Coffee shop POS

A coffee shop POS built for small tickets

A latte and a scone is a $9 ticket. On tickets that small, card fees take a bigger slice than they do anywhere else. Batchly lets you decide, per sale, who covers the fee, and rings it fast enough for the morning line.

Most point-of-sale systems were designed around big-basket retail. A cafe is the opposite: dozens of tiny transactions an hour, a handful of core drinks that move all day, and a fee structure where every fixed $0.20 per swipe is felt. Batchly is built for that shape of business, so the register works for the drip line, not against it.

Small tickets change the fee math

The processing fee is 3.5% + $0.20 per card sale. The percentage barely moves; the flat $0.20 is what stings. On a $4 cortado, that flat twenty cents outweighs the percentage. Watch how the fee shrinks as a share of the ticket the bigger the order gets:

Run 300 card tickets a day at a $6 average and you are handing roughly $3,690 a month to processing. Dual pricing is how you decide who covers that money instead of just eating it by default. See the full breakdown on the card fees explainer, or run your own numbers in the card fee calculator.

Dual pricing at the espresso bar

Dual pricing is Batchly's differentiator, and it fits a cafe cleanly. Every drink shows two prices side by side: the lower cash price and the card price. The customer picks how they pay. You choose the mode on each sale, right on the register:

• Absorb — the shop eats the fee. On a $5.50 latte you keep about $5.11.
• Pass — the customer covers the fee. Cash price $5.50, card price $5.89. Cash payers get the discount.
• Split — the fee is halved between you and the customer.

Because it is framed as a cash discount, the lower price is the cash price, which is the compliant model in all 50 states. Surcharging is a different, more restricted approach. We are not your lawyers, so confirm your setup with your processor and counsel and see is cash discounting legal.

Tips that land on the right hand

The tip prompt appears on the customer-facing display (or on the register if you do not run one) before the card is charged, so the terminal takes one tip-inclusive amount and a customer can tip whether they pay cash price or card price. Tips are tracked apart from sales, so barista totals stay clean and the close-out at the end of a shift is a number you can trust, not a guess.

Regulars, and The Usual

A coffee shop lives on regulars. Add Shophand, the optional AI staff bundle, and The Usual turns that into repeat revenue: it texts a regular right before their usual bag of beans runs out, they reply YES, and it is paid and bagged at the counter. The same bundle's Front Desk answers calls and texts even during the 8am rush.

Speed for the morning line

The register keeps your ~20 core drinks one tap away, so the line moves. Inventory, dual pricing, tips, and payments are one system, not four that need reconciling at night. When beans or cups run low, the same screen that rang the sale shows you what to reorder.

Coffee shop POS questions

How much are card fees on a $5 coffee?

At 3.5% + $0.20, a $5.00 latte carries about a $0.38 processing fee. Because of the fixed $0.20 per swipe, that is roughly 7.5% of the ticket. The smaller the ticket, the bigger the bite, which is exactly why choosing who covers the fee matters most in a cafe.

Is cash discounting legal for a coffee shop?

Batchly presents dual pricing as a cash discount: the cash price is the lower one, and the card price is shown right beside it. Cash discounting is permitted in all 50 states. Surcharging is a different model and is capped or restricted in some states. This is not legal advice; confirm the setup with your processor and counsel and check your state's rules.

Can customers still tip when they pay the card price?

Yes. The tip prompt appears on the customer display before the charge, so a customer can leave a tip whether they pay the cash price or the card price; the terminal then takes one tip-inclusive amount. Tipping is a per-store switch in Terminal Settings, and tips are tracked separately from sales so your baristas' totals stay clean at close.

Do I need new hardware to run Batchly?

Batchly runs in the browser on the hardware you already have, and pairs with a supported card terminal for card-present payments. Card data stays on the terminal and the gateway; Batchly only ever sees the amount and the transaction ID.

What does Batchly cost?

Batchly is $99 a month per store, no percentage of your sales, and on processing we match or beat any published quote. You start with a 21-day free trial, no card required. See the pricing page for the current plan details.