Best PCI Compliant POS Systems (2027)

The bigger claim is on validation. Square states you do not have to validate compliance yourself, and the condition attached is the thing to read carefully: Square must handle all card storage, processing and transmission. If any part of your setup touches card data outside Square, that condition breaks and your scope changes. Before you rely on it, map where card data actually flows in your business, including any legacy terminal, back-office tool or phone order process.

Breach coverage is not stated, as with every system here. Square's Level 1 status, encryption and tokenization positions and scan responsibility are also not stated in this brief. For a small business whose card data genuinely lives entirely inside Square, this is the lightest compliance burden on the page. The gaps are what you ask about before signing.

Pricing: $0/mo (Square Free). No PCI or non-compliance fees.

The weakness is quantification. Toast does not state the PCI savings in dollars, so you cannot compare the benefit against a competitor's explicit $0. Most customers is also doing work in that sentence: ask whether your specific configuration falls inside that majority, because a restaurant running an unusual payment setup may not.

Breach coverage is not stated. Neither are Level 1 status, encryption and tokenization, or PCI fees in dollar terms. Entry is $0 on the Starter Kit or $69 per month. Read Toast as strong on reducing annual effort and silent on what happens if something goes wrong.

Pricing: $0/mo (Starter Kit) or $69/mo.

For a merchant who has been paying a monthly PCI or non-compliance fee elsewhere, that line alone may justify the comparison. Published PCI fees are the easiest cost on this page to verify and the easiest to forget to check.

What Helcim does not state is whether it helps you complete the questionnaire. Square says you may not need one. Toast says most customers submit nothing. Helcim says the self-assessment costs $0, which is a different claim: free is not the same as done for you. Ask who completes it. Breach coverage, Level 1 status, encryption and scan responsibility are also not stated.

Pricing: $0 software. Annual PCI self-assessment $0.

For a merchant selling both online and in store, running one Level 1 platform across both channels is a scope simplification. Two systems means two sets of questions about where card data flows. One means one.

Three things are unstated and all of them matter: PCI fees, breach coverage and whether merchant scans are required. For a page about compliance cost, an unstated fee position is a question to resolve before signing, not a default of zero. Basic is $39 per month.

Pricing: Basic $39/mo.

Treat that as a feature of the disclosure, not a defect in the product. The liability position Lightspeed states openly is close to the industry default. The difference is that you can read it before signing rather than discovering it during an incident.

Enrollment with its PCI partner, Viking Cloud, is free, and naming the partner lets you research that company independently. Pricing is the highest here: Retail from $89 per month billed annually, Restaurant from $69. Encryption and tokenization positions are not stated.

Pricing: Retail from $89/mo billed annually. Restaurant from $69/mo.

That is the extent of what can be stated. Level 1 status could not be confirmed. Questionnaire help is not stated. Scan responsibility is not stated. Breach coverage is not stated. Encryption and tokenization are not stated.

Five unknowns against one confirmed benefit is a thin basis for a compliance decision. The no-PCI-fee position is real and worth having, but a fee of zero tells you nothing about who completes your SAQ or what happens after an incident. If you shortlist Loyverse, those five questions are the conversation to have before you process a card.

Pricing: free. Loyverse Payments charges no PCI fee.

The sourcing is the problem. That questionnaire help traces to a 2020 blog post. PCI DSS has moved to version 4 since then, with changed requirements and a different SAQ landscape. Five-year-old guidance on a standard that has been revised is not a current feature claim, and it should be verified before you count on it.

Three more items could not be confirmed: Level 1 status, PCI fees, and the price of the Clover Security add-on. That means you cannot budget the compliance cost of Clover from public information at all. Breach coverage, encryption and scan responsibility are not stated either. Clover is the least documented system on this page for compliance purposes, which is a finding in itself.

Pricing: Clover Security add-on, price not confirmed.