Supported Hardware

Kassly runs on ordinary hardware. You do not need a purpose-built POS terminal, and you do not need to buy anything from us. This page is what we have actually tested, plus the traps worth knowing before you spend money.

Prices are rough Philippine street prices and move constantly. Treat them as a sense of scale, not a quote.

Tablets

The one rule that matters

The tablet must have Google Play. Several Android tablets sold openly in the Philippines — most notably Huawei's, which run HarmonyOS — ship with no Google Play Store at all. Kassly is distributed through Google Play, so on those tablets you cannot install it. Not with a workaround, not with a sideload we support. Check for the Play Store icon before you pay.

This catches people every year. A Huawei MatePad is a perfectly good tablet at a tempting price, and it will not run Kassly.

What to look for

Feature	What you want	Why
Google Play	Present	Non-negotiable — see above
Screen	10–11 inches	8 inches works but is cramped for a busy menu
Battery	7,000mAh or more	It has to survive a full trading day
RAM	4GB minimum	4GB is enough; 8GB is comfortable
Android version	Android 13 or newer	Older builds fall out of support during the tablet's life
Brightness	The brighter the better	A dim screen is unreadable at a window-facing counter
Service in your area	An authorised service centre you can actually reach	The cheapest brands are thinnest on service outside Metro Manila and Cebu

Tablets that work well

These are the models we have used, grouped by what they are for rather than ranked. All have Google Play.

Tablet	Roughly	Notes
Xiaomi Redmi Pad SE 11"	₱10,000	The safe default. Big battery, wide warranty coverage in the Philippines, a brand your staff recognise.
Samsung Galaxy Tab A9+	₱15,000	The one to buy if you want it to last. Four years of Android updates and the best service network in the country.
Lenovo Tab M11	₱11,000–₱14,000	Solid, widely available, enterprise-ish build.
Infinix XPAD / Tecno Megapad 11	₱7,500–₱9,000	Cheapest route in, and genuinely capable. Fewer software updates and thinner service coverage — fine for a second screen or a kitchen display, riskier as your only till.

An 8-inch tablet like a Redmi Pad SE 8.7" or Galaxy Tab A9 is fine for a small counter or a food cart where space is tight.

Phones

A phone works. This is not a compromise you have to apologise for — a food cart, a market stall, or a service business doing house calls runs perfectly on a phone. Any Android phone with Google Play, or any iPhone, will do.

All-in-one POS terminals

If you want a single wired unit with the printer and cash-drawer port built in, the iMin and Sunmi Android terminals both run Kassly, since they are Android devices with Google Play. Expect ₱24,000–₱40,000 depending on the model and whether you want a customer-facing second screen.

The trade-off, honestly stated:

	All-in-one terminal	Tablet plus accessories
Cost	₱24,000+	₱13,000–₱24,000
Printer connection	Wired — always connected	Bluetooth — can drop mid-shift
Cash drawer	Wired port, reliable	Triggered through the printer, occasionally flaky
If it breaks	Vendor-specific parts, a wait	Buy another tablet at any mall
Portability	Bolted to the counter	Take it to the table

A tablet plus a Bluetooth printer is the right answer for most Philippine SMEs. A high-volume restaurant counter is where a wired all-in-one starts to pay for itself, because a printer that disconnects during Friday dinner service costs more than the hardware did.

Receipt printers

Kassly speaks ESC/POS, the standard almost every thermal receipt printer in the Philippines understands. Two paper widths are supported:

Paper	Characters per line	Use it for
80mm	42	A counter. Easier to read, and standard for BIR receipts.
58mm	32	A handheld or a very tight counter

80mm is the default recommendation. Budget ₱2,500–₱4,000 for a decent 80mm Bluetooth thermal printer, ₱1,500–₱2,500 for 58mm.

Printers we have tested

Connected by USB to a computer running the web back office, these are known to work:

• Epson TM-T82, TM-T88, TM-T20
• Star Micronics TSP100 (in USB mode)
• Xprinter XP-58, XP-80
• Generic POS-58 and POS-80 printers

Kassly also recognises the USB chipsets these use, including the CH340 USB-to-serial chip found in most inexpensive printers sold locally.

Any ESC/POS printer should work whether or not it is on that list — the list is what we have confirmed, not a whitelist.

What to avoid

• Inkjet or laser printers. Kassly prints thermal receipts. An A4 printer will produce a page, but it is not a receipt.
• Printers with no ESC/POS mode. A handful of consumer label printers speak only their own vendor protocol. Ask before you buy.
• Wi-Fi-only printers. They work, but they add a second thing that can fail when your internet does. Bluetooth or USB is more robust in a Philippine shop.

Cash drawers

A cash drawer is not connected to your tablet. It plugs into your printer, with an RJ11 or RJ12 cable, and the printer pops it open when Kassly sends the kick command with the receipt.

That has two consequences:

• You need a printer to have an automatic cash drawer. No printer, no automatic drawer.
• The printer must have a drawer port. Cheap Bluetooth printers often do not. Check for the RJ11/RJ12 socket before buying.

Budget ₱1,500–₱2,500 for a basic drawer, ₱3,000–₱5,000 for a sturdier one. Any standard 12V or 24V RJ11/RJ12 drawer works — this is genuinely commodity hardware.

If your drawer has no port to plug into, that is fine. Plenty of Kassly stores use a manual cash box and record cash in Kassly. See Opening a shift.

Barcode scanners

Optional, but transformative for a grocery, a pharmacy, or a hardware store.

Buy a scanner that acts like a keyboard — described as HID, keyboard-wedge, or "plug and play". It types what it reads, so it works anywhere Kassly has a search box, with no driver, no pairing profile and no setup. USB for a fixed counter, Bluetooth for a tablet.

• ₱1,500–₱3,000 buys a perfectly good 1D laser scanner. That is all a grocery needs.
• ₱3,500–₱6,000 gets a 2D imager, which also reads QR codes and damaged labels.
• Zebra and Honeywell units start around ₱8,000 and are worth it only for very high volume.

Label printers

Kassly prints barcode labels as a PDF, so any printer your computer can print to will do. See Barcode labels for the label sizes.

• A4 sticker sheets print on the inkjet or laser printer you already have. Buy sheets that match one of the layouts in the barcode labels guide, and print at Actual size.
• A thermal label printer prints one label at a time from a roll, with no ink. Install the printer's Windows or macOS driver, set its paper size to your label size (50 × 25 mm, 40 × 30 mm or 38 × 25 mm), and print the PDF at Actual size.
• Check for a computer driver before you buy. Some cheap label printers only work through their own phone app. Those cannot print Kassly's labels.

Printing labels from the Kassly app on a phone or tablet is not available yet.

Kitchen display screens

The Kitchen Display System runs in a browser or the app, over your network. There is no special hardware, no vendor SDK, and no per-screen licence beyond the add-on.

Any cheap Android tablet, wall-mounted, works. ₱8,000–₱12,000 per screen is plenty. Two practical notes: mount it where steam and oil will not reach it, and plug it into permanent power rather than relying on the battery.

See Kitchen display.

A working counter, three ways

Setup	What's in it	Roughly
Start with what you have	A phone you already own	₱0
A real counter	Redmi Pad SE 11" + stand + 80mm Bluetooth printer + cash drawer	₱14,000–₱15,000
Built to last	Galaxy Tab A9+ + lockable stand + 80mm printer + cash drawer + Bluetooth scanner	₱24,000

A tablet stand is worth the ₱800–₱2,000. A tablet lying flat on a wet counter next to the sink is a tablet you will replace.

Before you buy anything

1. Make your first sale on the phone in your pocket. It costs nothing and tells you what you actually need.
2. Check the tablet has Google Play in the shop, before paying.
3. Check the printer has a cash-drawer port if you want an automatic drawer.
4. Buy from an authorised local retailer rather than the cheapest import listing. When the printer dies in month four, the warranty is the whole point.