Farm POS Systems Compared: Square vs Local Line vs Barn2Door vs Locally Grown

Ringing up a sale at the farm stand or farmers market should be quick and painless, but that only happens when your farm point-of-sale (POS) is built for your business model. Whether you are weighing brisket at a Saturday market, tapping cards at a roadside stand, or closing out CSA pickups, the tool you choose can shorten lines and keep the books tidy. Below is a narrative walk-through of four leading options: Locally Grown, Square, Local Line, and Barn2Door so you can see where each one shines or slips before selecting a farm POS for market days, on farm pickup ups, or farm store counters.

How we judged each farm POS system

The comparison focuses on five practical concerns farmers tell us matter most:

Hardware friction - do you need to buy a reader or terminal?
True cost - card fee plus any monthly subscription fees.
Payout speed - how long until funds are in your account?
Inventory sync - does it keep track of your inventory so you don’t oversell?
Price calculation - can the POS instantly price meat or produce without manual math?

Locally Grown

Locally Grown turns any iPhone XS or newer into a farm point of sale; because Apple’s Tap to Pay is built in, you need no extra hardware at all. Card transactions cost a flat 2.7 % + 5¢, with no separate subscription or hidden payout charges. The moment a sale is rung up, inventory in your Locally Grown web store decrements automatically, preventing double-selling when you also take pre-orders for pickup. Farms that sell meat by weight can key in the exact pounds at checkout and the app calculates the price on the fly, keeping bookkeeping tidy. Stripe sends the money to your bank instantly once the day’s balance clears, so you can turn around and buy feed or fuel without waiting a business day.

Locally Grown POS breakdown:

Lowest in-person fee: flat 2.7 % + $0.05 per card or wallet tap. Free for farmers & no monthly plan. Locally Grown monetizes only on its marketplace. The POS is a free add on for users.
No reader needed: Tap-to-Pay works on any iPhone XS or newer, so setup means downloading the free app and enabling Stripe in a guided flow that takes about two minutes .
Instant price by weight: punch in pounds or ounces and the app auto-calculates the exact total no manual math or barcode hacks.
Money instantly transferred: Stripe Instant Payouts deliver funds to your debit card.
Real-time inventory sync: every market sale immediately deducts stock from your online Locally Grown storefront — zero double-selling.
Live in ~20 minutes: fastest setup, no onboarding calls or sales demos.

Square

Square is still the best-known player in mobile payments, and its brand trust plus Tap to Pay on iPhone make it an easy first stop for many vendors. Farmers can accept contactless cards with no extra hardware, or plug in a low-cost reader if they use Android. The trade-off is that Square was designed for every kind of small business, so a few farm-specific gaps and cost quirks remain.

Square POS breakdown:

Reader optional: Tap to Pay lets any iPhone XS or newer take cards hands-free, or you can fall back to the classic Square Reader for other devices.
Higher micro-ticket fees: In-person sales run 2.6 % + 10 ¢ with Tap to Pay and 2.6 % + 15 ¢ for other contactless or chip payments—noticeably steeper than Locally Grown’s 2.7 % + 5 ¢ on a $12 bouquet or carton of eggs.
Instant payouts cost extra: Next-day deposits are free, but pushing the funds out instantly costs 1.75 % of the transfer total.
Inventory sync requires Square Online: Real-time stock updates only kick in after you create and maintain a Square Online store, adding another dashboard—and sometimes another fee—to manage.
Variable-weight is a manual workflow: You can enter weights at checkout or pair a third-party scale, but there’s no farm-centric “price-by-pound” flow built in.
General-purpose focus: Square offers robust add-ons for restaurants and retail, yet it lacks farm-specific perks like automatic marketplace listings or CSA scheduling.

Local Line

Local Line started as an e-commerce platform for farms and later bolted on a POS module. It gives you one dashboard for online orders, delivery routes, and in-person checkout—but that convenience comes with one of the steepest price tags in this roundup. To use it in person you purchase one of two proprietary Android-based terminals sold through Local Line. The POS deducts stock from your online store, and it handles variable-weight selling out of the box—handy for pasture-raised beef or bulk tomatoes. Software starts at $99 per month for the Core plan, and credit-card processing via LocalPay sits at the industry-standard 2.9 % + 30¢. ACH is cheaper, but most market shoppers still pay by card.

Local Line POS beakdown:

Highest upfront cost: The POS requires a proprietary terminal. The software itself starts at $99 per month on the Core plan.
Standard processing fees: Card payments run through LocalPay at 2.9 % + 30¢ per sale.
Variable-weight built in: You can price by the pound or by the package and track weight-based inventory without hacks, a nice fit for meat and produce vendors.
Real-time inventory sync: Every POS sale immediately deducts stock from your online Local Line store, reducing the risk of overselling.
Multi-channel extras: Optional modules add subscriptions, box-builder bundles, and delivery routing, but each feature raises the monthly bill.
Standard Stripe payout speed: Funds typically hit your bank in one to two business days; there’s no built-in instant payout toggle.

Barn2Door

Barn2Door’s POS centers on a $59 handheld reader that pairs with its mobile app; the company rebates the hardware after you process your first $1 k in sales. Subscription plans for the full Barn2Door suite run $99 to $299 per month, plus a $399–$599 setup fee for new sellers. Like Local Line, Barn2Door supports fixed or variable-weight pricing that you can toggle at checkout, and inventory synchronizes to your online farm store in real time. Payments are processed through Stripe, so most farms see deposits in one-to-two business days faster if they turn on Stripe’s paid instant-payout feature.

Barn2Door POS breakdown

Steep fixed costs up front: Plans run $99 – $299 per month and carry a $399 – $599 one-time setup fee—the highest base spend in this comparison.
Reader purchase required: In-person sales rely on a proprietary handheld reader that costs $59 (Barn2Door reimburses it after you process $1 k in sales within six months).
Variable-weight selling baked in: Toggle between fixed and by-the-pound pricing without work-arounds—handy for bulk meat or produce.
Real-time inventory sync: POS transactions can deduct stock from your online store instantly, or you can disable the sync if you keep farmers-market inventory separate.
Slower cash flow: Stripe deposits typically take one to five business days; there is no built-in instant-payout option.
All-in-one focus: You do gain integrated email marketing, routing tools, and tiered price sheets—but each add-on pushes the monthly bill higher.

Putting it all together

If you want the lightest hardware load-out, the lowest transaction cost, and money in the bank within minutes, Locally Grown edges ahead: no reader to buy, fees of 2.7 % + 5¢, and automatic Stripe instant deposits. Farms already invested in Square hardware may stick with what they have, but should factor in the 15-cent per-tap surcharge and the extra step of syncing inventory. Local Line and Barn2Door can be smart for operations that already use their broader e-commerce platforms, yet the monthly subscriptions and proprietary devices raise the break-even point—especially for seasonal vendors who only sell in person a few months a year.

Ready to test for yourself? Download Locally Grown for Farmers on iOS, list a few products, and try your first Tap to Pay transaction to see how a farm-first POS feels in the real world.