Zettle vs Servio: which suits your venue?
Zettle by PayPal gives you a free, simple till. Servio gives you a connected cloud POS with ordering and kitchen screens included. An honest look at where each one fits, from the team behind one of them.
Disclosure: Servio is our product. We have said plainly where Zettle is the better choice, and every figure is a published July 2026 detail or a marked estimate you can confirm with each provider.
The short version
Zettle's strength is a genuinely free POS app backed by PayPal — ideal for a simple counter. Servio's strength is that the till, QR ordering, kitchen display and analytics are one connected system, not a free app with a stack of paid add-ons. If table service, QR or kitchen screens are anywhere in your plans, that connection is where the value is.
Side by side
| Servio | Zettle | |
|---|---|---|
| Software | £79–£199/month, whole platform | £0 for the POS app |
| QR ordering + kitchen display | Included from Starter | Via third-party apps (~£178/mo est.) |
| Hardware | Your own tablets and phones (£0) | Card readers, optional kit (~£570) |
| Payments | Stripe published rates, no markup | Zettle/PayPal rates; app routing can raise the effective rate |
| Contract | Month-to-month | None |
| Best for | Venues wanting one connected system | Simple counters and short menus |
Based on publicly available UK information and typical configurations, July 2026. Details vary by plan and change over time, so confirm current terms with each provider.
Where Zettle wins
A free POS app, cheap readers, PayPal's reliability, and an afternoon to set up. For a market stall, coffee cart or short-menu counter with no table service, it is a sensible first till and anything heavier would be over-buying.
Where Servio wins
The "free" route gets expensive once you bolt on ordering and kitchen apps and take the higher app card rate — the worked example is in our POS cost guide. Servio includes those features in one platform, publishes every price, and stays month-to-month. See the full field ranked in the 2026 comparison.
Common questions
Is Zettle really free?
The Zettle POS app is free to use and you pay card fees per transaction, which genuinely works for a simple counter. The cost appears when you add restaurant features: QR ordering, kitchen displays and inventory usually come from third-party apps (around £178/month to match an all-in-one set), and app-routed orders often carry a higher effective card rate — which is how the free option can become the more expensive one overall.
Does Zettle have a kitchen display and QR ordering?
Not as one native connected system. Zettle is a payments-led POS; hospitality features are typically added through separate apps. Servio includes QR ordering and a single-station kitchen display from the £79 Starter plan, with multi-station routing on Growth, so front and back of house stay in one platform.
When should I choose Zettle?
If you run a simple counter today — one till, short menu, no table service — and you are confident you will not need QR ordering or kitchen screens in the next year, Zettle is a perfectly good, cheap first till, with PayPal behind it. Servio is the better fit the moment you outgrow that.
Can I move my menu from Zettle to Servio?
Yes. Servio imports your menu from a file or URL and rebuilds your categories, items and modifiers, so switching is usually an afternoon, not a project. See the menu migration guide for how it works.