayed on their profiles.

What we can say for sure is that many customers are happy with Epos Now’s software and hardware combination. The company gets a lot of praise for how easy-to-use its software is. Although there are many mentions of technical problems with hardware and integrations, most reviews citing issues suggest they were solved accordingly.

What we can’t tell from online reviews is how much of the negative feedback is actually visible. While most complaints start with technical and integration issues, it’s really the way these problems are dealt with that anger Epos Now’s unhappy customers. Aside from customer service and technical support issues, the other most common complaints revolve around the sales team and customers not ending up with the system or feature set they expect.

Epos Now Verdict: 4/5

Epos Now offers a solid combination of EPOS software and hardware with specialist features for businesses in retail and hospitality. Its key selling points are the easy-to-use POS platform and the quality of its complete system hardware setups that are a standard above most offerings

In terms of features, you get quite a lot for your money but there are some key features missing that other providers offer as standard. Whether you need or want these features is for you to decide.

You may also be interested in checking out our guide to the best EPOS systems for UK businesses.

EposNow Review

Review of the UK’s Fast Growing EPOS Provider For Retail & Hospitality