GetFoodTruckPOS vs Square: which fits your truck?

Pick Square if you want one company for software, card processing and hardware, with a free plan and a big ecosystem. Pick GetFoodTruckPOS if you want to keep your own card processor with 0% taken by the POS, an online store with a today's spot post, Arabic, Urdu or Spanish screens, or local pricing in the UAE or Pakistan. Both can run a truck well.

Square's free plan earns from card processing, so your real cost is the processing rate on every card sale. GetFoodTruckPOS charges a flat plan price and takes nothing from card sales, because it works with your own processor. If you can get a better processing rate elsewhere, a flat fee can come out ahead. Run your numbers on /savings-calculator/.

Square readers are designed to work with Square's own apps and processing, so plan on a reader from the processor you choose to use with GetFoodTruckPOS. Many owners use a standalone reader or terminal from their processor and record the card sale in the POS. See /features/mobile-card-readers/ and /hardware/ for what to look for.

Square publicly offers an offline payments mode for card sales in some regions, with limits, so check their current docs. GetFoodTruckPOS does not have an offline mode and needs data to ring sales. We recommend a phone hotspot or pocket router, a backup SIM on another carrier, and taking cash if signal drops, then entering those sales once you are back online.

Both give you an online presence from your menu. GetFoodTruckPOS builds the online store automatically from your POS items and adds a today's spot post at the top, so customers see where you are parked today and your hours before they order. If you want a fully custom truck website, our managed website service is at /managed-website/.

Square's point of sale is offered in a set list of countries, mostly in North America, Europe, Australia and Japan. At the time we checked, the UAE and Pakistan were not on that list, so check Square's current country page. GetFoodTruckPOS is built for the USA, the UAE and Pakistan, with local currency, tax and payment methods in each.

Both are designed for quick setup without an install. Square is widely known, so new staff may already have used it. GetFoodTruckPOS keeps the truck screen focused on a quick menu with big buttons, modifiers and a sold out switch, and each staff member can use their own language. Try both on a slow day and time a few orders.

Yes. Export your items from Square as a spreadsheet, tidy the columns, and import it into GetFoodTruckPOS. Then add modifiers and taxes and ring a test sale. Download your Square sales reports before you close the account, because past sales history usually stays behind. Our guide at /help/import-your-menu/ and the plan at /switch/ walk through it.

At the time we checked, Square's software plans were month to month with no long contract, which is a real strength. GetFoodTruckPOS is also month to month: cancel any time and export your data. Check the dated table on this page and Square's current terms, especially if you finance hardware through them.