SumUp Alternative: The Best SumUp Alternatives for Restaurants
Why restaurants outgrow SumUp
SumUp was built for market stalls, pop-ups and sole traders. If you sell coffee from a van or run a one-person shop, it does the job and you probably don't need anything else.
A restaurant asks a lot more of its till. Staff have to put orders on tables and seats, split the bill at the end of the meal, send courses out in the right order, add modifiers like "no onions, extra sauce, gluten-free bun", flag allergens, void and refund items, and get tickets to the kitchen. Then there's online ordering running alongside all of that. SumUp covers very little of it.
These are the gaps restaurants hit most often:
- No table management. You can't assign an order to a table or a seat.
- No kitchen display system, so orders can't be routed to a kitchen screen.
- No proper modifiers. Capturing a customised order cleanly isn't possible.
- No way to bring in orders from Just Eat, Uber Eats or Deliveroo. They stay on their own tablets.
- Basic reporting. You can't break sales down by cover, item, time period or staff member in a form an operator can use.
- No built-in loyalty or CRM, so nothing brings a customer back after the first visit.
If you're growing past a single counter, or service has got more complicated than it used to be, it's time to look at a platform built for restaurants.
Flipdish: the SumUp alternative built for restaurants
Flipdish covers POS, online ordering, kiosks, payments, loyalty and AI tools in one platform. It was built for restaurants, takeaways, cafés, QSRs and multi-location groups, so the things SumUp leaves out are the starting point rather than add-ons.
Here is what that looks like day to day.
One queue for every order. In-person, online, delivery marketplace and kiosk orders all land in the same system. Staff watch one screen instead of three tablets, and nobody has to retype an order from Deliveroo into the till.
Orders go straight to the kitchen. The kitchen display system sends tickets to screens at the pass or on the line. No paper, no printer jams, no ticket lost behind the fryer.
Your own website and app. Flipdish runs your branded online ordering, so customers order from you directly and you don't pay marketplace commission on those orders. For a takeaway where commission eats a large slice of every delivery order, this is usually the first thing operators notice on the bottom line.
Self-service kiosks. Flipdish kiosks take orders at the counter without a staff member standing there. Queues get shorter, the kiosk suggests extras at the right moment, which lifts the average order value, and the team can spend their time on food and service.
Loyalty and marketing in the same place. Customer data from every channel goes into one CRM. You can send SMS campaigns and push notifications and run a loyalty programme without bolting on another tool or asking customers to download a separate app.
Phone orders without the phone. The Flipdish AI Phone Agent answers the phone and takes the order. If your busiest hour is also when the phone never stops ringing, this takes that job off your staff entirely.
Payments. Flipdish Pay handles card payments in person and online, so you don't need a separate payment provider.
Reporting across sites. If you run more than one location, sales, menu performance and staff figures from every site show up in one dashboard.
Flipdish suits independent restaurants, multi-site groups and franchises. A single café can start with the POS and add kiosks or the AI Phone Agent later without changing systems.
How the other options compare
SumUp's own limits are one reason people go looking. The other names that come up in searches have limits too, and none of them cover the full restaurant workflow the way Flipdish does.
Square for Restaurants has a restaurant tier above its basic card reader, with table management, a kitchen display and online ordering. It's reasonable for a small independent. Multi-location support is limited, there's no dedicated restaurant account management in the UK and Ireland, online ordering is less flexible than a dedicated restaurant platform, and loyalty and marketing are add-ons. It's aimed at straightforward food businesses, not growing groups.
Lightspeed Restaurant is a cloud POS with table layouts, course management and detailed reporting, used in the UK mainly by sit-down restaurants. Online ordering is limited unless you add third-party integrations. There's no native kiosk product, no native AI or automated marketing, and pricing climbs quickly as you add locations. It isn't a fit for high-volume takeaway or QSR.
Epos Now is a UK POS company with a hospitality tier and a range of hardware. Online ordering needs third-party add-ons, it's less suited to multi-location groups and franchises, and operators have reported inconsistent support. It's built for independent hospitality businesses that want a familiar UK name.
Zettle by PayPal is a card reader with a basic POS, and like SumUp it targets simple businesses. There's no kitchen display integration, no table management and no restaurant reporting. It works for market stalls and pop-ups, and it runs out of road fast in a restaurant.
Side by side
| Feature | Flipdish | Square | Lightspeed | Epos Now | Zettle |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Restaurant POS | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | Basic |
| Kitchen Display System | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| Online ordering (own channel) | ✓ | Limited | Limited | Add-on | ✗ |
| Self-service kiosks | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
| AI phone ordering | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Loyalty and CRM | ✓ | Add-on | Add-on | Add-on | ✗ |
| Multi-location management | ✓ | Limited | Limited | Limited | ✗ |
| Integrated payments | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Which problem are you actually trying to fix?
Before you switch, work out which gap costs you the most. The answer decides what to set up first.
If marketplace commission is the problem, you need a direct ordering channel. A branded website and app lets customers order without going through Just Eat, Uber Eats or Deliveroo, and the margin on those orders stays with you.
If service is chaotic, fix the kitchen first. A kitchen display, table management and proper order routing cut down on wrong orders and speed up the pass.
If you're opening more sites, get multi-location management in place from day one. Adding it after you've opened three sites on separate systems is expensive and annoying.
If customers come once and never return, you need loyalty inside the ordering flow. A separate loyalty app adds a step, and every extra step loses people. Points and offers that appear at checkout get used.
If the phone is swamping you at peak times, the AI Phone Agent can take those calls so your staff can stay on the floor and in the kitchen.
What to check in a demo
A demo is more useful if you bring your own problems to it. Ask to see these:
Take a real order from your menu, with the awkward modifiers your regulars ask for, and watch it go from the till to the kitchen screen. If your menu has allergen data, check it appears where the kitchen can see it.
Ask to see a split bill on a table of six, then a void and a refund. These are the moments where a retail till falls apart on a busy Saturday.
Put an online order and a kiosk order through at the same time as a counter order, and look at how they appear in the queue. This is the "one screen" claim, so see it work rather than take it on trust.
If you have more than one site, ask for the dashboard with two or more locations loaded, and check you can pull sales by item and by staff member.
If phones are a problem, call the AI Phone Agent yourself and place an order.
How to switch from SumUp
Moving doesn't have to disrupt service if you plan the order of things.
- Export your menu. Get a clean copy of items, prices and modifiers before you start. Most platforms can import a CSV or help you rebuild the menu, so ask what Flipdish needs from you.
- Sort out hardware. Flipdish supplies its own, and you'll need to replace the SumUp reader.
- Run both systems for a day. Some operators keep SumUp ticking over while the new setup goes live, which lets them catch configuration mistakes with real orders before they matter.
- Move your customer data. If SumUp holds customer records, ask whether they can be imported so you don't start your loyalty list from zero.
- Train the team. Give staff at least one full day on the new system before the first live service. Servers and kitchen staff both need time with it, because the kitchen screen changes how the pass works.
What Flipdish changes for a restaurant leaving SumUp
Restaurants rarely leave SumUp over price. They leave because something they need isn't there. Flipdish covers those gaps.
The Flipdish POS system takes in-person orders with full modifier support, kitchen routing and table management. Orders from your website, app, kiosks and delivery marketplaces arrive in the same place, so nothing gets missed during a rush.
The Flipdish Restaurant Management System shows operators what's happening across every site, with reporting on sales, margins, staff and inventory in one place.
If your restaurant has outgrown SumUp, view Flipdish pricing or request a demo to see how it would work for your operation.