The honest comparison — including the question nobody selling hardware asks: does your truck actually need a POS, or just a way to take cards and orders?
A POS earns its keep when you need staff permissions, complex inventory, or table service. A food truck window mostly needs speed. Many trucks run leaner: customers order and pay from their phone (order-ahead or window QR), orders land on a dashboard, and the only "hardware" is the phone already in your pocket.
Food Truck OS isn't a POS — it's the layer that makes whichever processor you pick work harder: your website, online ordering, and QR-to-pay connect to Stripe or Square (your choice, or both). Keep the card reader you like; skip the hardware you don't need. Flat monthly pricing, no per-order commission like the delivery apps.
On $250,000 of annual sales, the difference between direct ordering (processing only, ~2.9%) and a delivery app (25% commission) is roughly $55,000 a year. Whatever POS you choose, owning your ordering channel is the biggest fee decision you'll make.
Square is the most common — free basic software, cheap card readers, works offline. Toast and Clover are heavier restaurant-grade systems that some multi-truck operations grow into.
No. A truck needs three things: a way to take cards, a way to track orders, and a menu customers can see. A payment processor (Stripe or Square) plus online/QR ordering covers all three without dedicated hardware.
Card processing runs roughly 2.6%–3.5% per transaction everywhere. Watch the other line items: monthly software fees, hardware costs, and delivery-app commissions of 15–30% — that last one is the margin killer.
Food Truck OS builds your website, takes online orders, and keeps every permit in a vault. From $29/mo.
Start your free 14-day trialGeneral information, not legal or financial advice. Verify requirements with your local licensing authority.