Vend is one of the largest names in the point of sale (EPOS) industry offering a comprehensive point of sale software taking pride in its usability, making their system useful for seasoned retail pros or relative newbies.
Vend and AirPOS are very similar in terms of EPOS solutions, both focus on the retail sector, the features and integrations are very similar, and we target similar-sized businesses. However, there are a few key things that set AriPOS and Vend apart.
In the following article, we compare Vend Pro (£89 per month) vs AirPOS Pro (£39 per month). By the end of this article, we hope to have answered the question “Does spending more with Vend make sense for the independent UK and Irish retailers?”
Five reasons why small retailers choose AirPOS vs Vend
1. Best in industry multi-channel sales
AirPOS is one of the best, if not the best multi-channel sales platforms for small retailers. We’ve worked hard to integrate our system with Shopify so that you can sell online, and in-store with ease.
This means the stock is synced between your ecommerce store and your physical store, this even works if you have multiple physical stores.
Even better again, we don’t charge you any additional fees to set up our Shopify EPOS integration and there are no monthly fees, unlike most in the industry, as we believe you should be able to sell online and in-store with ease.
See how Micro Beers Brewery and Merchants of fun use the AirPOS Shopify integration to sell online and in-store.
2. More value for money
AirPOS simply offers two pricing options, AirPOS, at £29.99/pm and AirPOS Pro at £39.99/pm.
With both subscriptions, you will have full visibility across your inventory, access to detailed real-time reports, renowned customer support and all integration options.
With AirPOS Pro you will be able to reward customers with custom loyalty schemes, build unique customer accounts and importantly future proof your business with our Shopify integration (coming soon).
It’s simple, transparent and you can sell with the confidence that you will not be met with additional charges or outages.
Vend offers multiple pricing plans designed to meet a number of business types dependent on their size. Their lite plan starting at £59/pm offers a more limited set of features that allow users to manage their business, however, if your turnover is more than 15k per month you’ll need to upgrade plans.
Also, if you want to access in-depth reports, integrate with ecommerce, or add additional locations you must move to their pro plan starting at £89/pm.
AirPOS Pro pricing is considerably more affordable than Vend and with almost comparable features, it’s one of the main reasons our customers decide to choose us.
3. Better business reporting
Accurate reporting is fundamental to the success of any business no matter the size. Your reports allow you to have complete visibility across your business and make decisions strategically.
This is exactly why AirPOS gives you access to all of your reports no matter the subscription cost. It’s understood that even for a small business you will need to have access to all of your data rather than use it as a tool to drive you to a higher pricing tier.
Vend offers reports at all pricing tiers but reserves its advanced reporting to its higher-tiered subscriptions. On Vend’s basic plan, you can see top-level data but you won’t be able to drill down into information that will help you with future planning.
If you require better reporting you will have to use the pro package which is quite a large jump in cost.
4. Support
Support is one of the most valuable features you need from your Point of Sale provider.
With Vend Pro you will receive free support 24/7 across phone, live chat and through their dedicated help centre.
AirPOS also offers free support 7 days a week 9 am to Midnight. Customers can contact the AirPOS support team through the phone, live chat as well as have 24-hour access to our dedicated knowledge base.
Both systems offer similar packages in terms of support but where they differ is the quality of support.
AirPOS has maintained a 99.9% customer satisfaction rating for support, ensuring customer queries are resolved as soon as possible.
Due to Vend’s size and wide geographic spread, it has become harder for them to manage their support queries with many customers complaining of long waiting times and poor customer service.
Particularly when Vend suffers from an outage, retailers have complained that their point of sale was unusable for several days and with no way to contact the team they were met with major losses in sales.
In ten years AirPOS has never suffered an outage of this kind, unfortunately, this seems common with Vend including data losses.
Check out the AirPOS reviews and Vend reviews pages to hear what customers have to say about their systems, particularly the support they received.
5. POS hardware options
A point of sale system does not consist solely of EPOS software. In order to build a full setup, you will also need to integrate your EPOS software with quality POS Hardware.
AirPOS offers a complete retail hardware Bundle completely free of cost when you choose an annual subscription to AirPOS Pro, with no additional costs or long term contracts. After that the hardware is yours.
AirPOS also offers you the opportunity to integrate with your existing hardware if you are just looking for a software upgrade.
Vend offers their hardware through a third party StoreKit. The kit on offer is high-quality, however, be prepared to pay a premium price.
If we compare the AirPOS Pro Bundle with Vend hardware on StoreKit, expect to pay around £500 for your system, (n.b. this doesn’t include your software license).
This means that your starting price could be as high as £1000 when taking into consideration your hardware and the annual price of your software.
It’s also worth highlighting that both Vend and AirPOS work on multiple platforms, however, note that Vend does not have an Android or Windows app if you want to use your software with an existing tablet device.
Vend point of sale will work on the web browser, however, this is not ideal if you have a business with poor internet connectivity.
AirPOS offers Android, iOS and Windows apps to run on any platform, and will work with no connectivity. Simply connect to the internet before the end of the day to sync up your payments.
Which EPOS is better for small businesses?
AirPOS has been established for 11 years and has built a strong community of loyal customers. Being based in the UK it is perfectly positioned for customers both in the UK and Ireland offering support times that make sense.
AirPOS is ideal for small retailers in terms of pricing and offerings, and with the Shopify integration, it really is the best multi-channel EPOS solution for retail.
Small business owners can start a rolling monthly contract allowing them to cancel at any time, or they can avail of the free POS hardware bundle enabling them to get their business up and running at a fraction of the cost.
All of this whilst being supported by a local support team ready to walk them through the process and solve any issues they may encounter no matter how small.
Vend is a much larger company with a number of locations situated across the world.
Due to their size, it is harder for them to serve smaller businesses to the same level that a smaller company.
They cannot afford to spend the same amount of time with individual retailers and give them a personalised experience.
For smaller retailers where flexibility and affordability come into play, AirPOS offers the tools you need at a price that is perfect for all businesses. You can even try it before you buy.
