What a POS should have in 2026 (the yardstick)
- Complete collection: cards with MSI, cash, transfer and payment link — with a single reconciliation.
- Integrated CFDI billing: ticket → invoice in one step, and automatic global CFDI of counter sales.
- Real-time and multi-channel inventory: counter sales and online store sales lower the SAME stock.
- Customers on every ticket: accumulate history and loyalty, not anonymous tickets.
- Operation without internet: if the network goes down, the sale continues and synchronizes later.
- Reports that answer the owner's questions: what is sold, with what margin, who sells more, what time is appropriate.
The 7 compared
- Aura POS — Part of the complete system: charge with Aura Payments (cards, MSI, links), CFDI invoice at the moment, single inventory with online store and marketplaces, customers to the CRM and order if you are a restaurant. $599 USD/month for the entire platform. Ideal for businesses that want full POS + operation without integrations.
- Square — Global benchmark in simplicity: beautiful hardware, easy payment. Cons in LATAM: limited local tax coverage and functions; CFDI billing is not their world.
- Clip — The Mexican king of the terminal: accept cards in minutes, without a fixed income. Con: it is charging more than POS — inventory, billing and customers are basic or external. Perfect as a start, short as a system.
- Shopify POS — Excellent if your center is the Shopify store and the physical is secondary. Cons: price in dollars per location + apps; CFDI via third parties.
- Aspel Caja/SAE — Mexican desktop tradition, strong in fiscal matters. Cons: experience from another decade, local installation, separate modules and doorbells.
- Bsale — Popular in Chile and Peru, invoices and local billing well resolved. Against: minor presence in Mexico; operation beyond POS limited.
- Niche POS by turn (pure restaurateur, pure pharmacy) — Actual vertical depth. Con: they marry you with a single line of business and tend to isolate you from the rest of the operation (accounting, ecommerce, CRM).
Which according to your turn and moment
- Retail with an online store or plans to have one: Aura or Shopify POS — the single inventory decides; If you also invoice CFDI and use WhatsApp, Aura.
- Restaurant or cafeteria: POS with orders and recipes that discount inputs — Aura Restaurant or a pure vertical if you accept the island.
- Booth, fair or startup with low volume: Clip or Square — get paid now, migrate to the system when the volume demands it.
- Traditional Accountant Business Clinging to Aspel: Evaluate the True Cost of Desktop Island vs. Cloud.
The expensive mistake: choosing the POS isolated from everything
The pattern that costs the most money in SMEs: POS from one brand, online store from another, billing from a third, WhatsApp on the cell phone and "the system" in Excel where someone concentrates everything by hand every night. Every border between tools is double capture, outdated inventories and errors.
The right question is not "which POS is better?" but "where is my entire operation going to live?" If the answer is a single system, the right POS is the one that already comes connected to inventory, billing, customers and channels — exactly the Aura design, which you can try for 14 days for $14 USD with your real products.
Aura Resources Mentioned
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ERP, CRM, point of sale, billing, WhatsApp and more — in a single system with AI that works for you. Try 14 days for $14.
Start your trial →Frequently asked questions
How much does a good point of sale cost?
They range from $0 + commission per transaction (Clip, Square) to $300-800 MXN/month for simple subscriptions, to complete platforms. Always add: monthly payment + collection commissions + CFDI stamps + the extra tools that the POS does not include.
Do I need special hardware?
Less and less: a modern POS runs on a tablet, laptop or cell phone, with a thermal ticket printer (~$1,500-3,000 MXN) and optional code reader. The payment terminal depends on your payment processor.
What happens to my sales if the internet goes down?
A serious POS operates offline and synchronizes when the connection returns. Ask it explicitly before hiring — discovering it on a Saturday with a line is very expensive.
Can the POS issue the global SAT invoice?
Those that integrate billing, yes: they group the tickets without invoice for the period and stamp the global CFDI automatically. In Aura it is a configuration; in POS without fiscal module is a monthly manual job for your accountant.