Home · Guides

This page explains where the site’s figures come from, what we do when a figure is missing and when we check prices again.

Only the vendors’ public pages

Every price comes from a public page of the vendor, opened without signing up and without asking for a quote: the price lists of SumUp for Germany and for Austria [1] [2] [3] [4], of ready2order for Germany and for Austria [5] [6], of orderbird [7] [8] and of helloCash [9] [10]. Next to each source is the date we read it; all the prices on the site were read on 13 October 2026.

We have not tested the cash register systems ourselves and have not asked vendors for offers. We report what they state: we do not measure whether a cash register works well in your business.

When a price is missing

A price the page does not publish stays missing: we do not estimate it and do not set it to zero. The calculator then shows a minimum total («at least»), says which item is missing and does not name that offer as the cheapest. Today this happens with orderbird PRO, which publishes neither the hardware nor the card fees [8], and with orderbird MINI, whose device has only a «from» price [7].

When a price list gives a range, such as orderbird MINI’s fees from 1.09 to 1.49% [7], the calculator shows the range.

VAT, terms and configurations

• VAT: prices are those stated, almost always excluding VAT; when the page does not say so we write it next to the offer, and that offer is never named the cheapest: if its price included VAT, it would be up to 20% lower net, so it stays among those that might cost less. The calculation neither adds nor removes VAT.
• Subscriptions: we count yearly subscriptions for every year started and monthly ones for every month. For ready2order we use the price of the yearly subscription paid in advance, the only one the page shows without interaction [5] [6].
• Configurations: for each vendor the smallest one that takes cash and card payments, as the price list describes it. We do not count the printer, receipt paper, cash drawer, installation, training or paid support.

The obligations

The rules on the TSE, receipts and the cash register obligation come from official sources: the German Fiscal Code [11], the frequently asked questions and press releases of the Federal Ministry of Finance [12] [13], the Austrian business service portal [14] and the Austrian finance ministry [15]. We report them with the date of the source. We do not say whether a rule applies to a particular case: that is a question for a tax adviser.

When we check again

Price lists for cash registers and payments change often and usually without a date on the page. We check every vendor page at least once a month and the official sources when a rule changes; when a price changes we update data, calculator and pages together, with the new reading date. We follow the German bill on the cash register obligation from 2028 [13] until Parliament votes on it.

Advertising

Some links to the vendors’ websites, only on the German-language pages, are advertising and are marked as such, kept separate from the result of the calculation. The order of the offers in the calculator depends only on cost, never on commissions. The links to price lists in the sources are not advertising.