Somewhere in your till, under a menu you have probably never opened, there is a loyalty button. A sales rep may have mentioned it once. The box might even say rewards built in. So you file it under handled and get back to the line. POS means point of sale. It is the till you ring up sales on.

That is the trap.

The button is real. The loyalty feature is real. What nobody tells you is who runs it. Switching it on does not bring back a single regular. It just hands you a second job behind the counter, on top of the one you already have.

This guide puts the three tills most cafes run side by side: what their loyalty actually does, what it costs, and the one line that quietly decides everything. No spin.

The three tills, side by side

All prices below are as of June 2026. Prices change often, so please check the current price on each company page before you decide.

Swipe sideways to compare all seven columns →

Till	Has a loyalty feature?	Rough monthly cost	How it works	Does the customer need an app?	Can you message customers?	How much you set up and run
Square	Yes. Points for each visit, dollar, or item. It can act like a stamp card.	About $45 a month for each shop (as of June 2026).	The customer gives a phone number at the till. Points add up there.	No. Just a phone number. An Apple Wallet pass is optional.	Simple texts are included. Real marketing is a separate paid tool you run.	You do it all yourself. You write and send every message.
Lightspeed	Yes. Points, one point per dollar. Fully digital.	Comes inside the Core plan. About $149 a month paid yearly, or about $179 a month paid monthly (as of June 2026).	Points follow the customer across visits. You can sort customers into groups and set up auto campaigns.	Optional. There is an app called AppCard, and this one leans more on the app.	Yes. Groups and auto campaigns are built in.	You do it yourself. This one takes the most setup.
Toast	Yes. Points per visit or dollar. For restaurants only.	About $50 a month as an add on, or about $185 a month in the Marketing Essentials bundle (as of June 2026).	People join by phone or email. No wallet pass.	No. Phone or email is all it takes.	Yes. Email and text through the Toast marketing suite, packaged with loyalty and gift cards.	You do it yourself. It works only on Toast.

The one line that decides everything

Run your eye down that last column. Every till says the same thing in different words. You do it yourself.

The loyalty is built in. The work is not. You pick the rules. You design the reward. You write the texts that bring people back, and every single week you have to remember to send them. It is not a feature you flip on and forget. It is a project you now manage, forever, in between making drinks.

That is the whole thing, and it comes down to two words.

• Done by you. The till hands you the tool. You do everything else, on your own time, for as long as you own the shop.
• Done for you. We design the loyalty card, build it, brand it to look like your shop, set the rules, and send the messages that bring people back. You get a working program, not another thing on your list.

You serve the coffee. We run the program and go over the results with you. That is the difference a free month of fiddling with a built in tool never closes.

It sits beside your till, not inside it

Here it is plainly. StampKeep does not plug into your till. It does not replace it, and it does not move your sales data around. Nothing about how you ring up an order changes.

Your barista keeps using the same till, the same way, all day. StampKeep just runs alongside it. We handle the loyalty card and the dashboard on our side. Your counter stays exactly as it is today.

Switch tills and the built in one dies with it

Here is the quiet catch nobody warns you about. Each built in tool is married to its own till. Toast loyalty lives only on Toast. Square loyalty lives only on Square. The day you change your till, that program and every visit it ever tracked goes dark with it.

The card we build is not tied to your till. Move from Square to Toast next year and it keeps running without missing a stamp. Your regulars and their whole history come with you, not with the hardware.

And if your till has no loyalty at all, or you run a basic or cash setup, you still get a real program. No hardware to buy, and no jump to $45 to $185 a month just to unlock it.

StampKeep · Built and run for Montreal cafes and local food shops · Prices shown are as of June 2026 and may change · stampkeep.com