Why ShopKeep is Priced the Way It Is

When I opened my first retail store over 11 years ago, my point of sale system cost me well over $10,000.

Although very worrisome for me at the time as a small business owner, I understood how important a POS system would be to my business, so I took on the financial risk and made the purchase. Fortunately for me, I was able to grow the business and achieved relative success at it, but that initial feeling from that high upfront expense certainly played into my decision of how we price ShopKeep.

The fact is that many aspiring small business owners forego the technology that helps arm them with the tools that they absolutely need to thrive because of the huge financial barrier. I wanted to ensure that other small businesses had a fighting chance and could operate in similar ways as their larger competitors. So here’s the reasoning behind each aspect of our pricing:

Software

I wanted to provide two important benefits to small business owners by structuring our software pricing the way we did. Firstly, I wanted to give them an opportunity to fully try out every aspect of the software before committing any capital to it whatsoever. When you’re opening a new business, you cannot anticipate every situation that will arise, nor can you know for certain what you’ll be doing with the system and which aspects you’ll utilize most. Our free trial is designed to let you try every aspect of ShopKeep, from creating and editing inventory, to running test transactions, to viewing every report. There are no limitations to our trial.

The second benefit is affordable software that business owners don’t have to save a fortune for to pay upfront. Our software price is $49 per month and that’s it. There are no asterisks or hidden details with that.

Hardware

I mentioned earlier that I had to spend more than $10,000 just to get started with my first point of sale system. Software license fees were a portion of that, but the bulk of it was for the hardware. From the servers in the basement to the monitors at the counter, every piece of point of sale hardware costs a fortune. To make matters worse, you didn’t have the ability to customize your setup, or choose the equipment that you could afford or was best for your store decor. It was all expensive, clunky, and uniform hardware elements.

We’ve hand-selected the best hardware partners to make it as affordable as possible, and to offer multiple options for your setup. You can choose from several iPad models, receipt printers, cash drawers, all the way down to the color of your barcode scanner. You can be up and running for as little as $649 without any limitations to your system.

Commitment

When I was opening my business, I had to make a POS decision that I was certain of because it was an expensive upfront investment and I had sign a service contract. I can tell you that the only thing worse than having a faulty system is being stuck with it. So when we were developing our pricing and service terms, it was absolutely important that we weren’t locking our customers in to anything. You can cancel your ShopKeep service any time.

We have an entire team of engineers and product managers who are responsible for conducting research with our customers and improving the product every day, at no additional cost to you. We operate as a SaaS company, charging a monthly fee with no contract, because we want our customers to feel like we’re earning their business each and every day. Every interaction is an opportunity to please our customers, but also a risk of losing them, which drastically improves our customer service.

Support

ShopKeep was born from personal frustrations that I could no longer deal with from my old point of sale, so it’s without question that support is the essence of our business. It’s important to me personally, that we not only provide the best service with every interaction, but that we also make it a free benefit of working with this company. When our servers crashed at my store, I was working with a company that charged extra for phone support. It’s baffling that a company can offer a software service that is vital to business operations but expect to be paid when things go wrong. As a small business owner, you don’t have an incidental budget set aside for fixing your technology problems. With ShopKeep, you can call at any time, day or night, seven days a week – at no additional cost.

Today, the point of sale space is crowded and there are many companies that promise to look after small businesses, but continue to prey on new business owners with hefty upfront costs and very little improvements along the way. A good rule of thumb is to work with companies that don’t require the bulk of your money upfront, and challenge them to work for your business each and every day. If there’s anything that you can take away from this, it’s that times have changed, and you no longer have to take the financial risk that I did with my $10,000 system, just to open your doors.

Jason Richelson

Jason Richelson opened a specialty food and wine store in 2004, which he grew to employ more than 70 people in the Brooklyn and lower Manhattan branches. As an experienced retailer, Jason had many problems with his PC-based POS system, essentially crippling the business and inspiring him to design ShopKeep's iPad point of sale system.