Our Expert Opinion
Helcim’s POS software offers a well-rounded suite of features for retail and simple food-service businesses. I especially appreciated its online checkout and inventory-creation tools. While not as advanced or comprehensive as alternatives like Square, Shopify or Lightspeed, Helcim’s features are plenty for most in-person, online and hybrid businesses.
Inventory Management
Helcim’s POS app includes tools to set up a detailed inventory of all your items and products. It guides you through the process of building out your catalog, setting item descriptions, images and stock counts. Helcim syncs your e-commerce and in-person sales data, plus your ordering and wholesale activity, providing up-to-date stock counts. This helps you avoid selling out of items, and if you do run out, customers see that the items are unavailable.
I liked how Helcim provides step-by-step assistance in setting up the inventory. The controls are easy to learn and sufficient for most retail businesses.
Helcim lets you build an item catalog for online or in-store inventory management.
Online Checkout
One of my favorite things about Helcim is its online storefront features. You can use premade templates and the drag-and-drop studio to build out your website with your item catalog, menu and online checkout capabilities—all without any coding. If you do have in-house programmers, you can use Helcim’s API tools to customize online checkout forms with “Buy Now” buttons, QR code payments and other fields. You can also share these items and checkout forms on social media.
Helcim also lets you offer item discounts, such as buy-one-get-one deals and other types of special pricing. These tools make Helcim a great choice for e-commerce businesses, either hybrid or those who sell entirely online.
Helcim’s templates let you build a professional-looking online storefront to sell from your app or website.
Customer Management
Helcim gives you a lot of options to customize your customers’ experience when they purchase from your online store. They can set up an online profile, which tracks their purchase history and allows them to manage things like returns. Your virtual terminal can also save customer credit card information, making future checkouts much quicker.
If you’re a client-based business, like tutoring, coaching or other services, you can automatically add client bills to invoices and send them on a routine schedule. These features act similarly to a built-in customer relationship management (CRM) system and can help you draw return buyers.
Helcim lets you provide your customers with accounts, subscriptions and memberships for a more personalized experience.
Recurring Payments and Subscriptions
With Helcim, you can charge your customers in various ways, choosing the method that works best for your business. If you provide content, coaching or any service that works on a routine schedule, you can customize a subscription or membership program. You can also add setup fees and provide the option for donations.
As with everything in Helcim, the software walks you through building these recurring payments. And from your customer’s perspective when signing up, the checkout and payment process looks professional, simple and smooth.
While some other POS systems match this functionality, they tend to be pricier than Helcim and feel more complicated to set up.
Helcim lets you offer your customers recurring payment options, like subscriptions and memberships.
POS Hardware
Helcim offers several types of POS hardware for in-person payment processing. If you don’t want to spend any money on hardware, I’d recommend Tap to Pay functionality on mobile through the Helcim app. Note that while the app is free, Tap to Pay charges 10 cents per transaction.
For more durable and professional-looking hardware, Helcim has two handheld card-reading devices: the $99 card reader is durable and super portable, connecting via Bluetooth to your smartphone, tablet or computer. If you’d like to go fully mobile, Helcim’s $349 smart terminal includes a built-in screen and automatically logs all payments in your app.
I’m a little bummed that Helcim doesn’t offer larger terminals or registers, like most other POS systems do. I also wish they offered something cheaper than $99, such as Square’s $10 card scanner.
In addition to hardware card scanners, Helcim lets you charge customers through a virtual terminal that you can operate on your laptop.
Helcim Pricing and Value
| Pricing Breakdown | Cost |
|---|---|
| Monthly Fee | Free |
| Setup Fees | $0 |
| In-Person Transaction Fee | 1.83% + 8 cents (on average) |
| Online Transaction Fee | 2.27% + 25 cents (on average) |
| Card Reader | $99 |
| Smart Terminal | $349 |
With its low transaction fees and free monthly subscription, Helcim’s POS and credit card processing software are strong value for virtually any business besides restaurants. Its interchange-plus pricing model manages to bring in-person transaction fees reliably below 2%, a rate that I haven’t seen matched by any alternative POS system.
Helcim doesn’t offer pricing tiers—just one POS software without a monthly fee—so you don’t need to worry about picking the right plan. And while the $99 card reader is more expensive than options like Square’s $10 mobile card scanner or Shopify’s $49 tap and chip card reader, Helcim’s hardware is still reasonably priced. The low transaction fees will save you way more than the cost difference in hardware anyway. Bottom line: Helcim is perhaps the most cost-effective POS and payment processing system out there.
Is Helcim Right for Your Business?
Helcim is an excellent choice for retail companies trying to keep costs low, especially those with an online store, but it’s not a good fit for restaurants or those who want advanced marketing tools, like drag-and-drop email marketing.
We recommend Helcim for:
- Companies on a budget: With no monthly fees and the lowest transaction fees published online of any payment processor, Helcim is a cost-effective choice.
- Those with an online selling presence: Helcim lets you build out an online store, connect it to your website and customize customers’ online checkout experience.
- Simplicity: Helcim’s user-friendly interface walks you through the process of setting up everything: online storefront features, inventory and invoicing.
We switched from Stripe to Helcim and process millions in online sales every year. The savings alone (close to $25,000 annually) make Helcim a fantastic value for a small business.
— Eric Turney, sales and marketing director at The Monterey Company, a B2B merch and apparel company
We do not recommend Helcim for:
- Restaurants: While Helcim can work for quick-service food places, its menu management tools aren’t as sophisticated as restaurant-focused alternatives like Toast or SkyTab.
- Companies seeking a variety of hardware styles: Helcim has card scanners, and that’s it for credit card machines. By comparison, POS alternatives like Square and Shopify have cheaper card readers, plus larger countertop options, like kiosks, which give you different ways to accept credit cards.
- Those seeking advanced marketing tools: Helcim has some marketing tools—like item promotions and discounts—but alternatives like Lightspeed and Clover have more advanced promotions and email marketing tools built in.
Featured Partners
1
Clover
$14.95 per month (plus hardware)
90 days
Versatile POS, invoicing, employee management
2
Toast
$0
No
POS built specifically for restaurants, payroll, online ordering, team and inventory management
3
KORONA POS
$59/mo
Unlimited
Inventory management, custom reporting, advanced cashier functionality, accounting integrations
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Is Helcim better than Stripe?
Helcim is more cost-effective than Stripe, because Helcim offers significantly lower transaction fees. While this is helpful for most businesses, Stripe has more advanced POS features, including marketing tools.
Is Helcim good for restaurants?
I would not recommend Helcim for restaurants, especially full-service restaurants. While Helcim’s POS system can support restaurants, it lacks restaurant-focused hardware, like kitchen display systems. Further, Helcim doesn’t include features like tip management or table management, which are helpful for restaurants.
Is Helcim free?
Yes, Helcim’s POS software and credit card processing service are free. While Helcim does charge for hardware and a transaction fee on every processed payment, there is no monthly fee to use Helcim’s service. This makes it one of the best values of any POS or payment processing service.
