Revel Systems Software Reviews, Demo & Pricing (2024)

Reviewed April 2017

Not for the technology newbie....

The only reporting feature I would love to see is comparative reports so I don't have to piece them together. I want to know things like "sales last March versus sales this March", and "labor last month versus this month". That's how we track trends and right now we have to export as excel and wrote our own formulas to analyze this data. Overall, a good system for our small business.

PROS

Great reporting on the back end. Responsive to feedback. Constantly evolving and listening to customers. VERY customizable. The systems are reliable (as long as your network is reliable) and I haven't had any Revel related downtime. We are a 7 day a week operation with two locations and the only problems we have had have been related to our own network reliability and one faulty iPad. Once we upgraded those, we were fine.

CONS

SUPER labor intensive to set up yourself. If you are at all uncomfortable with technology and terminology, hire someone to do this for you. If you are comfortable plucking around in setting up the backend yourself, go for it. I had TERRIBLE frustrations with the support team at launch. It was clearly an overseas call center and there was a language barrier where the agents were likely trained to simply read back scripted responses and not really think critically through my issues. I feel like maybe they added some US based support because sometimes when I call now, language and understanding is not an issue and I can get things solved quickly. It can sometimes feel like this system is trying to be all things to all people, which can be both admirable and frustrating at the same time. There are SO many set up choices I don't need that I feel like a consultative sales approach (and more personal support at set up) would be more helpful but that would definitely cause costs to rise. It's a conundrum. So just know that you'll save money if you feel confident setting this up yourself. If you aren't comfortable wit technology, be ready to spend a little on hiring a person to set you up.

Reviewed July 2018

Amazing features and functionality for accurate business analysis

Give your customer service agents at your call centers raises! I have spent dozens of hours on the phone and talked to numerous people from all over and every single one of them has surpassed all expectations of product knowledge and customer service! That makes a world of difference!

PROS

The features from a business owner's perspective are unparalleled. Everything is totally customizable tofu the specific and unique needs of individual businesses. The customer service alone makes this worth the money. I have never looked forward to calling customer service before, but the training of the employees of not just product knowledge, but also customer service is absolutely unmatched.

CONS

I have three specific areas of opportunity for Revel. 1) Taking payments of split checks (especially when one guest leaves earlier than others) is the worst system of any modern systems I have ever worked with. After splitting the checks, it is impossible to change the way you split the items if one guest has already paid and left. This really needs to be addressed if the product is going to be marketed to full service restaurants that have to deal with split payments on almost every party of 3 or more. 2) While I appreciate its modern focus, it is not easy to work with if a restaurant still uses paper gift certificates. 3) We were a "Guinea Pig" test restaurant for a salesman that had never worked with Revel before. He provided absolutely no help at all in setting up the system as he didn't know much about it himself. Even after he got back from training, he had to call customer service to answer simple questions I had. For such a complex and intricate system, there should be protocols in place for better training of the people selling it to be able to set it up for the customers.

Reviewed November 2016

Full of Glitches

We've been with Revel for about 8 months now. I am on the phone with customer support weekly, nearly daily. Our initial integration with Quickbooks was not well supported by their staff and eventually I had to just teach myself how to get the system set up and integrated. We have constantly had issues that when I contact customer service they tell me they don't know why it happened and it must be a glitch in the software. My credit card machine broke after 7 months and Revel could not figure out how to fix it so I called the manufacturer and they told me it was a software issue. Revel's solution was to trade in for a new one, rather than try to figure out what the software issue was. The first customer service agent I spoke to did not even have the manual for the pin pad that I was using. Multiple times Revel has stopped speaking to Quickbooks without warning and our data has not been pushed through as it should. I've been told that the exchange feature that is built in to the front end of the system does not actually work and so we should stop using it and do a work around so that our entries into Quickbooks will be correct. My completed invoices have gotten stuck between the Ipad and the back office and the payments have therefore not been received into Quickbooks until I discovered the problem. Revel has multiple times overtaken Quickbooks and changed the vendor information in Quickbooks. After multiple phone calls to customer support for a single issue I've eventually been told that my system is out of date and that's what's causing the problem, but it was never brought up in initial phone calls. In the same vein, there is no indication from Revel that I should update the system. In fact for the last update, the app told me that it was the most up to date, but finally on the back end of Revel there was a warning that I needed to update or my system would be obsolete. In fact I was running the most up to date version of the app, but what needed to be done was to download an entirely new app-that was not made clear in Revel's warning, I just happened to figure it out myself. Furthermore, had I not happened to log into Revel's back end on that particular day, I would not have known that I was required to update. One day the back office stopped sending our daily emailed reports. When I spoke to customer support they told me that it was because the email addresses where the report was sent were separated by commas and not semi-colons. When I mentioned that the commas had been working for 7 months they told me that it was due to an update on their back end that now required semi-colons. When asked how I was supposed to know that and change it I was told that it had been a "known issue" for over a month and that some businesses had a problem and some didn't so they didn't let customers know about the issue. With all the issues I've had, I've never been able to speak to a supervisor or had any kind of conciliatory gesture like a reduced price made for me and in fact had to pay shipping to and from returning my credit card machine. When I speak to customer service about issues related to Quickbooks integration, they are not trained on Quickbooks so generally cannot help me. Overall the system is extremely glitchy and inconsistent. It cannot be counted on to work the same way from day to day.

PROS

-When it works it is more robust and better at speaking to Quickbooks than any other POS systems that we've used.

CONS

There are many, many issues that I can't explain because it works fine one day and not at all the next, with no reason. -Past POS companies have emailed me monthly updates about changes that are coming and information about updating the app or problems that have been discovered. Revel does no such thing.

Reviewed September 2017

Tons of customizations!

No other system had the flexibility to provide what we needed. Customization took months to get sorted out (and I am a network engineer during the day). Despite all the hard ships I couldn't imagine switching again. I still experiment with competitors that have lower fees, however can't match half the features and flexibility I get with Revel.

PROS

The ability to customize the POS Online ordering built in at decent rate (may be more expensive now) IPad based (flexibility) Integrates with many payment processors (heads up on gateway fees)

CONS

Expensive Seems like they are moving to a la carte pricing structure (more expensive) Customer Support is based in Philippines, while sometimes good they don't really understand sometimes

Reviewed May 2019

Pretty, but Problematic

Lots of restaurants and retail stores I frequent use Revel. I would try Revel again if given the choice, but I would make sure to get my employees trained in troubleshooting themselves to avoid the potential of a customer service snafu.

PROS

I work for a small college bookstore that recently transitioned from an ancient, outdated POS system. We were all so excited about Revel. It's sleek, easy to use, and much simpler than many of its predecessors.

CONS

The biggest trouble we ran into is that Revel is hopelessly buggy, and I would sometimes be on the phone with customer service for an hour before getting my problem resolved. For a small business with only one cash register, this was often a nightmare.