Kobas, the cloud-based EPoS and stock management platform built specifically for independent hospitality operators, has reported its strongest quarter of new client signings since the company was founded, with 340 new businesses joining the platform in the first three months of 2026.
The company attributes the growth primarily to what it describes as a widespread loss of confidence in legacy EPoS providers among independent operators — a cohort that has historically been underserved by enterprise-grade systems designed for large groups and insufficiently supported by entry-level solutions built for retail rather than hospitality.
What operators are leaving
Kobas conducted exit interviews with 180 operators who switched to the platform in Q1, asking them to characterise their previous system and their primary reason for leaving. The results paint a consistent picture.
The most common complaint — cited by 64% of respondents — was poor customer support, defined as waiting times of more than 24 hours for responses to technical issues during service hours. The second most common (51%) was inflexible contract terms, with operators citing minimum contract lengths of 36 months or more and punitive exit clauses that made switching prohibitively expensive until the contract expired.
A third of respondents said their previous system lacked integrations they considered essential — most commonly accounting software (Xero and QuickBooks were the most mentioned) and online ordering platforms. A quarter said their previous system had not received a meaningful feature update in over two years.
What independents are looking for
The Kobas data suggests that independent operators are not looking for the most feature-rich system — they are looking for reliability, responsiveness and a pricing model they can understand.
"What I hear consistently from operators who switch is that they didn't leave because of a better feature," said Kobas chief executive Chris Moore. "They left because something broke during a Saturday service and they couldn't get anyone on the phone. That's not a technology problem. It's a service problem."
Kobas operates on monthly rolling contracts with no exit penalty after an initial 30-day period — a commercial model that the company says reflects its confidence in retention through quality rather than contractual lock-in. Monthly churn is currently running at below 1%.
The platform includes EPoS, stock control, recipe costing, supplier ordering, staff management, reporting and integration with the major accounting and reservation platforms. A new allergen management module, integrated directly with the recipe costing engine, launched in February.
The independent operator market
Independent hospitality businesses — those operating fewer than five sites — account for the majority of UK food and beverage outlets by number but have historically been among the last to adopt integrated technology platforms, partly due to cost and partly due to the complexity of implementation without a dedicated IT resource.
That picture is changing. The post-pandemic period has accelerated technology adoption across the sector, and operators who invested in integrated systems during the 2020–2022 period have, on the whole, demonstrated stronger margin performance than those who continued to operate with disconnected or manual systems.
Kobas expects to close the year with its client base above 2,500 businesses — double the number it had at the start of 2024.