Restaurant POS Software Price in India: Models and 3-Year Cost

This guide is for restaurant, cafe and fast food owners in India who have two or three quotes on the table and cannot compare them because each one is priced in a different unit. By the end you will be able to convert any quote into a three-year figure, spot the lines that are missing from it, and see where a flat yearly price such as Dhandhaan restaurant POS software sits against the other models.

How much does restaurant POS software cost in India

Most quotes a restaurant owner in India receives for the software alone fall between ₹8,000 and ₹36,000 per outlet per year. The spread is wide because vendors charge in different units: per year, per month, per bill, or once for a licence. A plan at ₹999 a month and a plan at ₹12,999 a year look far apart on paper and are almost the same money.

The figures in this article are typical ranges from quotes we have seen in Gujarat while working with restaurant owners. They are planning numbers, not a price list for any vendor. Always get the final figure in writing, with GST shown.

Two rules make comparison easy. First, convert everything to a cost per outlet per year. Second, add up three years, because that is roughly how long a restaurant keeps a billing system before it reviews the choice. A model that looks cheap in month one can be the costliest by year three.

The four price models for restaurant billing software

Almost every restaurant billing software quote uses one of four models, or a mix of two.

1. Flat yearly fee

You pay one amount per outlet per year, and it does not change with the number of bills, tables or captains. Typical quotes run from ₹8,000 to ₹25,000 per outlet per year. The cost is known in advance, which helps a business with thin margins and seasonal swings. The thing to check is what the flat fee covers: number of devices, kitchen printers, captain logins and reports.

2. Monthly fee per outlet

Hosted POS subscriptions often quote ₹800 to ₹3,000 per outlet per month. Monthly billing keeps the first payment small and lets you leave without losing a year's fee. Multiply by 12 before comparing: ₹1,500 a month is ₹18,000 a year. Many plans are tiered, so the entry price covers billing only, while captain ordering, extra kitchen printers or multi-outlet reports sit on a higher tier.

3. Charge per bill or a share of sales

Some apps are free or nearly free to start and charge a small amount on each bill, a percentage of billed value, or a fee on digital payments collected through them. This suits a new cafe with 40 bills a day. It becomes expensive as volume rises. At 50 paise a bill and 250 bills a day, a restaurant open 360 days pays ₹45,000 a year, and the fee grows every time business improves.

4. One-time licence

Older desktop billing packages are commonly sold as a licence, typically ₹15,000 to ₹50,000 per counter, with an annual maintenance contract of 15% to 20% of the licence price from the second year. The three-year figure is low and there is no renewal date to worry about. Check whether the licence covers captain phones, cloud reports for the owner and version upgrades, since these are frequently quoted separately or not offered.

What is usually extra on a restaurant POS quote

The software fee is rarely the whole bill. Ask every vendor to confirm each of these lines in writing, even when the answer is "included".

• Hardware: counter PC, thermal printers for the bill and each kitchen counter, Android phones for captains, router and UPS. This is bought separately under every model and, in most restaurants, costs more than the first year of software. Our restaurant POS hardware cost guide has ranges for three sizes of setup.
• Add-on modules: captain ordering app, additional kitchen printers, QR menu, multi-outlet reporting, inventory and food delivery app integration are often priced per module per year.
• Extra devices or users: some plans count every captain phone or second counter as a paid licence.
• Setup and menu entry: installation, printer configuration and typing in 200 menu items may be a one-time charge.
• Training and support: check the support hours. A restaurant needs help at 9 PM on a Sunday, not only on weekday mornings.
• Payment fees: if UPI or card payments pass through the vendor's gateway, there may be a percentage fee on each transaction.
• GST on the software: ask whether the quoted price includes GST.
• Renewal price: a first-year discount is common. Ask for the renewal price in writing.

A quote that answers all eight lines can be compared with any other. A quote that gives one number and the word "all inclusive" cannot, until you have asked.

3-year cost of restaurant POS software for 1 outlet and 3 outlets

The table below puts the four models on one timeline. It covers software only, because hardware is the same whichever model you choose. The assumptions are stated so that you can replace them with the numbers on your own quotes.

Three things stand out. The per-bill model costs more than three times the flat fee at 250 bills a day, and the gap widens as the restaurant gets busier. The monthly model is driven by add-ons: without the ₹6,000 a year of modules it falls to ₹54,000 for one outlet. For one outlet, the one-time licence and the flat yearly fee land close together over three years, so the choice between them comes down to what each one includes, not the price.

Run the same sum at your own volume. A highway restaurant doing 600 bills a day would pay ₹1,08,000 a year at 50 paise a bill. A small cafe doing 60 bills a day would pay ₹10,800, which is below most flat fees.

What the table leaves out

Hardware for a 20-table restaurant is typically ₹75,000 to ₹1.4 lakh, bought once, and prices vary by brand and city. Thermal paper, a data plan for a backup connection and the replacement of a printer after a few years are running costs under every model. Setup or training fees, where charged, should be added to year one.

Is free restaurant billing software really free

Free plans exist and they are a fair way to start a small counter. The cost shows up elsewhere: a cap on bills or menu items, a fee on digital payments, or key features such as kitchen tickets and GST reports held back for the paid tier. Read the limits before you enter 150 menu items into a system you may outgrow in three months.

The other cost is switching. Moving a running restaurant to new software takes a week or two of preparation and some staff retraining, as described in our guide to changing restaurant billing software without downtime. Choosing a price model you can live with for three years avoids paying that cost twice.

How Dhandhaan handles this: one flat yearly price

Dhandhaan, the restaurant POS software built by JK Tech Hub in Rajkot, uses the first model. The price is ₹12,999 a year for a single branch and ₹23,999 a year for multi-branch. There is no charge per bill, no commission on sales and no fee on UPI payments.

The UPI point matters for the comparison. Dhandhaan generates a UPI QR for the exact bill amount, and the money goes straight into the restaurant's own UPI ID. There is no payment gateway in between, so there is no transaction fee to add to the table above. The cashier confirms the payment after seeing the credit.

The product covers a counter billing app for a Windows PC, a captain app for Android phones, a web admin panel for the owner, kitchen order tickets routed to separate printers, table merge and split, GST invoices, and reports in Excel and PDF. Each branch runs on a local server, so billing continues when the internet is down. With several branches, each one has its own menu, tables, printers, users and invoice series, and the owner sees combined and branch-wise reports from the cloud panel.

What the price does not include: hardware is bought separately. Dhandhaan also does not have inventory, stock or recipe management, live integration with food delivery apps, a kitchen display screen, an iPhone app, customer loyalty or card machine integration at present. If one of those is a must for you, count the cost of a separate tool or pick software that has it. A demo is available before purchase, so you can check the fit before paying.

What we learned about price while building Dhandhaan

JK Tech Hub built Dhandhaan for a multi-branch South Indian and fast food restaurant business in Gujarat that was moving off a hosted POS. Price was not the first complaint. Outages at peak hours were. But the discussions about what a restaurant should pay for, and in what unit, shaped the product as much as the screens did.

Two lessons from that build shaped the pricing. The first is that a restaurant with separate counters, such as a dosa counter, a main kitchen and a beverage counter, needs several kitchen printers from day one. Pricing each printer or each captain phone as an add-on penalises exactly the restaurants that are well organised. The second is that busy fast food counters produce a large number of small bills. A per-bill charge takes the most from the outlets with the lowest ticket size.

We also saw that owners budget once a year, not once a month. A single yearly figure is easier to approve, and easier to hold a vendor to, than a plan with five variable lines.

How to decide which price model suits your restaurant

1. Count your bills per day on a normal weekday and on a Sunday. At 50 paise a bill, a per-bill app costs less than a flat fee only below about 70 bills a day.
2. Write down the number of outlets you expect in three years, not the number you have today.
3. List your must-have features and ask each vendor which tier or add-on contains each one.
4. Fill the three-year table with your own figures, including setup charges and renewal prices.
5. Ask what happens to your data if you stop paying: whether you can export the invoice register and the menu.
6. Take a demo with your own menu before you pay anything.

If two options are within 10% of each other over three years, choose on the things that cost money indirectly: whether billing works without internet, how fast the cashier can settle a bill, and how quickly support answers during dinner service. The 12-point checklist for choosing restaurant billing software covers those.

Related reading and next step

• Dhandhaan restaurant POS software: features and price
• Restaurant POS hardware and setup cost in India
• How to choose restaurant billing software: a 12-point checklist
• Offline restaurant billing software: what works when the internet is down
• POS billing software cost in India for retail shops

For a demo of Dhandhaan or a written quote for your number of branches, use the contact page or WhatsApp +91 7265004040.