Written by: JJ Tan, Founder, Jelly
Key Takeaways For UK Pub Operators
- Zonal is a bundled hospitality suite. Identify whether EPOS, stock, labour, or central reporting is causing the pain before choosing an alternative.
- Replacement decisions split into EPOS-led or back-office and labour-led options. Many operators only need one module replaced rather than the entire system.
- Jelly automates invoice scanning, live dish costing, supplier price alerts, and GP reporting at a flat £129/month per site, and typically delivers measurable margin gains within the first three months.
- Alternatives vary by estate size. Tabology and Grafterr suit smaller operators for EPOS needs, while Tevalis, Kobas, Fourth, and Workforce.com serve larger groups depending on the capability being replaced.
- See how Jelly’s back-office layer fits your estate and how it can replace Zonal’s stock and purchasing module while working with your existing EPOS.
Decision Framework: Which Zonal Capability Are You Replacing?
Start by mapping your main pain point to the Zonal module it sits in. Four replacement decisions cover most operators evaluating Zonal alternatives.
- EPOS/till (Aztec or Akru): Choose this if your pain is front-of-house transaction speed, tab management, or hardware reliability. EPOS-led alternatives fit here.
- Stock and purchasing: Choose this if your pain is invoice processing, supplier price visibility, or stock variance. Back-office alternatives fit here.
- Labour and rota: Choose this if your pain is scheduling, clock-in, or payroll export. Labour-led alternatives fit here.
- Central back office and estate reporting: Choose this if your pain is multi-site visibility, consolidated GP, or central menu management. Back-office and estate alternatives fit here.
EPOS-led alternatives and back-office or labour-led alternatives are two separate buying decisions. Some operators need both, but many resolve their issues by replacing a single module rather than the full bundle.
Talk to the Jelly team to pinpoint which Zonal capability Jelly replaces for your estate.
Best Zonal Alternatives For UK Pubs By Estate Size
Zonal Alternatives For 1–3 Pubs
For growing operators at this scale, Jelly gives strong back-office control without enterprise complexity. Jelly automates invoice scanning via photo or email and delivers live dish costing. It flags every supplier price movement through its Price Alert feature and provides gross profit margin reporting through its Flash Report, available daily, weekly, or monthly. All of this runs on a flat rate of £129/month per location, with no variable charge per user or feature.
Onboarding delivers initial value within the first week. Amber, a Mediterranean restaurant in East London, saves £3,000–£4,000 per month using Jelly, and the operator describes it as keeping the business alive. Jelly typically saves 10–20 hours of admin per month and adds around 2 percentage points to gross margins in the first three months.
Some operators at this size feel more pain at the till than in the back office. For those teams, Grafterr combines POS, QR ordering, kitchen displays, and staff management into one connected system and suits independent operators. Tabology is a UK EPOS built specifically for bars and pubs, with one of the market’s strongest pre-authorisation implementations for card tabs at £50/month. Tevalis fits operators who want a more capable EPOS foundation and plan to grow.
Zonal Alternatives For 5–20 Pub Groups
For pub groups at this scale, Jelly is the recommended back-office layer. Central visibility of supplier spend, price movements, and dish margins across sites, combined with POS integration for real-time sales mix, gives operations and finance leads the consolidated GP view that Zonal’s back-office module aims to provide.
Sushi Revolution’s monthly stocktake using Jelly takes 5–20 minutes, down from 2–3 hours previously. Populu lifted GP from 68% to 72% across 16 locations after connecting Jelly. One-click push of digitised invoices into Xero (with Sage coming soon) removes the manual accounts payable burden at scale.
For labour scheduling and workforce management at this tier, Kobas and Fourth are established options. Tevalis is an enterprise-grade EPOS used by some of the UK’s largest pub chains, with custom pricing typically £80–£200+ per month per site on 12–36 month contracts. It is a credible EPOS-led alternative for groups ready to standardise their till estate.
Zonal Alternatives For 20+ Site Estates
At this tier, most operators need a central back-office and labour stack alongside EPOS. Fourth and Workforce.com are established names for labour and workforce management at enterprise scale. Kobas covers stock, purchasing, and rota for operators who want a single back-office platform. Tevalis or Zonal’s own enterprise stack remain relevant where a full EPOS estate rollout is required.
Jelly gives growing pub groups in this tier a simple way to automate invoices, inventory, and real-time menu profitability. It suits estates where the main pain is back-of-house margin control rather than till replacement. The flat-rate pricing model scales predictably across sites and avoids the per-module or per-user charges common in enterprise contracts.
EPOS-Led Vs Back-Office And Labour-Led Alternatives
Estate size narrows the field, but the sharper filter is which layer of Zonal you plan to replace. The two replacement decisions are distinct and should not be conflated when building a shortlist.
EPOS-led alternatives replace the till and front-of-house transaction layer. Tevalis, Tabology, and Grafterr sit in this category, each serving different estate sizes. Lightspeed Restaurant costs from £69/month and suits gastropubs with average food spend per head above £20. It is a POS integration partner that Jelly works alongside, so it complements the back-office layer.
Back-office and labour-led alternatives replace stock, purchasing, rota, and workforce management. Kobas, Fourth, and Workforce.com sit in this category.
Jelly occupies the back-of-house layer that turns invoices into live dish costs, price alerts, and GP visibility. It works alongside whichever EPOS the pub already runs. Jelly integrates natively in real time with Square, EPOS Now, Toast, and Lightspeed. POS setup takes around five minutes across all four systems.
See Jelly connected to your current EPOS and how it can replace Zonal’s back-office module.
How Much Do Pub EPOS And Back-Office Systems Cost Per Month?
Jelly charges a flat rate of £129/month per location, with no variable charge per user or feature. That pricing stays transparent and fixed regardless of estate size or feature usage.
For EPOS platforms, cost shape varies significantly. Tabology is available at £50/month, while Tevalis carries custom pricing typically £80–£200+ per month per site on 12–36 month contracts. Hidden EPOS costs UK pubs should watch for include hardware lock-in of £500–£1,500 upfront, contract termination penalties of £500–£2,000, feature add-ons, payment processing markups, and training and setup fees of £200–£500 per site.
Enterprise back-office and labour contracts, including Zonal’s own modules, usually carry longer minimum terms, implementation fees, and per-module pricing. Before signing any contract, ask about module bundling, exit terms, and data ownership. Common red flags in UK pub EPOS contracts include vendor lock-in through 3–5 year minimum terms, proprietary hardware tied to one software provider, high exit fees, and 90-day notice periods on monthly subscriptions that effectively make them quarterly contracts.
Migration And Integration Reality
Moving from Zonal Aztec or Akru usually involves data extraction, menu and stock rebuild, POS-to-dish mapping, supplier and invoice onboarding, retraining, and parallel running. Historical sales data does not need to be migrated live and instead needs to be archived somewhere accessible for accounting and year-on-year comparison. Staff accounts and permissions rarely transfer between systems regardless of provider and must be set up fresh.
A typical restaurant POS migration takes 2–4 weeks from audit to go-live, with simple single-location restaurants completing in 1–2 weeks and multi-location or high-complexity merchants taking 4–6 weeks.
Jelly’s integration process stays straightforward. Native real-time POS integrations with Square, EPOS Now, Toast, and Lightspeed deliver item-level sales data the moment a transaction completes. POS setup follows the same flow across all four systems: open Jelly, click Integrations, sign in to the POS, grant permissions, and select categories to sync.
POS-to-dish linking only surfaces items sold after the integration connects, which keeps mapping clean and free of legacy menu clutter. Jelly is listed on the Lightspeed marketplace. Digitised invoices push into Xero in one click, with Sage integration coming soon.
How To Run The Evaluation
A structured evaluation helps avoid the most common buying mistakes. Use the following checklist before committing to any platform.
Demo questions to ask:
- Which modules are included in the quoted price?
- What does implementation cost, and is it included?
- What is the contract length and what are the exit terms?
Data migration checks:
- Can you export historical sales data before cancelling the old system?
- Who cleans and maps the data, you or the vendor?
- Is migration included in the quoted price?
Integration confirmation:
- Does the system natively integrate with your accounting software?
- Does it connect to your existing POS?
Contract and pricing questions:
- Is pricing per-site, per-module, or per-user?
- Are there implementation fees or hardware lock-in costs?
- What are the exit terms and data ownership provisions?
Before signing:
- Run a test migration with real data, not hand-cleaned samples.
- Confirm data ownership and export rights in writing.
- Verify support availability during go-live week, not just during the sales process.
Comparison Table: Zonal Alternatives By Estate Size And Capability Replaced
The table below summarises the main alternatives by estate size and by the Zonal capability each platform replaces, so you can match a candidate to your specific gap at a glance.
| Platform | Best-Fit Estate Size | Zonal Capability Replaced |
|---|---|---|
| Jelly | 1–3 pubs, 5–20 pub groups, 20+ site estates | Stock and purchasing, central back office |
| Tevalis | 5–20 pub groups, 20+ site estates | EPOS/till, central estate management |
| Tabology | 1–3 pubs, 5–20 pub groups | EPOS/till, stock and purchasing |
| Grafterr | 1–3 pubs, 5–20 pub groups | EPOS/till |
| Kobas | 5–20 pub groups, 20+ site estates | Labour and rota, stock and purchasing |
| Fourth | 20+ site estates | Labour and rota, workforce management |
| Workforce.com | 20+ site estates | Labour and rota |
Frequently Asked Questions
What Is Zonal EPOS And What Does It Include?
Zonal’s hospitality software suite is a bundled product set spanning EPoS/till, back office, stock and purchasing, labour, and central estate management, with EPoS solutions including Zonal’s EPoS and akru for independent hospitality businesses. It is positioned as an enterprise hospitality software suite for pub groups needing shift-to-shift operational continuity and management reporting. For operators evaluating alternatives, this means Zonal functions as several products rather than a single system, so replacement often focuses on one module.
What Are The Disadvantages Of Zonal EPOS?
Common disadvantages include dependency on correct venue setup for menu items, service rules, and reporting mappings, because poor configuration reduces the usefulness of management reports. Menu and service mapping require careful upfront configuration discipline. Some advanced workflows depend heavily on how the EPOS setup is structured. Reporting views can feel less granular than category-first EPOS suites. Multi-site standardisation also depends on consistent staff processes across locations.
How Much Is EPOS A Month For UK Pubs?
Costs vary by provider and estate size. Jelly charges a flat rate of £129/month per location for back-office automation, with no variable charge per user or feature. As covered in the cost section above, EPOS pricing ranges from lower-cost options such as Tabology through to custom enterprise pricing from providers like Tevalis. Enterprise back-office and labour contracts usually carry longer minimum terms and implementation fees on top of monthly subscription costs. Operators should always ask about module bundling, exit terms, and data ownership before signing any contract.
What Are The Best Alternatives To Zonal For UK Pubs?
The right alternative depends on which Zonal capability you plan to replace. For back-office control, including invoice automation, live dish costing, real-time GP, and supplier price visibility, Jelly suits growing pub operators from single sites through to 20+ location estates. For EPOS-led replacement, Tevalis serves larger pub groups and multi-site estates, while Tabology and Grafterr serve smaller operators. For labour and workforce management, Kobas, Fourth, and Workforce.com are established options at different estate sizes.
How Long Does Migration From Legacy Zonal Aztec Take?
The migration steps outlined earlier apply to Aztec specifically, with one key detail on timing. A single-site migration from Zonal Aztec typically takes 3–5 working days from order to live trading, plus around a week of administrative time for reconciliation and rebuilding reporting baselines, giving a total of roughly 1–2 weeks. Multi-site or high-complexity migrations with extensive integrations take longer, so timelines should be scoped case by case.
Conclusion: Match The Alternative To The Module You Are Replacing
Effective evaluation starts by identifying which Zonal module is causing the pain, whether EPOS/till, stock and purchasing, labour and rota, or central estate reporting. The next step is to match the alternative to your estate size and to whether the gap is EPOS-led, back-office-led, or labour-led.
For operators whose pain centres on invoice processing, supplier price visibility, dish costing, or real-time GP, Jelly delivers back-office control without enterprise complexity, at a predictable flat rate, with onboarding value in the first week. For EPOS-led replacement, Tevalis, Tabology, and Grafterr serve different estate sizes. For labour and workforce management, Kobas, Fourth, and Workforce.com are the established options.
Build your shortlist around the module you plan to replace, confirm integration and data ownership terms before signing, and run a test migration before committing.