AirPOS Pay is the Subscription Free Alternative To Shopify Point of Sale

AirPOS Pay is the Subscription Free Alternative To Shopify Point of Sale


At AirPOS we love Shopify, it's by far and away the best platform for getting your business online and we've helped countless retailers to move to multi-channel selling through our Shopify integration.

We are seeing however that Shopify's pricing for its POS is simply too high for many new merchants and is putting them off setting their business up to sell both in their shop and online, something we strongly believe they all need to do to first survive those crucial first few years and then thrive when they have built up a customer base and brand.

We're very very strong advocates for all new retailers being born as multi-channel (or omnichannel if you include mobile selling) companies, so much so that we built our business to facilitate this!

At AirPOS Pay we're all about the pricing transparency and we must admit to being disappointed when we see partners being less than simplistic about their pricing. In all honesty in recent times Shopify pricing has become obscure and not only that it changes quite often making it hard to pin down and hard to predict.

So if you're a brand new retailer here's a quick primer on Shopify's costs for a multi-channel setup and how AirPOS Pay can save you a substantial amount while facilitating your ability to sell online through Shopify.

Selling In Person - AirPOS Pay VS Shopify POS

This really means selling via Shopify POS in a physical location. There are two plans for this POS Lite and POS Pro.

Lite is really for single solo sellers with a very small inventory, maybe at best selling at a trade event or an expo. It's keenly priced at £5 per month to attract this demographic of mobile sellers however the devil is as always in the detail when it comes to pricing.

That £5 per month subscription might look attractive but don't skim past those fees for Shopify Payments which is Shopify's full integrated payment processing. At an eye-watering 5% for in person payments its by far the most expensive payment processing option available for any POS.

Here's how that would compare with AirPOS Pay's standard 1.4%+14p per transaction for example.

Shopify POS Lite VS AirPOS Pay POS Pricing Comparison

Amount (£) Shopify POS Lite (5%) + £5 Subscription AirPOS Pay (1.4% + 14p) Difference per Month
100 £10.00 £1.54 £8.46
200 £15.00 £2.82 £12.18
300 £20.00 £4.10 £15.90
400 £25.00 £5.38 £19.62
500 £30.00 £6.66 £23.34
600 £35.00 £7.94 £27.06
700 £40.00 £9.22 £30.78
800 £45.00 £10.50 £34.50
900 £50.00 £11.78 £38.22
1000 £55.00 £13.06 £41.94

I'll just use an alternative payment processor to Shopify Payments y'say? You certainly won't! Shopify will add 5% additionally to any payments if you try to do this via their POS. So if you used Sumup at their standard 1.75% you'd be paying 6.75% of your transactions and would be better off staying in bed most likely!

So you can see that the costs of Lite rack up quickly and this is intentional of course as like all subscription companies Shopify's mission is to get you to upgrade to a higher tier, unlocking features as you go. Got an employee now and they need their own login to the POS? Want to manage inventory? That's going to be an upgrade to Shopify POS Pro.

Shopify POS Pro VS AirPOS Pay POS Pricing Comparison

Amount (£) Shopify POS Pro (1.7% + £69 Subscription) AirPOS Pay (1.4% + 14p) Difference Per Month
100 £70.70 £1.54 £69.16
200 £71.40 £2.82 £68.58
300 £72.10 £4.10 £68.00
400 £72.80 £5.38 £67.42
500 £73.50 £6.66 £66.84
600 £74.20 £7.94 £66.26
700 £74.90 £9.22 £65.68
800 £75.60 £10.50 £65.10
900 £76.30 £11.78 £64.52
1000 £77.00 £13.06 £63.94

Even at a relatively low turnover of £1000 per month on cards the savings would be huge, up to £767 per year of a difference. Not only that AirPOS Pay features all of the functionality of Shopify POS Pro and more including fully integrated loyalty, paylinks and a lot more. What's more you can use AirPOS Pay on Android, iPad and also Windows allowing you to choose the technology that suits you best.

To find out how to use AirPOS Pay with Shopify to sell in your shop and online start your free AirPOS Pay account today