As of 30 Oct 2026, the panel rates helloCash 2.5/5 and PayPal POS (Zettle) 2/5 in POS & Checkout Systems. Weighted by what each judge cares about, 5 of the 6 judges pick helloCash and 0 pick PayPal POS (Zettle), 1 calls it a tie. helloCash scores higher on 4 of 7 criteria (European sovereignty, Accounting handoff, DATEV & data export, Fiscal compliance (TSE, DSFinV-K, RKSV), plus 1 more). PayPal POS (Zettle) scores higher on 3 of 7 criteria (Card payments & fees, Pricing transparency and Checkout, receipts & hardware). Provenance — helloCash: EU-Made; PayPal POS (Zettle): EU origin, foreign-owned. Ratings are the AI panel’s opinion, formed from public evidence: how scores are made.
The leaning criteria split the benches. helloCash leads accounting and portability (mean 5.7 vs 3.2; 6–0) on a stated DATEV Kassenarchiv online interface and CSV export, fiscal compliance (5.0 vs 4.0; 5 lean, 1 tie) and sovereignty (6.8 vs 3.2; 6–0), its attributes listing legal entity jurisdiction AT and EU-only data residency. PayPal POS (Zettle) leads payments and fees (6.0 vs 4.0; 6–0) on 1,39 % on all cards, no monthly fee and payouts typically within minutes, plus pricing transparency (6.5 vs 5.5; 4 lean, 2 tie). Checkout and hardware (4.0 vs 4.2; 1 lean to PayPal POS (Zettle), 5 ties) and operations and locations (4.2 vs 4.0; 1 lean to helloCash, 5 ties) sit close. Weighted totals as shown: tax adviser 5.2 vs 4.3, operations manager 4.8 vs 4.1, skeptic 5.1 vs 4.4, fee-conscious merchant 4.7 vs 4.7. No overall winner; the split is the answer.
Choose helloCash if
You need a bookkeeping handoff built on a stated DATEV Kassenarchiv online interface and CSV export — the accounting and portability lean runs 6–0 to helloCash.
Your procurement rules require an EU-only data-residency listing and an Austrian contracting entity — helloCash's sovereignty attributes state data residency EU-only and legal entity jurisdiction AT.
You must document a signature chain named for both the Austrian and German markets — 5 judges lean helloCash on fiscal compliance (mean 5.0 vs 4.0).
Your tax adviser drives the purchase decision — the weighted total reads 5.2 vs 4.3 in helloCash's favor.
Choose PayPal POS (Zettle) if
You need card costs published up front — 1,39 % on all cards, readers from 29 € plus VAT, terminals from 199 € plus VAT — and the payments and fees lean runs 6–0 to PayPal POS (Zettle).
You sell at markets and stalls and want no monthly fee and no contracts.
Your cash flow depends on payouts typically within minutes.
Your decision turns on pricing transparency — 4 judges lean PayPal POS (Zettle) there, mean 6.5 vs 5.5.
Read this comparison as one judge. Each weighs the same scores by what they care about.
The Café Owner
Runs a café with twelve tables, a counter and a terrace in summer, and closes the till herself at eleven at night. Wants an iPad till the student staff learn in one shift, orders that reach the kitchen printer, split bills and tips without arithmetic, a till that keeps selling when the Wi-Fi drops, a TSE she does not have to think about, and a monthly cost she can still read in the second year.
helloCash
This judge's pick
PayPal POS (Zettle)
Criterion by criterion
Checkout, receipts & hardware
helloCash
The apps are named for iOS, Android and Mac, receipts go out printed, by email, WhatsApp or as PDF, barcode scanning is described, and the gastro plan lists a table overview with split bills — my twelve tables would be covered. But the legal notice states a working internet connection is the only requirement for use, and I found no public information on an offline mode, a customer display, or a supported-hardware list beyond being able to buy receipt printers from them.
PayPal POS (Zettle)
An app till on the phone or tablet, free from the App Store and Google Play, with a Bluetooth card reader, an all-in-one terminal on WLAN or 4G, and a terminal printer-and-dock and barcode scanner sold separately — that much is public. The pages say nothing about split bills, tips, tables, a kitchen printer, returns, or whether the till keeps ringing when the internet drops; only an offline payments clause in the legal notice hints at it. Receipts go out by email or text message, and a printed receipt is never described.
Card payments & fees
helloCash
Cards run through a named SumUp terminal that can be bought in their online shop, with MasterCard, VISA, Apple Pay and Google Pay listed, and only the payment amount is passed to the terminal. I found no public information on girocard, transaction fees, terminal cost, payout timing or whether I could use a terminal of my own choice, so I cannot work out what a card sale would cost me per month.
PayPal POS (Zettle)
Card taking is the heart of it: reader from 29 € for new business customers (one each), additional readers 79 €, terminal from 199 €, all cards at 1,39 %, Tap to Pay on the phone with Apple Pay, Google Pay and Samsung Pay without extra fees, money in minutes on the PayPal business account, free automatic transfers to the bank, and the Luxembourg credit institution behind it is named. But PayPal is the only acquirer shown, girocard is never named, and tips or split payments on the terminal appear nowhere — for my table service that hurts. The one loosening: their reader can be paired with a third-party till.
Fiscal compliance (TSE, DSFinV-K, RKSV)
helloCash
The TSE providers are named — fiskaly Germany GmbH in Frankfurt for the German signatures and A-Trust in Vienna for the Austrian side — and the plans include the Z-Bon daily closing, a Kassabuch, an extended monthly closing and receipt delivery by print, email or WhatsApp. The KassenSichV pages explain the TSE, Belegausgabepflicht and DSFinV-K as law, but I found no public information showing the DSFinV-K export as a product feature, a BSI certificate, help with the registration or a Verfahrensdokumentation template.
PayPal POS (Zettle)
GoBD and KassenSichV compliance is claimed, a Z-Bon can be created anytime, and every transaction is captured to the cloud so I am supposedly prepared for the Kassenschau. But the TSE is something I must set up myself in the app, its provider and BSI certificate are not named, and we found no public information on a DSFinV-K export, a cash book or the ten-year archive. A free alternative to costly TSE modules is offered, with the small print pointing to the Kassensystem-Service terms.
Inventory, tables, staff & locations
helloCash
Stock with inventory and a staff permission system are included, suppliers can be stored in the article management, reports come as PDF or CSV per business and per employee, and the gastro plan has the table overview and split bills. I found no public information on a kitchen printer or kitchen display, courses, article variants or modifiers, and nothing on running several tills or branches under one account — the kitchen printer is what I would miss most.
PayPal POS (Zettle)
Products with stock tracking, low-stock alerts and bulk upload, gift vouchers, real-time sales reports filterable by payment type, tracking of each person's sales performance, and registers and locations managed at my.zettle.com. The pages never mention tables, courses, a kitchen display or printer, QR self-order, staff logins with roles, or product variants — for a twelve-table café the undescribed half is exactly my half.
Accounting handoff, DATEV & data export
helloCash
There is a named interface to DATEV Kassenarchiv online, a CSV export to accounting programmes, an article and service export, an extended monthly closing and stated API access in the plan list. I found no public information on API documentation or webhooks, card payout and fee reconciliation, or a complete export of customers and sales should I ever cancel my contract.
PayPal POS (Zettle)
The pages promise to automate bookkeeping with cloud-based accounting platforms without naming a single one, while the named integrations — Shopify, WooCommerce, Lightspeed, JTL-POS, plentyPOS and more — are all webshops and other tills. DATEV is never mentioned, no export format is described, and we found no public information on an API or on what leaves the till when the contract ends. My tax advisor would have nothing to hold onto here.
European sovereignty
helloCash
The contracting company is mRaP GmbH in Wieselburg, Austria, data is stated to be secured in a certified data centre in Germany, and subprocessors are listed with their addresses — A-Trust in Vienna and fiskaly in Frankfurt for signatures, Adyen in Berlin, PayPal in Luxembourg and Stripe in Dublin for payments — plus a downloadable data-processing agreement and a named data protection officer. I found no public information on the concrete hosting infrastructure or security certifications, and marketing cookies run through Google, Facebook and Hotjar.
PayPal POS (Zettle)
The contracting entity is proven: PayPal (Europe) S.à r.l. et Cie, S.C.A., a Luxembourg credit institution under the CSSF, R.C.S. Luxembourg B 118 349 — but an American parent (PayPal Holdings, Inc., San Jose) stands behind it, and where the cloud-based till stores my data is not stated. Transfers to third countries take place under EU standard contractual clauses and binding corporate rules, Google ReCaptcha runs on the sites, and a subprocessor list with locations is not published. For financial data the tax office must be able to read for ten years, that leaves questions open.
Pricing transparency
helloCash
Plans are published with prices quoted exactly as 'GRATIS € 0', 'MEDIUM € 990 /Monat*', 'PREMIUM € 1490 /Monat*' and 'GASTRO € 2090 /Monat*', VAT treatment stated ('alle Preise exkl. USt.'), a 'Modulgebühr iHv. € 4,90 pro Modul', support priced ('Premium Support (pro Jahr €42,90 oder zahlbar nach Aufwand)', '€150 netto exkl. USt pro Stunde') and a 'flexible Laufzeit … jederzeit kündbar'. The TSE fee, hardware, card fees and setup stay unpriced, and the captured pages give different plan names — free, Classic and Premium on one page versus four models on the pricing page — so my cost in the second year is not computable from public pages alone.
PayPal POS (Zettle)
The price is unusually readable: no monthly fee and no recurring charges, billing per transaction and payment method, all cards at 1,39 %, Tap to Pay without extra fees, free automatic bank transfers, reader from 29 €, additional readers 79 €, terminal from 199 €, shop kits from 229 €, all plus VAT, delivery in one to two working days. What stays dark: the barcode scanner and the terminal printer-and-dock are only available separately with no price, delivery fees are unnamed, no support plan is priced, and the fees themselves can change with thirty days' notice. Still, I can read my second-year cost better here than on most price pages I see.
Sovereignty, side by side
Dimension
helloCash
PayPal POS (Zettle)
Legal entity
Not determined
Not determined
Hosting location
Not determined
Not determined
Hosting options
Not determined
Not determined
Open source
Not determined
Not determined
Data processing agreement
Not determined
Not determined
Transfer impact assessment
Not determined
Not determined
Facts, side by side
Only facts both products carry under the same definition — anything else would not be a fair row.
Which is better, helloCash or PayPal POS (Zettle)?
As of 30 Oct 2026, the panel rates helloCash higher: 2.5/5 against 2/5. Weighted by what each judge cares about, 5 of the 6 judges pick helloCash and 0 pick PayPal POS (Zettle), 1 calls it a tie. Which one fits depends on the criteria that matter to you; the table on this page shows both side by side, and each judge’s reading has its own page. Both were scored by the same AI bench under the same rubric, from public evidence only, as the methodology describes.
Is helloCash or PayPal POS (Zettle) European?
helloCash is European (EU-Made). PayPal POS (Zettle) is European (EU origin, foreign-owned). Provenance is read from each company’s own legal pages: who builds it and who owns it.
Where do helloCash and PayPal POS (Zettle) store customer data?
Per the vendors’ own pages as captured — helloCash: Default not stated; pages mention Germany. PayPal POS (Zettle): its pages as captured do not say.
Do helloCash and PayPal POS (Zettle) have a free plan?
As of 30 Oct 2026, helloCash’s own pages state a free plan; PayPal POS (Zettle)’s pages as captured do not. Each product page links the pricing page it was read from.