What Yoco alternatives cost in South Africa

You can buy a complete POS system from one company, or you can mix and match, paying different providers for software, hardware and payments.

POS software in South Africa costs up to R4,500 a month and beyond, before hardware costs. A full set of POS hardware costs R3,350 to R14,995 to buy, and most single-screen setups cost R7,500 to R10,000. Some companies rent the hardware to you, charged on a monthly basis instead.

Yoco pricing is used below as a proxy for everything from one company, but other options may exist in the market.

* Averaged across all specialised POS system providers in South Africa who publish their pricing, as of September 2026.

Taking card payments is a separate cost from the software, whichever route you take. 

Everything from one company, e.g. Yoco: On Yoco's free Core plan, estimated at your card sales of R60,000 a month, card payments cost R1,067 a month with everything included: the rate, the card machine, the data (for the device to run) and the payouts. That is 1.78% of your card sales. 

Specialised POS systems: If you use another card machine company, the average of published South African prices at the same card sales is R1,689 a month, or 2.82% all-inclusive*. This will be charged on top of POS software and hardware.

* Both figures are worked out line by line, next to what a bank's card machine costs, on Yoco vs bank card machines.

You buy a specialist POS system in five steps: you choose the software, you buy or rent the hardware, you choose a card machine company, someone sets it up, and then you match your sales to your payments every trading day.

You can use a specialist POS with Yoco. Many specialist POS companies connect to Yoco's card machines for payments. The POS records the sale on their screen, Yoco takes the payment on its card machine. You pay both subscriptions, so check whether the two systems match your sales to payments automatically before you sign. See Yoco's integration partners page for the current list. Yoco's own free POS runs on the same card machine, which is the simpler one-company route.

At R60,000 a month in card sales, the one-company route on Yoco's free Core plan costs R1,067 a month.

Buying software, hardware and payments from other providers separately costs R2,802 to R6,606 a month, depending on which software you choose.

The POS hardware line is R0 on the one-company route because there's no second device to buy.

Using Yoco as an example, the entry-level point of sale software is free and it runs on the card machine, so the Yoco Khumo, the Yoco Khumo Print and the Yoco Counter POS with the Yoco Neo Touch are the point of sale hardware. The card machine is already counted in the card payments line above.

On the separate route you buy a screen, a stand, a printer and a cash drawer from the POS company on top of the card machine from a payments provider.

Both figures are worked out line by line, next to what a bank's card machine costs, on Yoco vs bank card machines.

* Averaged across all specialised POS system providers in South Africa who publish their pricing, as at September 2026.

In this illustrative example, out of every rand you take on card, that's 1.78 cents on Yoco against 4.67 to 11.01 cents the other way. The R1,689 for card payments is the average for an independent card machine company and already includes that company's machine. If you run a specialist POS system and use Yoco for payments, that line is R1,067 instead. If you need Yoco Pro at R499 a month for table management and sending orders to the kitchen, the rate drops as well. Pro blends to 1.58% on a 60/40 debit and credit mix, so card-only fees on R60,000 are R948. With the machine at R29 a month and the R499 plan fee, the one-company total is R1,476, or 2.46% of your card sales.

The separate route makes sense when the specialist software does something an “everything from one provider” solution (e.g. Yoco) software doesn't do, and the specialised feature is worth more than the R1,735 to R5,539 a month difference.

It is important to map out your own workflow and feature requirements when making the decision.

Choose a point of sale system by starting with how your business sells, then writing that down as must-have and should-have requirements. Compare the full cost of each suitable option over the same period, check the software against the tasks your staff do every day, and test a real trading day before you commit.

Everything from one company on a free plan suits a single counter with a short product list. A specialist system suits a group of restaurants, a retailer with more than one warehouse, or a business with a need that only specialised systems cover. A restaurant with tables and a kitchen or a shop with stock can go either way.