Grafterr Alternative: The Best Grafterr Alternatives for Restaurants
What is Grafterr?
Grafterr is a UK EPOS and online ordering system aimed at takeaways, quick service restaurants and delivery-heavy operators. You get an EPOS terminal, an ordering website, a branded mobile app and connections to delivery platforms like Just Eat and Uber Eats.
It caught on with independent takeaways and small groups because it costs less to start with than the big enterprise systems. For a single shop doing mostly delivery, that's a fair deal.
Why restaurants look for a Grafterr alternative
Usually it comes down to size. Grafterr is built around one site or a small handful. Once you're running five or more, keeping menus, reports and staff accounts in step across locations gets painful, and that's the point where most operators start shopping around.
Commission is the next one. If your setup leans on marketplace integrations, most of your orders still arrive through Just Eat or Uber Eats, and you pay a cut on every one of them. You also don't get those customers' details, so you can't text them next week with an offer.
Support matters more than people expect when they buy. A frozen terminal at 7pm on a Friday costs real money, so ask any provider how fast they answer at peak hours, not just 9 to 5.
Growth is another trigger. If you go from one or two sites to a regional group, you may end up replacing Grafterr instead of adding to it.
And some operators just want everything in one place: POS, kiosks, loyalty, phone ordering and marketing. Otherwise you end up with five tools, five logins and five bills.
What to look for in a Grafterr alternative
Work out what Grafterr doesn't do for you today before you look at anything else. That list is your shopping list.
| Feature | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Centralised menu management | Change prices and items across all sites from one place |
| Direct ordering channel | Take orders without paying marketplace commission |
| Integrated loyalty | You own the customer data and can bring people back |
| Multi-site reporting | Compare sites side by side |
| Reliable support | Problems at 7pm on a Friday need a fast answer |
| Kiosk support | Self-service ordering tends to lift average order value |
| AI phone ordering | Phone orders get taken without extra staff |
Ask for a demo with your own menu loaded, modifiers and all. Most systems look fine with a demo menu of six burgers. The real test is your messy menu with half-and-half pizzas, meal deals and 40 sauces.
Questions to ask before you sign
Sales demos show the best day. Ask about the bad ones.
- What happens to orders if the internet drops mid-service?
- How quickly does support answer on a Friday evening, and is it a person or a ticket queue?
- Who owns the customer data, and can you export it if you leave?
- What does a new site cost to add, and how long does it take to go live?
- Are online ordering, loyalty and kiosks included, or are they separate monthly charges?
Get the answers in writing. If a provider dodges the data ownership question, that tells you something.
The best Grafterr alternatives
1. Flipdish - best overall Grafterr alternative
Flipdish is the strongest Grafterr alternative for restaurants, takeaways and QSRs in the UK and Ireland. It does everything Grafterr does and a good deal more, and it's built for groups that want to own their ordering channels and their customer relationships.
What you get:
- Restaurant POS with full order management and kitchen display integration
- Online ordering through a branded website and mobile app
- Self-service kiosks with upselling, loyalty and payment
- AI Phone Agent that handles phone orders without staff
- Restaurant marketing including loyalty, automated campaigns and SMS
- Centralised menu management across all locations from one dashboard
- Order management that pulls in Just Eat, Uber Eats and Deliveroo
The biggest difference from Grafterr is where the orders come from. Flipdish pushes customers toward your own website and app. A direct order carries no per-order marketplace commission, and you keep the customer's details, so you can send them a loyalty offer or a reminder when they haven't ordered for a few weeks.
Multi-site is the other one. With Flipdish you change a price once and it updates at every site and on every channel: POS, website, app, kiosk and the marketplaces. If you've ever had to log into each location to fix a typo in a menu, you'll see the point. Grafterr doesn't do this natively at scale.
Then there's the Flipdish AI Phone Agent, which Grafterr has no answer to. It picks up the phone, takes the order and processes the payment. Busy takeaways lose orders when nobody can get to the phone during a rush, and this covers that gap without hiring someone to stand by it.
Flipdish suits takeaways, QSRs, restaurant chains, franchise groups and multi-location operators across the UK and Ireland who'd rather run one platform than stitch several together. If you have a single site with a quiet phone and no plans to grow, you'll use less of it, and that's worth admitting.
2. Lightspeed Restaurant
Lightspeed Restaurant is a cloud-based POS designed for full-service restaurants. Table management, floor plans and staff management are its strong points.
It's a weaker fit for takeaway and delivery-first businesses. Multi-location management works well for sit-down restaurants but feels less natural in a high-volume QSR. Pricing is higher than Grafterr, and the fees on online ordering can add up fast if most of your trade is delivery.
3. Epos Now
Epos Now is a UK EPOS provider with a wide choice of hardware and a big app marketplace. If you're leaving Grafterr, the interface will feel familiar and the price is similar.
Online ordering runs through third-party apps rather than a native system, so you pay for extras and manage more suppliers. Multi-location reporting and central management also need additional modules.
4. Square for Restaurants
Square for Restaurants is simple and cheap, and it works for a single-site café or a small independent. It wasn't designed for delivery-first operations, or for groups with more than a few locations. Loyalty and marketing tools are basic next to what Flipdish offers.
5. Vita Mojo
Vita Mojo is an order management platform used by QSR chains and food-to-go operators. It centres on digital ordering through kiosks, apps and web, with POS integration. It's aimed at medium and large groups, so an independent with one or two shops will probably find it more than they need.
Which one fits which operator
One takeaway, mostly delivery, no plans to expand: you may be fine staying where you are, or moving to something equally simple. Square or Epos Now would do the job.
A café or full-service restaurant with tables: Lightspeed is built for that.
Two to four sites and growing: this is where Grafterr starts to strain. Pick the platform you want to be on at ten sites, because moving later is the expensive way to do it. Flipdish fits here.
Five or more sites, a franchise network or a chain: you need central menu control, cross-site reporting and a direct ordering channel. Flipdish and Vita Mojo are the two serious options, and Flipdish covers the POS, loyalty and phone ordering as well.
Grafterr vs Flipdish: feature comparison
| Feature | Grafterr | Flipdish |
|---|---|---|
| Restaurant POS | ✓ | ✓ |
| Online ordering | ✓ | ✓ |
| Branded mobile app | ✓ | ✓ |
| Self-service kiosks | Limited | ✓ |
| AI Phone Agent | ✗ | ✓ |
| Centralised multi-site management | Limited | ✓ |
| Integrated loyalty and marketing | Basic | ✓ |
| Marketplace aggregation (Just Eat, Uber Eats, Deliveroo) | ✓ | ✓ |
| Kitchen Display System | ✓ | ✓ |
| Dedicated UK and Ireland support | ✓ | ✓ |
How to switch from Grafterr
Changing your POS and ordering system disrupts a kitchen if you don't plan it. Here's the order that works.
Check your contract first. Look at the notice period, and whether you own or lease the hardware. This catches people out more than anything else.
List what you use today. Every function, and every integration: delivery platforms, accounting software, loyalty tools, staff scheduling.
Write down what's missing. What did you wish Grafterr did that it doesn't? Make that a requirement for the new platform.
Export your data. Menu data, customer data and order history should come out before you switch. Most platforms will import a menu from a structured spreadsheet.
Decide on hardware. If you're replacing Grafterr hardware anyway, do it as part of the move. Some providers, Flipdish included, supply their own branded hardware.
Train the staff. They need time on the new system before it goes live. Do the cutover at a quiet time, Tuesday lunch rather than Saturday dinner.
Run both systems side by side for a short while if you can. It's most useful for online ordering, where a broken link or a missing item shows up quickly in real orders.
Tell your regular customers too. If they order through a Grafterr app or website, they need to know where to go next, and a text or a note in the delivery bag does the job.
Staying put or moving
Grafterr does what it says for independent takeaways and small QSR groups that want a straightforward EPOS and online ordering setup at a sensible price. If that's you, there's no rush.
If you've outgrown it, or you're tired of handing a slice of every order to a marketplace, move to something built for more sites. Flipdish is the best Grafterr alternative for restaurants and takeaways in the UK and Ireland. It matches Grafterr on core POS and ordering, and goes much further on multi-site management, direct ordering, AI phone ordering, loyalty and marketing.
For more restaurant tech comparisons, visit restauranttech.co.uk.
Book a Flipdish demo and talk to a restaurant technology specialist.