AI POS system

An AI POS system that already shipped

Most vendors blog about the AI register that's coming. Batchly's is at the counter now: an AI staff that answers your phone, sells by text, brings regulars back, and watches your stock.

Search "AI POS system" and you'll mostly find two things: concept posts about what AI will do for retail someday, and a chat window bolted onto a help center. Neither answers the phone at 6:45 on a Friday when the line is four deep. Batchly took the other route — build the register first, then ship AI that does specific store jobs on top of it. The bundle is called Shophand, it costs a flat $49.96/mo, and everything on this page is live in shops today.

What AI in a POS should actually do

A useful test for any AI register pitch: does the AI do a job you'd otherwise pay a person to do, and can you see it working this week? Here are the four jobs Shophand does.

Answer the phone — Front Desk

The store phone rings all day with the same three questions: are you open, do you have it, what does it cost. Front Desk answers 24/7 with answers pulled from your live inventory — actual stock, actual prices, actual hours. It takes pickup orders and, where you offer delivery, delivery orders: it collects the address, zip and a date inside your delivery days, then reads back your delivery window and the total due at the door. It reads back the order number on every order and leaves a transcript of every call in your dashboard so you can read what happened while you were with a customer. It handles SMS conversations on the same number, too.

Sell by text — SMS ordering

Customers text the store, get a menu, and order for pickup or, where you offer it, delivery. No app to install, no account to create. For a liquor store or a vape shop where half the regulars know exactly what they want, the fastest checkout is the one that happens before they walk in.

Bring regulars back — The Usual

The Usual learns each regular's rhythm from purchase history — the customer who buys the same pouch every twelve days, the one who restocks every other Friday. When their usual is due, it texts them, and one reply confirms the order. This is customer replenishment, not stock reordering: it fills your order queue, not your stockroom. It is the piece of this bundle we've seen nowhere else at this price.

Watch the shelf — inventory intelligence

Low-stock alerts, sales-velocity analytics, and reorder suggestions for the roughly 20 core items that drive most of a shop's volume. Suggestions, not orders — a human approves every restock. The full honest breakdown of what that means is on the AI inventory management page.

What we deliberately don't claim

The last row of that table is on purpose. Batchly does not forecast your demand autonomously, does not place purchase orders without you, and does not pretend an AI can run your counter. Those claims sell software; they don't survive a real Friday rush. The line we hold is simple: the AI handles the interruptions — phone, texts, watching the shelf — and the humans handle the judgment and the customers in front of them. When a vendor's AI page is all future tense, that's the tell.

The register underneath

None of this works as a bolt-on, because every one of those jobs depends on register data. Front Desk can only quote stock because the inventory updates the moment a sale rings. The Usual can only learn a rhythm because it sees the purchase history. And the register itself does the thing Batchly is known for: dual pricing. Every sale shows a cash price and a card price side by side, which moves the 3.5% + $0.20 processing fee onto the card price instead of your margin. Payments are by Batchly, built into the same system — one vendor, one screen, one support line. Orders land in one place for the same reason: a delivery order taken on the phone or by text sits in the Orders tab beside your store-page and WooCommerce orders and goes onto the same nightly route (local delivery). See how it fits your counter on the industries page — smoke shops and liquor stores are the deep dives.

What it costs next to hiring

Hiring is the alternative, so price it like hiring. A part-time person to cover the phone and the texts costs four figures a month, and typical published AI-receptionist services run $200–$2,000/mo for the phone alone — with no view into your stock or your sales. Shophand is $49.96/mo flat, on top of the $99/mo platform. Call it $148.96/mo for the register, the payments, the inventory, and the AI staff together. Then dual pricing works on the other side of the ledger: run your card volume through the card fee calculator and the bundle usually costs less than the fees you stop eating.

Questions shop owners ask

What makes a POS an AI POS system?

Working capabilities, not a roadmap. Our test: can the AI do a real job in the store today — answer the phone, take a text order, text a regular when their usual is due, flag low stock? Batchly's AI bundle ships all four. If a vendor's AI page only describes what is coming, that is a blog post, not a product.

Does the AI phone agent use my real inventory?

Yes. It reads the same inventory your register updates the moment a sale rings, so a stock or price answer is right as of the last sale. Orders it takes, pickup or delivery, land in your Orders queue, and the transcript of every call is in your dashboard. It also handles SMS conversations on the same store number.

Can the AI replace my cashier?

No, and we do not claim it can. The AI covers the phone, the texts, and the watching — the jobs that interrupt whoever is behind the counter. People still ring sales. We also do not claim autonomous forecasting or automatic purchase orders: reorder suggestions wait for a human to approve them.

How much does the AI cost?

Shophand is a flat $49.96 a month on top of the $99 a month platform. For comparison, typical published AI-receptionist services alone run $200 to $2,000 a month — and they cannot see your inventory or your register.

Does it work with dual pricing?

Yes — it is all one register. Dual pricing shows a cash price and a card price on every sale, moving the 3.5% plus $0.20 card fee onto the card price, while the AI staff work the phone and the texts on top of the same system and the same inventory.