The price is one line of the bill
Three years is a fair period: it is about the life of a till PC, and long enough for small monthly or hourly costs to show their real size. Hardware is left out on purpose — the printer, the drawer and the PC cost the same whichever program you run, and we covered them, with the pricing models, in how much a POS costs in Egypt. This article is about everything else.
Time: setup, entering products, training
Time is the cost owners forget, because nobody sends an invoice for it. It comes in three pieces:
- Setting up: installing, connecting the printer, drawer and scanner, getting the receipt right. An afternoon if it goes well, a technician's visit if it does not.
- Entering products: the biggest one. A few hundred products typed by hand is days; a supermarket's thousands is weeks — usually at night, after closing.
- Training: every cashier, and again for every new one. A complicated screen costs you this line again with each hire.
What PosMasr does about it: the installer sets up the common USB receipt printers by itself; the ready catalogue of more than 52,000 products with names, barcodes and categories (for the shops that share their list) replaces most of the typing — you add your prices; an Excel sheet or your old program's file is imported instead of retyped; and the selling screen is built so a new cashier sells on the first morning. That is how a shop is selling in under an hour. Online there is nothing to set up on a server: a till is paired in a minute with a 6-digit code. Free costs you your time · Import from anywhere.
During the launch offer, until 15 October, setup of the desktop program is free: we install it, connect the printer, drawer and scanner, enter your products and train the cashiers.
Downtime: the sales you do not make
A till that cannot sell costs you the profit of every customer who leaves the queue, plus the paper notes somebody has to type in afterwards. Two causes cover most of it:
- The internet cuts. A program that needs the line to sell stops with the router. In a busy hour, that is the most expensive minute of the day.
- The PC dies. The question is not whether, but how long until you sell again: a day with a backup and a clear path, a week without.
What PosMasr does about it: the desktop program does not need the internet to sell at all. PosMasr Cloud keeps selling and printing through a cut with a provisional receipt number and syncs when the line is back. When a PC dies: on the desktop you restore the backup on a new PC and move the licence with a release code — or on a written declaration if the old PC cannot give one; online you pair a new PC and carry on, because the shop is on our servers. The till keeps selling offline · Moving to a new PC.
Lost data: the line with no ceiling
The file is cheap; what is in it is not. Losing the data means losing who owes you what, the stock count you paid people to take, your cost prices, and the sales history that tells you what to reorder. The credit book alone can be worth more than the program. And there is a quieter way to lose data: a service that closes or changes its terms, with your shop inside it.
What PosMasr does about it: on the desktop the data is plain files on your PC, backed up to a USB stick in one button, with a daily automatic backup and an optional copy at PosMasr. Online, a backup is taken every day, and Download a copy on every plan gives you the whole shop in one file, in the desktop program's own backup format — so you can always go back to running it on your own PC. Your data is yours · If your POS company disappears · Backups that work.
Growing: a second till, a bigger package, a branch
The cheapest program on day one can be the most expensive in year two, if growing means per-user fees, a module for every feature, or starting again in another program. Ask what the second till, the fourth cashier and the first branch cost before you need them.
What PosMasr does about it: on the desktop a bigger package is the difference in price and a new key for the same PC, with no per-user fees, and a second till is 40% off. Online, the tills and users are inside the plan, and changing plan keeps everything. And the two editions are one program: a desktop shop moves online with one file and can come back. Start small, upgrade later.
Support: technician visits and contracts
Support costs show up as a yearly maintenance contract, as a technician paid by the visit, or as the hours you spend on the phone. The cheapest support is a program that rarely needs it and a clear way to ask when it does.
What PosMasr does about it: WhatsApp support in Arabic, with no support contract to keep the program running; a Send diagnostics button that gives us what we need without a visit; a full manual with real screenshots; and, online, a program that updates itself. Genuine software and why it matters.
A worked example — made-up numbers, your formulas
The numbers in the example column are invented round numbers to show the arithmetic. They are not measurements of any shop or any program. Replace each one with yours.
| Line | Your variable | Example | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Value of one hour of your time | V | 50 EGP | — |
| Typing products by hand | products × minutes each ÷ 60 | 1,200 × 1 min | 20 hours |
| Training | cashiers × hours each, over 3 years | 4 × 3 h | 12 hours |
| The till cannot sell | hours a year × profit per hour × 3 | 8 h × 100 EGP × 3 | 2,400 EGP |
| A dead PC with no backup | days closed or on paper × profit per day, plus hours to rebuild | once: 2 days × 800 EGP + 20 h | 1,600 EGP + 20 hours |
| Support visits | visits × fee | 3 × 300 EGP | 900 EGP |
| Hidden total over 3 years | hours × V + the money lines | 52 h × 50 + 4,900 | 7,500 EGP |
The point is not the 7,500. It is that the hidden lines are the same order of size as the software itself — and that they are the lines a program can shrink or grow. In this example, picking products from a catalogue instead of typing them, a till that sells offline, and a backup that exists would remove most of the table. Your numbers will differ; the shape usually does not.
Once or monthly: the price line itself
Now the line everyone starts with, using PosMasr's own prices as the example: a one-time licence (Silver) next to a monthly plan with one till (Cashier). The matching pairs for bigger shops are in online or on the PC.
| EGP | One-time licence (Silver) | Monthly plan (Cashier) |
|---|---|---|
| Year 1 | 4,900 | 6,000 |
| Year 1 with the first-year offer (20% off) | 4,900 | 4,800 |
| Year 2 | 0 | 6,000 |
| Year 3 | 0 | 6,000 |
| Growing later | The difference to a bigger package, once | The bigger plan's monthly price |
| Beyond the software, the price includes | A till that never needs the internet; the backups are yours to take | A backup every day, the shop on any phone, updates by itself, a new PC paired in a minute |
Read plainly: for one shop that stays small, the licence costs less after roughly the first year, and the gap grows each year after. The monthly plan buys other lines of the bill down instead — backups, the phone, a dead PC, several tills. Which one is cheaper for you is the price line plus the table above, not the price line alone.
Redo it with your own numbers
- Count your products, and time yourself typing ten of them. That is your minutes each.
- Put a price on an hour of your evening. Be honest: it is not zero.
- Guess how many hours a year the internet is down during opening hours, and your profit in an average hour.
- Ask each program: what exactly works offline, how do I get my data out, and what does the second till cost?
- Fill in the example table for each program and add the price line. Compare the totals, not the price tags.
For the questions to ask along the way, see how to choose a POS; for a hands-on hour with any trial, the one-hour test.
Quick answers
Why are hardware prices not in this article?
Because they are the same whichever program you choose, as long as it runs on ordinary hardware. They are in how much a POS costs in Egypt and the cheapest setup that works.
Is my time really a cost if I do it myself?
Yes. The evening spent typing products is an evening not spent buying, selling or resting — and if you pay someone to do it, it becomes an invoice. Either way it belongs in the comparison.
Does the one-time licence ever cost anything again?
Only if you choose to grow: the difference to a bigger package, or a second till at 40% off. Moving it to a new PC is free with a release code; without one it is done once a year on a written declaration, and further moves in the same year cost 20% of the package.
What happens to my data if I stop paying for the monthly plan?
After a grace period the shop becomes read-only, and Download a copy keeps working, so your data is never held hostage. The exact timeline is in is my data safe online.
Can I try both before deciding?
Yes: 7 days of the desktop program with every feature, and 14 days of PosMasr Cloud, both without a card. Time the product entry and pull the router's cable in both — that fills half the table.
Fill in the table with your own shop
Try PosMasr on your PC with your products and time every line yourself: 7 days of the desktop program or 14 days online, free, no card.
