Oliver POS is one of the better-built WooCommerce registers. It uses the official WooCommerce REST API rather than inventing a private database, it has native iOS and Android apps, it offers a free tier and a lifetime option, and its multi-outlet stock transfers are real. It is a credible competitor and it would be dishonest to write otherwise.
It also has an architectural detail worth understanding before you commit, and Oliver’s own marketing is oddly inconsistent about it.
“100% inside your WordPress install” — and a cloud brain
Oliver’s plugin page says the data of record lives in your own WooCommerce database, through the standard REST API, with no proprietary tables. That is a good design and it is true.
Oliver’s homepage describes “Oliver Sync — Oliver’s cloud brain.” So there is a vendor cloud in the picture. Exactly how much of your register traffic passes through it is not documented anywhere we could find, and that ambiguity is the point: a self-hosted POS is either self-hosted or it is not, and you should know which before your till depends on a third party’s uptime.
OpenPOS has no cloud layer. The register talks to your WordPress site and nowhere else. If your site is up, your till is up.
Cost
| Oliver POS | OpenPOS | |
|---|---|---|
| Free tier | Yes — 1 outlet, 1 station, 20 products, 50 transactions/month | Free OpenPOS Lite (cloud); paid plugin is self-hosted |
| Paid plans | Starter $89/yr · Pro $289/yr · Enterprise $489/yr | One-time purchase |
| Tiering | By outlets, stations and seats | Unlimited on all three |
| Lifetime option | Offered; price not published where we could read it | The only option |
| Architecture | Woo database + vendor cloud sync layer | Woo database only |
The free tier’s caps — twenty products, fifty transactions a month — make it a demonstration rather than a business. That is a reasonable thing for a company to do; just do not plan around it.
The line that costs real money is tiering by stations and seats. Every till and every cashier you add moves you up a plan. OpenPOS charges once for the site and does not count either.
Where Oliver POS is genuinely better
- Native iOS and Android apps, alongside a web register.
- Tap to Pay through its own Oliver Pay, so a phone becomes a card reader with no hardware. OpenPOS has no equivalent.
- Broad gateway reuse. It surfaces whatever WooCommerce gateways you have enabled — Stripe Terminal, WooPayments, PayPal, Square, Klarna, Authorize.Net.
- A real free tier to try before buying.
Where OpenPOS is better
- No vendor cloud between your till and your database. One less party who can have an outage.
- No per-station or per-seat tiering. Unlimited registers, cashiers and outlets for one payment.
- No annual renewal. Lifetime updates included; only optional support renews.
- Full restaurant mode. Oliver mentions modifiers, kitchen printing and tableside; OpenPOS ships floor plans, table merge and transfer, a kitchen display screen and no-touch QR ordering.
- Hardware depth: digital scales, decimal stock, barcode label printing, cloud printing via Star CloudPRNT and PrintNode, customer pole displays.
Which should you choose?
Choose Oliver POS if native mobile apps matter more to you than architectural purity; if Tap to Pay on a phone would save you buying terminals; if you want to try a free tier first; if one till and one or two staff is where you will stay.
Choose OpenPOS if you want the register to depend on nothing but your own server; if you are adding tills, cashiers or outlets and object to being tiered for it; if you need genuine table service and a kitchen screen; if you would rather pay once.
Frequently asked questions
Do both write real WooCommerce orders?
Yes. Both avoid a parallel order type, which means your accounting and reporting plugins see in-store sales without special integration. This is the right way to build a WooCommerce POS and Oliver deserves credit for it.
Does Oliver POS work offline?
Yes — orders queue locally and drain into WooCommerce on reconnect, in the order they were rung up. So does OpenPOS. Neither can capture a card payment while the processor is unreachable.
Which is cheaper?
Both have a free version to start — Oliver’s capped free tier, and the cloud-based OpenPOS Lite. Above free, Oliver’s Pro at $289 a year overtakes a one-time self-hosted OpenPOS licence quickly, and Enterprise faster still. Run the numbers for the number of tills you expect in three years, not the number you have today.
Does OpenPOS support Tap to Pay?
Not natively. Card-present payments go through a supported terminal. If turning a phone into a card reader is central to how you trade, Oliver has something OpenPOS does not.
Oliver POS pricing and architecture statements above were read from oliverpos.com and its wordpress.org listing in July 2026. The Lifetime plan’s price and the exact extent of cloud routing were not published where we could read them — ask Oliver directly.
Compare them side by side: open the OpenPOS demo (admin / admin123) and Oliver’s free tier on the same catalogue. OpenPOS is one payment, unlimited stations and seats.