Genius pricing: a published rate and a footnote doing the heavy lifting
Genius is Global Payments' restaurant POS, the platform that absorbed what was sold as Vital POS. Its pricing page publishes tiers and a rate, which earns credit, and its own offer footnote contains the five terms that actually define the deal.
Judd Alsup and the Equip Payment Solutions team, who install and support restaurant POS systems nationwide and sell Shift4 Dine and Clover.Updated August 9, 2026. Sources and dates cited on every figure.
The short answer
Genius (formerly Vital POS) pricing at a glance:
- Published $0, $42 or $129 a month and 2.6% plus 10c card present.
- The footnote that is the contract three year term, 4% cash discounting required, $250,000 annual volume minimum, unspecified early termination fee, all in Global Payments' own fine print.
- Not published any card not present rate or any hardware price, anywhere on the property.
- If you are a Vital merchant this is where your product went; check your renewal date before it checks you.
The rest of this page is the case for each line, with sources.
What Global Payments publishes
Essentials at $0, Advanced at $42, Complete at $129 a month
Published on globalpayments.com's generic pricing page. The tiers are shared across restaurant and retail rather than restaurant specific, and Capterra separately lists a Genius Basic plan at $89 a month, a naming conflict the vendor's own properties do not resolve.
Card present at 2.6% plus 10 cents on all tiers
Published, with the qualifier 'certain in-person card transactions.' No card not present rate is published anywhere on the property; the footnote says only that rates may vary. For a delivery era restaurant that is a large blank.
No hardware price for any device, anywhere
Countertop, handheld, kitchen display, kiosk: no published figure exists for any of them. A pricing page that prices no hardware is a sales appointment with a pricing page's URL, and the hardware line of your quote deserves double scrutiny for exactly that reason.
The 10 cent fixed fee is the honest bright spot
At small ticket sizes a dime against the category's common 15 cents is a real difference, which is why Genius appears in our diner and coffee shop math. The rest of this page is why it appears with an asterisk.
The footnote that is actually the contract
Global Payments' own Genius for Restaurants offer page carries, in its fine print, the five terms that define the purchase: a three year contract, a 4% cash discounting requirement, a $250,000 minimum annual processing volume, a $150 per station charge if you cannot produce prior processing statements, and the sentence 'Early Termination Fee may apply' with no amount. Their main pricing page asks 'Are there any termination fees?' in its FAQ and answers without a number.
Read those terms together and the $0 tier resolves into what it is: a three year processing commitment with a volume floor, dressed as free software. The 4% cash discounting requirement means your menu prices carry a card surcharge structure whether it suits your room or not. None of this is hidden, it is in their own footnote, which is precisely why we quote it rather than characterize it.
On the Vital lineage: the Google Play listing for the Genius Mobile POS app still carries the package id com.vitalpos.posmobile, and review platforms renamed their Vital POS listings to Ovation while keeping the old URLs. If you are a Vital merchant wondering where your product went, this is where, and the contract terms above are what the successor offer looks like.
Questions owners ask
What happened to Vital POS?
It was folded through Global Payments' rebrands into the Genius platform; the Genius mobile app's package id still reads com.vitalpos.posmobile. Vital's own site no longer ranks for its own name, and the successor product is sold under the terms on this page.
Is the Genius $0 plan really free?
The software subscription is $0. The offer requires a three year term, 4% cash discounting, and $250,000 a year in processing volume per its own fine print, with an unspecified early termination fee. That is a significant commitment structure attached to a free tier, and it deserves to be evaluated as one.
What is Genius's card not present rate?
Not published anywhere on the property; the footnote says rates may vary. For any restaurant taking online orders that is a number you need in writing before the published 2.6% plus 10 cents means anything about your actual bill.
Should a small restaurant consider Genius at all?
Only if it clears the volume floor honestly: the offer's own fine print requires $250,000 a year in processing, about $21,000 a month, and a room below that line is outside the offer's own terms. Above it, the published dime fixed fee is competitive at small tickets, and the three year term with mandatory cash discounting is the price of it. Both halves belong in the decision.
What should a Vital POS merchant do right now?
Three things before renewal: find your current agreement's end date and notice window, get your effective rate off a recent statement, and price the successor Genius offer against the published alternatives on this site. A migrated product's inherited customers are the least shopped segment in the category, which is exactly why shopping from that position tends to pay.
Why does the calculator show Genius so competitively?
Because the published numbers are competitive: 2.6% plus a dime with a $0 software tier computes well, especially at small tickets. The calculator prices rates, not contract terms, which is why the row and this page exist together: the three year term, the cash discounting mandate and the volume minimum are the rest of the price.
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