If you’re running a Shopify store online and also selling face-to-face, at a market stall, a pop-up, or a bricks-and-mortar shop, you’ve probably landed on the Shopify POS pricing page and come away with more questions than answers. There are two tiers, a per-location add-on, and a separate list of hardware to buy, and none of it is explained in a way that maps to “should I use this, and what will it cost me this month.”
This post breaks down what Shopify POS actually includes at each tier, what hardware you’re likely to need, and how to think about the Lite-versus-Pro decision as an Australian retailer. We won’t quote you exact AUD dollar figures for the Pro add-on, because Shopify changes its pricing periodically and any number we print here could be wrong within months, we’ll tell you exactly where to check the current figure and what you’re paying for at each level instead.
How Shopify POS Pricing Actually Works
Shopify POS isn’t a separate product you subscribe to from scratch, it’s built into every Shopify plan, with two tiers of functionality:
- POS Lite is bundled free with every Shopify plan (Basic, Shopify, Advanced, and Plus). There’s no extra monthly fee for Lite, it’s included the moment you sign up for Shopify.
- POS Pro is a paid add-on, billed per location, on top of your existing Shopify plan. You add it from Settings > Plan or directly from the Point of Sale channel in your Shopify admin, and Shopify bills it monthly alongside your regular subscription.
Because Shopify has adjusted POS Pro’s per-location price more than once since it launched, don’t rely on any blog post, including this one, for the exact current AUD figure. Check the live number under Settings > Plan in your own admin, or on Shopify’s official pricing page, before you budget. What we can tell you reliably is the structure: it’s a flat monthly fee per physical location running Pro, not a percentage of sales, and it’s separate from your card processing rate.
On top of the software tier, you’ll pay Shopify’s standard in-person card transaction rate on POS sales (separate from your online rate), plus whatever you spend on hardware, which we cover below.
What POS Lite Includes
POS Lite is genuinely usable for a lot of small and casual retail scenarios, not just a crippled trial. On Lite you get:
- Core sell-in-person functionality, ring up products, take cash, tap, or card payments through a connected reader
- Automatic inventory sync between your online store and your in-person sales, so stock levels update in one place
- Basic order and customer records that flow into the same Shopify admin as your online orders
- Support for one register/location without the Pro add-on
- Standard receipt options (email or print, with compatible hardware)
What Lite doesn’t give you: multiple staff PIN logins with role-based permissions, POS-specific sales reporting and analytics, smart grid customisation (the ability to rearrange and customise the product tile layout on the till screen), a native exchanges workflow, or local delivery and local pickup features built into the POS app. If you need any of those, you’re looking at Pro.
What POS Pro Adds
POS Pro is aimed at retailers where in-person selling is a serious, ongoing part of the business rather than an occasional add-on. The features that typically justify the upgrade are:
- Staff PIN codes and permissions, each staff member gets their own PIN, and you can restrict what they can do (process refunds, apply discounts, view reports) by role. This matters the moment you have more than one or two people on the floor.
- POS-specific reporting, sales-by-staff, sales-by-location, shift reports, and other retail-specific analytics that don’t show up in the standard Shopify admin reporting built for online orders.
- Smart grid customisation, the ability to build custom product tile layouts on the checkout screen per location, which speeds up checkout for stores with a lot of SKUs or frequently-changing bestsellers.
- Exchanges, a proper in-person exchange flow (swap a product rather than refund-and-rebuy), which Lite doesn’t handle natively.
- Local delivery and local pickup, order fulfilment options tied to a physical location, useful if you’re running “buy online, pick up in store” (BOPIS) or local courier delivery from a shopfront.
- Multi-location support, Pro is what lets you run several physical locations with location-specific inventory, staff, and reporting all synced back to one Shopify backend.
Pro also opens up deeper hardware compatibility and retail-specific app integrations that Lite doesn’t support in the same way.
Hardware: What You’ll Actually Need to Buy
Software tier is only half the cost picture. Shopify POS hardware is bought separately (either through the Shopify Hardware Store, where it ships to Australia, or from compatible third-party suppliers), and typical setups need:
- A card reader, Shopify sells its own readers (including tap-to-pay-capable models); compatibility varies by country and reader generation, so check the current Australian-compatible models before ordering.
- A receipt printer, most standard thermal receipt printers work via USB or Bluetooth, but not every printer on the market is certified compatible, so check Shopify’s supported hardware list rather than assuming any printer will pair.
- A cash drawer, typically triggered to open automatically by the connected receipt printer or POS terminal, not a standalone smart device.
- A tablet or iPad stand (if you’re running POS on a tablet rather than a dedicated Shopify POS terminal), this is a cost that’s easy to forget when budgeting, especially across multiple registers.
- Barcode scanner (optional but common for stores with larger catalogues), speeds up both checkout and stocktakes.
None of this hardware cost appears on Shopify’s software pricing page, so if you’re budgeting a full in-store setup, add hardware as a genuinely separate line item, and multiply it out per till if you’re running more than one register.
When Lite Is Genuinely Enough
Don’t assume you need Pro just because you’re taking payments in person. Lite is a sensible, cost-effective choice when:
- You run occasional markets, pop-ups, or events rather than a permanent shopfront
- You’re a solo operator or a very small team where staff permissions and shift reporting aren’t a real operational need yet
- You only ever run one location and don’t need exchanges, local delivery, or smart grid layouts
- You’re testing whether in-person retail is worth pursuing at all before committing to a recurring Pro fee
A market-stall jewellery seller who does a handful of weekend markets a month, with one person on the till, has very little to gain from Pro. Paying a recurring per-location fee for staff permissions and multi-location reporting you’ll never use is money that would be better spent elsewhere in the business.
When Pro Is Worth the Extra Cost
Pro tends to pay for itself once your in-person operation gets more complex:
- You’re running a permanent bricks-and-mortar store with multiple staff on shift
- You have more than one physical location, and you need inventory, sales, and reporting to reconcile across all of them automatically
- You want customers to be able to buy online and collect or return in-store, and vice versa, without manual reconciliation
- Exchanges are a routine part of your in-store customer experience (very common in apparel and footwear)
- You need staff-level accountability, knowing who processed which sale, who applied which discount
This is also where the online-offline sync becomes the real value driver. A multi-location retailer syncing online and in-store inventory in real time avoids the classic problem of selling the same “last unit” to two customers at once, one online, one in the shop, because Shopify POS keeps a single, shared inventory count across every connected channel and location.
Getting Omnichannel Right, Not Just Turned On
Buying the right POS tier is the easy part. The harder part, and where a lot of Australian retailers get tripped up, is configuring locations, inventory allocation, staff permissions, and fulfilment rules so that online and in-store genuinely work as one system rather than two Shopify instances that happen to share a login. Getting this wrong shows up as stock discrepancies, double-selling, and reporting that doesn’t actually tell you which channel is performing. This is exactly the kind of setup work our omnichannel retail solutions are built around, configuring Shopify POS, inventory, and fulfilment so your online and physical stores behave as one connected business rather than two separate headaches.
FAQ
Is Shopify POS free in Australia?
POS Lite is included at no extra cost with every Shopify plan, so yes, the basic in-person selling functionality is free once you’re already paying for Shopify. POS Pro is a paid per-location add-on on top of your plan, and Shopify’s standard in-person card processing rate applies to POS transactions regardless of which tier you’re on.
Do I need POS Pro if I only have one shop?
Not necessarily. A single-location store can run entirely on Lite if you don’t need staff PIN permissions, POS-specific reporting, exchanges, smart grid layouts, or local delivery/pickup. Many single-location retailers only upgrade to Pro once they add staff, start doing regular exchanges, or want deeper reporting.
Can I use my own card reader or receipt printer with Shopify POS?
Only hardware on Shopify’s supported compatibility list is guaranteed to work properly, not every generic reader or printer will pair reliably. Check Shopify’s current hardware compatibility documentation before buying anything, rather than assuming existing equipment will work.
Does Shopify POS sync inventory with my online store automatically?
Yes, inventory is shared across your online store and any connected POS locations by default, so a sale in-store reduces the same stock count your website shows. This is one of the main reasons retailers move off standalone POS systems onto Shopify POS in the first place.
How do I find the current AUD price for POS Pro?
Check Settings > Plan in your own Shopify admin, or Shopify’s official pricing page, for the live figure. Pricing has changed over time, so treat any number quoted in a blog post (including this one) as potentially outdated by the time you read it.
Ready to Get Your Setup Right?
If you’re weighing up POS Lite versus Pro, or trying to work out why your online and in-store stock counts don’t match, a second pair of expert eyes can save you months of manual reconciliation. Book a call with our team to talk through your retail setup, or start with a Shopify audit to see exactly where your current configuration is costing you time or sales.
