Dripos is a point-of-sale (POS) software for restaurants, that includes includes tool for other areas of operation like delivery, mobile orders, marketing, and team management.
Dripos syncs between all ordering platforms, offering a dedicated customer ordering mobile app and the ability to dispatch your own delivery drives or dripos network for drivers.
The administrative side of Dripos includes integrated analytics, branded expense cards, and full accounting software.
$149
per month
Podium
Score 7.1 out of 10
N/A
Podium, formerly Repdrive, is a ratings and review management platform from the company of the same name in Provo, Utah.
$249
per month
Square POS
Score 9.1 out of 10
N/A
Square POS is a point-of-sale software solution for restaurants, retail, or appointment-based businesses. It features numerous inventory (or menu) management and control features, and options that allow customers to pay in any way they want or can.
$10
per each additional reader; first reader free
Pricing
Dripos
Podium
Square POS
Editions & Modules
Flat Price
$149
per month
Podium Essentials
$249
per month 3 users
Podium Standard
$409
per month Unlimited users
Podium Professional
$599
per month Unlimited users
Each Transaction
2.6% + $0.10
per transaction
Square Reader for magstripe
$10
per each additional reader; first reader free
Square Stand for contactless and chip
$16
per month
Square Terminal
$27
per month
Square Register
$39
per 24 months
Square Reader for contactless and chip
$49
per reader
Square Point of Sale
Free
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Dripos
Podium
Square POS
Free Trial
Yes
Yes
Yes
Free/Freemium Version
No
No
Yes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
No
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
No setup fee
No setup fee
Additional Details
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More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Dripos
Podium
Square POS
Considered Multiple Products
Dripos
Verified User
Administrator
Chose Dripos
Dripos is an affordable upgrade from Square POS, but still less costly than alternatives like Toast or Upserve, and does not require purchase of any specialized equipment outside of card readers (main software works on any iOS or Android devices, and you can mix and match …
Dripos is a great alternative to Square POS in most use cases. Although the monthly fee is higher than Square's "free," the fact that so many other features are included in that price — loyalty, online ordering, scheduling, team messaging, even payroll — makes it a much better value than paying for those add-ons within Square. It is best suited for quick-serve places with limited menus (I wouldn't yet suggest running a full-service, waiters-at-tables restaurant with it) and employee teams with no more than 20 per location (updates to scheduler may change this assessment soon enough).
Podium is well suited for several types of businesses. If you are an entrepreneur or small business owner, Podium would be a great way for you to ask that customers leave you a review online sharing their awesome experience. For medium to large businesses, Podium review invites can be automated through the company's customer management system, allowing the use of Podium to be simple and not timely, even with a large customer base. It may not be appropriate for a large company to manually send out individual review invites
Square POS is by far the easiest POS software to use at events and train additional team members on - even with temporary or first-time employees. It's easy to see how each event is doing in live time. It gives the event manager a real-time view of revenue earned. Its really easy to create/manage/delete users to keep the platform secure.
Maintains conversations indefinitely, so we are able to go back to confirm details from conversations.
Provides the ability for our company to have a 'team' messaging platform where we can communicate with one another via single person to a single person, groups where we can add/subtract members of the group... this is invaluable to our organization.
Until today(!), we could 'share' or forward a message to one another; oddly, that feature disappeared just today, so I'm hoping it's a glitch!
Mobile transactions (not like from a phone, but in terms of the ability to physically relocate rapidly).
Simple setup.
Generally uncomplicated pricing.
Widespread customer familiarity: because it's so regularly in use in our industry (musicians/entertainment professionals), people know and trust it in a way that you might not with a different provider.
Account manager communications: I had been asking my Podium account manager for integration with our CRM tool for over 8 months before my account manager fell silent. After another 6 months, I proactively reached out only to find out that the integration had been in Beta for months and 8 other companies had already integrated. It was frustrating that my account manager did not remember a key request and make the Beta available to me the minute that it was open.
Again, Podium has been so wonderful in the year and a half we have been using it, we are able to integrate it with our CRM and use alot of the available features. The most helpful has been getting TONS of reviews on MULTIPLE sites through Podium!
I don't really foresee anything being able to dislodge Square from our organization—we're not evangelists or anything like that—it's just the best solution we've found for our use case. Being able to quickly handle transactions from customers and then track all of those sales for analysis/bookkeeping later on.
While giving our clients the ability to leave a review was there, we had much worse results and got fewer reviews through the Podium portal than we did by sending our clients simple email requests, or simply having our service staff ask for a review while still on the clients' job sites.
We find Square POS is very user friendly. Its interface is customizable to our needs and very easy to use. Before we adopted Square POS, we used a combination of solutions from different manufacturer to try and achieve a portion of the functionality that Square POS provides under only 1 login
I have to send an email to get information. They have a chat system but I end up having to go through my rep for account questions. It was a little frustrating to not have a direct phone number to call with questions. I would like to see a helpline added.
An admission - I have NEVER had to use Square POS support. The system is seamless, it just works! I have never had any queries about how the system worked as everything is so clearly laid out. I have never had any problems with payments. If their support systems are anywhere near as good as their software, I think we'll be in good hands.
Dripos is an affordable upgrade from Square POS, but still less costly than alternatives like Toast or Upserve, and does not require purchase of any specialized equipment outside of card readers (main software works on any iOS or Android devices, and you can mix and match these). Their customer service and tech support are both top-notch and more responsive than any others I've experienced.
We use Digital Air Strike at our two GM dealerships because it is one of a small list of reputation management companies authorized by GM as part of their SFE program. Digital Air Strike surveys our customers and invites them to write a review about our dealership. It is not as effective or flexible as Podium so we have been using Podium at those dealerships alongside Digital Air Strike. We also recently started a trial use of ReplyPro which is a service that monitors review sites and writes customized responses to positive reviews and suggested responses to negative reviews. I'd like to see Podium add this as part of their service so we can consolidate 3rd party vendors and manage every aspect of online reputation management from one place.
We only used Square POS while we were getting set up with Authorize.Net. It isn't as flashy or recognized by the general public, but in our industry, that isn't a priority. We do very large transactions so the higher rates and fees from Square add up insanely quickly making the lower rates and fees from Authorize.Net the nail in Square's coffin for us.
Its easy to scale to different departments as needed. We initially began using it to solve one problem and as new features became available it was easy to scale this and include other departments who could benefit from its tools
I am glad there are card readers now, sales team members too often try to just send a request instead of taking payment onsite.
It's made capturing messaging leads much easier.
It's worth the cost but if it did a few more things it would be worth a lot more to us. Document signatures, surveying after jobs, even geotagging of photos/reviews for SEO
The opportunity cost of waiting for payments and manually bringing them to a bank means that we don't have to visit our bank branch. That alone saves us several hours each month.
We can use ordinary computers and mobile devices with Square instead of paying for expensive software or terminals.
Our clients appreciate not having to process payments to us, and anything that helps our clients and makes them happy carries more import than I can explain in this space.
