What Talstok costs
Test shops are free, and online card payments go into your own Stripe account at Stripe’s own rates. Plans for each kind of shop are coming, so that you pay only for the parts you use.
From £20 a month
For each shop that takes real money. What each plan includes is being decided.
What you pay, and when
Talstok bills each shop that takes real money once a month.
| For | Price |
|---|---|
| Each shop that takes real money Paid on the day you set up billing, then on that date each month. | From £20 a month |
| Each test shop Never billed. Nothing in it is real: no money moves, and it never emails a customer. | £0 |
| Each member of staff Never billed. The price is per shop, not per person. | £0 |
Plans for each kind of shop
Coming, and not decided yet. This page will list each plan, the add-ons and their prices once they are set.
- Coming
A plan for the way you trade
A starting set of parts for each kind of shop, or for a shop that trades in more than one way.
- Coming
Add-ons on top
Add the parts you need on top of your plan, and pay only for what you use.
Switch parts on and off today
A shop already turns parts such as the till, trade-ins and batches on or off, in Settings.
What Talstok does today
Which plan each part comes in is not decided yet.
- The till. Cash, card machine, bank transfer and cheque, with emailed receipts and the day’s takings.
- Stock control. Stocktakes, low-stock levels, suppliers, purchase orders, batches and expiry dates.
- The online shop. Collections, search, a basket and Stripe Checkout, selling the till’s own stock.
- Buying second-hand. Grades, buy prices and grading questions, published for a website of your own to show.
- Repairs and services. A price list of the jobs you do, per job or per unit.
- For developers. A REST API, and an MCP server for AI assistants.
Coming, and not priced yet
Each is planned, and none is available yet.
- Coming
The page builder
Design your shop’s website from templates and sections. No developer needed, and full control if you have one.
- Coming
Every channel, one stock
Your stock and orders kept in step across the other places you sell.
- Coming
Appointments
Bookings, coming to the same system as your stock and payments. For salons, clinics, repairers and anyone who sells their time.
- Coming
Delivery and telephone orders
Orders taken by phone, and orders you deliver locally, will sit in one list with your online and counter orders. For takeaways and any business that delivers.
- Coming
Automatic reorder emails
When an item falls to its reorder point, an order will be emailed to its supplier, for shops that switch it on.
- Coming
Tablet and desktop apps
Apps for tablets and desktop computers, coming later. Today Talstok runs in a web browser on both.
What card payments cost
Card fees are set by the payment company, and you pay them to that company.
Online, through Stripe
1.5% + 20p for a standard UK card, at Stripe’s published rate. The money goes into your own Stripe account, and Stripe charges you its fee.
At the counter, on your card machine
Your card machine provider’s rate. Take the payment on your machine and choose Card machine at the till, so the sale shows how it was paid.
Cash, bank transfer and cheque
Recorded at the till, with no payment company in between. A shop that takes only cash needs no payment account at all.
Stripe’s UK rate for a standard card, read at stripe.com/gb/pricing on 5 October 2026. Other cards, such as overseas cards, cost more, and Stripe sets and changes its own prices.
What a small shop really pays a month
Software only, for a shop selling online and at a counter, from the platforms’ own pages and those of the hosts and apps they need, read on 5 October 2026.
| Platform | Lean | Growing |
|---|---|---|
| Talstok What each plan includes is being decided. Talstok has no email marketing, reviews, loyalty or subscriptions today. | from £20 | from £20 |
| Shopify The Grow plan, POS Pro for the till, a paid theme, and apps for reviews, email, subscriptions, bundles, SEO and loyalty. | £20 | about £234 |
| Wix The Business plan and Klaviyo for email, with Wix’s own reviews and loyalty apps (about £60 if neither adds a charge) or Judge.me and Smile (about £83). | £17 to £26 | about £60 to £83 |
| WooCommerce Hosting at its renewal price, a paid theme, paid extensions, security, email and a card reader. | £15 | about £126 |
| Squarespace The Plus plan, email campaigns and a Square till linked by SKU IQ. No bundles or loyalty. | £18 | about £55 |
| BigCommerce A plan set by caps on your sales, a Square till linked by SKU IQ, reviews, loyalty and email. | £75 | £155 to £321 |
| Square Online with Square POS Square for Retail Plus at the till. Marketing and loyalty add-ons not priced. | £21 | about £70 |
Card fees cost more than a lean bill
On £10,000 a month of card takings, fees came to about £186 to £226 on every plan whose rates are all published (Squarespace does not publish its counter rate on its Core plan). That is more than the lean software bill everywhere. With Talstok, the same shop would pay Stripe about £120 for its online sales, and about £190 in all if its counter machine charges 1.75%.
They include things Talstok does not have
The growing figures cover email marketing, product reviews, loyalty schemes and subscriptions. Talstok has none of them today, so a shop that needs them would pay for another service on top.
The example shop takes £10,000 a month by card: £6,000 online in 150 orders and £4,000 at the counter in 200 sales. Lean is the cheapest plan that sells online and at a counter, on free tiers. Growing adds what is listed under each name, including a paid theme on Shopify and WooCommerce. Talstok’s figure is its starting price. Rivals’ prices are without VAT where the company says so (Squarespace’s page does not say), so a shop that is not VAT registered may need to add 20% to them. Each rival’s figure includes about £1 a month for a domain. A Talstok shop has an address on Talstok’s domain. If you want a domain of your own, you buy it yourself for about £1 a month, and we connect it for you. Dollar prices are turned into pounds at $1 = £0.7562, from the European Central Bank’s rates on 5 October 2026. The workings, line by line, are in the true cost of an online shop.
Questions
How much does a POS system cost?
Three things make up the cost: a monthly fee for the software, the equipment, and a fee on each card payment. On 5 October 2026, till software for a small UK shop ran from nothing a month (Square POS, the Zettle app) to £49 a month (Square for Retail Plus, SumUp Point of Sale Pro), and £75 to £229 a month for Lightspeed Retail. Square’s card reader was £19 and its countertop Register £699, both plus VAT. In-person card fees were 1.69% at SumUp (pay as you go) and 1.75% at Square and Zettle.
Talstok costs from £20 a month for each shop that takes real money. It runs in a web browser on a computer or tablet you already have. Card fees are Stripe’s online, and your card machine provider’s at the counter.
What is the cheapest POS system for a small business in the UK?
On the monthly fee alone, the free ones. On 5 October 2026, Square POS and the Zettle app cost nothing a month and earned their money on card fees instead: 1.75% of each in-person card payment. Loyverse was free too, with paid add-ons from £5 to £20 a month per store.
Which costs least overall depends on how much you take by card. Talstok costs from £20 a month for each shop that takes real money, and online card payments go into your own Stripe account at Stripe’s own rates.
Is there a free trial?
A test shop is the trial, and it is free. Signing up on this site is not open yet, so write to contact@talstok.com and we set one up for you. Then add your own products and sell at its till and through its website. Nothing in it is real: no money moves, and it never emails a customer.
A live shop has no free period. Its first monthly bill is taken on the day you set up billing.
Do I pay for each member of staff?
No. The price is per shop, not per person. Each person gets their own log-in and a role: owner, manager, packer or viewer.
I run two shops. What do I pay?
From £20 a month for each shop that takes real money, so from £40 a month for two. One business can run several shops, each with its own stock, and every test shop stays free.
Will I pay for parts my shop does not use?
Paying only for the parts you use is coming. Plans for each kind of shop, with add-ons on top, are being decided, and none of the coming parts has a price yet. This page will list the plans and their prices once they are set.
Today a shop can already switch parts such as the till, trade-ins and batches on or off, in Settings.
Where do card payments go?
Online card payments go into your own Stripe account, and Stripe charges you its fee: 1.5% + 20p for a standard UK card, read on 5 October 2026. At the counter, you take the card on your own card machine, and its provider charges its own fee.
Compared, one by one
Each page sets a rival’s prices beside ours, dated, and says where the rival is ahead.
See it with your own products
A test shop is free. Nothing in it is real: no money moves, and it never emails a customer. You pay only once a shop takes real money.