Ginger POS — everything the restaurant runs on
Floor plans and split checks, a kitchen display, online ordering, reservations, kiosk and QR ordering, gift cards and loyalty, staff scheduling, reporting — all in the free POS. Other systems sell most of these as separate monthly add-ons; here they are the plan. Two add-ons are paid: AI phone ordering and delivery-app integration.
Local and Cloud, Working Together
The POS runs on the Ginger Box in your restaurant — a small server plugged into your router. Taking orders, printing kitchen tickets, splitting checks, taking cash: all of it happens locally, without touching the internet. So a brief drop in the connection does not stop you taking orders or printing to the kitchen. Card payments and online orders do need the internet, and they resume when it comes back.
Meanwhile the Box syncs every transaction up to the cloud. From home, from another location, from a holiday — open the console on your phone and see today's sales, individual transactions, shifts and reports. You do not have to be in the building, and nobody has to text you a photo of the register.
While the connection is down, what happens on the floor is recorded on the Box and syncs up on its own once it returns, so nothing goes missing from your reports. What you get is the pair that usually forces a trade-off: the ordering side does not sit on someone else's server, and the books are still readable from anywhere.
Runs in Your Restaurant
The POS runs on the Ginger Box — a small server that lives in your restaurant — and your own iPads, tablets, or laptops are the ordering screens. No app to install, no proprietary terminals — hardware provided for eligible restaurants. If the internet goes out, you keep taking orders and printing kitchen tickets.
Point of Sale
Visual floor plan with drag-and-drop tables. Fast order entry with modifiers, split checks, voids, comps, and discounts. Multi-printer routing sends items to the right kitchen station.
Here: included. Elsewhere: split checks and station routing start on the $49–$69 plan tier (Square Plus, Toast Point of Sale).
Kitchen Display System
Tickets on a screen at each station instead of paper — hold, rush, mark a line done, and the ticket clears. Runs on any iPad or Android tablet you already own, on the Box's local network, so it keeps working through an internet outage. No per-screen fee, ever.
Here: included. Elsewhere: $20–$30 per screen per month plus the screen itself (Square, Lightspeed, Clover); about $25 plus $499–$899 hardware on Toast (reported).
Online Ordering
Your own branded ordering website — customers order directly from you. Orders flow into your POS and print to the kitchen. Just a flat $1 platform fee per order, no percentage cuts.
Here: included. Elsewhere: $75–$249 a month (Toast Digital Storefront, reported; ChowNow), or a share of every order.
Self-Serve Kiosk & QR Ordering
Guests order from a kiosk screen or scan a QR code at the table. Those orders land in the same POS and print to the same kitchen stations as everything else.
Here: included. Elsewhere: $30–$50 per device per month (Square); about $69 a month on Toast (reported).
Reservations & Waitlist
Take bookings by phone or online and quote walk-in waits from the same book. Large parties arrive as a callback request rather than an automatic confirm, so a twenty-top never surprises the room.
Here: included. Elsewhere: $50–$199 a month (Toast Tables); the big booking platforms add a fee per seated cover (reported).
Gift Cards, Loyalty & Promotions
Sell and redeem gift cards at the register and online. Run a points programme for regulars, time-boxed promotions, and promo codes on your ordering site — all in the same POS, so a discount set once applies everywhere.
Here: included. Elsewhere: $45 a month per location (Square Loyalty); $185 a month inside Toast Marketing Essentials, which is the only way Toast sells it.
Delivery App Integration
DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Grubhub orders flow directly into your POS and print to the kitchen — no platform tablets, no re-keying. Marketplace sales appear in your reports alongside walk-in and online orders. A $99/month add-on.
Voice AI Phone Ordering
AI answers your phone 24/7 in natural language. Takes orders, confirms by text, and sends them to your POS and kitchen printers. Transfers to staff when needed. $250/mo add-on.
Staff Management
PIN-based login. Boss and staff roles control who sees what. Add or remove team members in seconds.
Reporting & Analytics
Daily, monthly, and custom date range reports. Revenue, payment mix, online vs walk-in, staff performance. Visual charts you can actually read.
Bilingual Chinese & English
Every screen, ticket, and receipt in both languages. Kitchen tickets in Chinese so your cooks understand instantly. One-tap language switch.
Here: included. Elsewhere: Toast offers Simplified Chinese per device; most systems do not offer it at all.
Payments & Tips
Credit card processing as low as ~2% + 5¢ through our payment partners (subject to volume). Cash with auto-calculated change. Tips keyed in at time of transaction and summed automatically. Split payments.
AI Menu Setup in 30 Minutes
Send a photo or a PDF of your menu and it comes back built — items, sizes, modifiers, in both languages — ready to edit rather than typed from scratch. The step that stalls most POS launches is the one we do for you.
Bought one at a time, this is a $170–$370 monthly bill
Most POS companies sell the plan and then sell the features: a kitchen display per screen, a kiosk per device, loyalty per location, reservations per month. Ginger has one plan and everything below is in it. The right-hand column is the whole point.
| Feature | Typical price elsewhere | With Ginger |
|---|---|---|
| Kitchen display | $20–$30 per screen per month, plus the screen (Square, Lightspeed, Clover) | Included — on your own iPad |
| Self-serve kiosk | $30–$50 per device per month (Square); about $69 a month on Toast (reported) | Included |
| Online ordering | $75–$249 a month (Toast Digital Storefront reported, ChowNow), or a cut of each order | Included — $1 an order, paid by the customer |
| Reservations & waitlist | $50–$199 a month (Toast Tables); per-cover fees on the big platforms (reported) | Included |
| Gift cards, loyalty & promotions | $45 a month per location (Square); $185 a month inside Toast Marketing Essentials | Included |
| Split checks & station routing | The $49–$69 plan tier (Square Plus, Toast Point of Sale) | Included — on the $0 plan |
| Bilingual Chinese & English | Simplified Chinese per device on Toast; not offered by most | Included throughout |
One screen, one kiosk, loyalty and reservations added to a Square Plus plan is about $174 a month; the same on Toast is about $373 a month, before hardware and before online ordering, which Toast quotes separately.
Competitor figures are from each vendor's own pricing page, read September 2026, except those marked reported, which are third-party because the vendor publishes no price. Sources and the full working are on the add-on costs guide.