01
The Stacked
Intelligence Index
New this quarter
Q3 2026 baseline
For four quarters we published a single NPS number for POS. It was useful and it was narrow. From Q3 2026 we publish the Stacked Intelligence Index instead: one 0–100 score per category, per quarter, built from what operators actually rate and what they actually run.
It answers a question a satisfaction score cannot: how healthy is this category for someone buying into it right now? Three things decide that: whether the operators already running these systems are happy, whether the category is being actively bought or quietly abandoned, and whether a buyer has real choice or is walking into a near-monopoly.
72.0
Market index, Q3 2026 (mean of six ranked categories)
Baseline quarter
3.64/5
Review-weighted operator satisfaction, market-wide
558 counted reviews
3,053
Verified tool records behind the adoption data
550 operator brands
6 of 25
Categories with evidence strong enough to rank
See coverage, below
How the index is calculated
Each category scores 0–100. Three components, fixed weights, recalculated identically every quarter:
- Operator satisfaction: 50%. The review-weighted mean score of every scored vendor tagged to that category, on the 1–5 scale operators use, rescaled to 0–100. Weighting by review count stops a vendor with two reviews outvoting one with seventy-nine.
- Adoption momentum: 25%. The category's share of this quarter's Stack Score submissions, against the mean of the prior three quarters. Using share rather than raw volume normalises for quarters where we simply collected more data. Transformed as 50 + 50·tanh(ln r), so a flat category scores 50, doubling scores ~80 and halving ~20, symmetrically.
- Competitive intensity: 25%. One minus the Herfindahl–Hirschman index of tool share within the category across the last two quarters. A category where one vendor holds everything scores low. That is a lock-in risk, not a convenience. A fragmented category scores high: more genuine choice, harder selection.
Coverage and confidence. Separately from the score, we measure what share of a category's real-world tool mentions belong to vendors we hold a score for. A category can only be ranked at Medium confidence or above: at least 25 counted reviews and 25% coverage. Coverage is reported openly rather than buried, because a satisfaction score built on 15% of a market is not a market score.
Exclusions. Diagnostic and test entries removed. Aggregated only, never by site and never by named operator. Only categories with unbroken four-quarter data and enough volume to score are eligible, and seven qualify. The other sixteen are tracked but not scored until coverage holds. Guest Feedback has four-quarter continuity but too few records, and is the most likely addition next quarter.
Add your stack
This index is built from operators. Including, if you want, you.
Every number in this section came from operators completing a Stack Score and rating what they run. Add yours and two things happen: you get your own score back, and your stack becomes part of the Q4 2026 index, which is how the coverage gaps named above get closed.
Add your stack to the index
Free to any UK operator
Stacked Intelligence Index, Q3 2026
Score out of 100. Six ranked categories, plus one reported but unranked on coverage grounds.
Learning & Development
76.8
People Mgmt & Scheduling
69.8
Finance & Accounting Unranked
84.9
Finance & Accounting scores highest and is excluded from the market index: we hold scores for vendors representing just 14.3% of the category's real tool mentions. The market there is Xero (32 mentions), Sage (11) and independent accountants (7), none of them rated in our data. An 84.9 built on two vendors and 14 reviews is an artefact rather than a finding, and we would rather say so than print it as a headline.
What each score is made of
Weighted contribution to the index. Segments sum to the category’s total score, subject to rounding.
Satisfaction (50%)
Adoption momentum (25%)
Competitive intensity (25%)
Learning & Development
76.8
People Mgmt & Scheduling
69.8
Competitive intensity barely varies. Every ranked category sits between 89 and 96, meaning no category in UK hospitality is close to monopolised. The spread comes almost entirely from satisfaction and momentum, which is where a buyer should be looking.
Adoption momentum: change in share of the operator stack
Q3 2026 against Q2 2026, as a percentage change in each category's share of all reported tools. Scale runs −20% to +10%.
Learning & Development
+4.2
People Mgmt & Scheduling
−6.1
Inventory remains the quarter's clearest signal, down 18.7% while food inflation was the thing everyone said they were worried about. Point of Sale is the only category gaining real ground, up 8.9%. Finance & Accounting rose 105% and sits outside this chart's scale; on 14.3% coverage, read that as the Stack Score asking the question more often rather than the market moving.
The full table
Every input, published. If you disagree with the weights, the components are here to reweight yourself.
| Category | Index | Satisfaction | Raw /5 |
Momentum | Competitive | Q3 share | QoQ |
Reviews | Vendors | Coverage | Confidence |
| Learning & Development | 76.8 | 65.1 | 3.60 | 81.3 | 95.9 | 12.5% | +4.2% | 39 | 5 | 30.1% | Medium |
| Payments | 75.9 | 74.5 | 3.98 | 65.2 | 89.4 | 17.2% | −1.3% | 181 | 6 | 57.5% | High |
| Point of Sale | 72.3 | 67.8 | 3.71 | 59.9 | 93.8 | 19.3% | +8.9% | 244 | 14 | 64.1% | High |
| Loyalty & CRM | 69.9 | 65.4 | 3.61 | 53.4 | 95.3 | 9.5% | −2.1% | 41 | 8 | 59.3% | Medium |
| People Mgmt & Scheduling | 69.8 | 59.9 | 3.39 | 64.8 | 94.5 | 14.5% | −6.1% | 146 | 14 | 73.0% | High |
| Inventory & Stock | 67.6 | 57.6 | 3.31 | 62.6 | 92.3 | 9.5% | −18.7% | 89 | 7 | 60.7% | High |
| Finance & Accounting Unranked | 84.9 | 82.5 | 4.30 | 90.5 | 84.2 | 14.3% | +104.6% | 14 | 2 | 14.3% | Low |
Market index 72.0 = mean of the six ranked categories. Including Finance & Accounting would lift it to 73.9, which is exactly why it is excluded.
What the categories are telling you
Learning & Development · 76.8 Medium
The quarter's leader, and the least settled category in the index. Competitive intensity of 95.9 is the highest of any category: 59 distinct tools across 103 mentions, which means almost nobody has consolidated. Momentum is strong at 81.3. But satisfaction is middling at 3.60 and coverage is the thinnest of any ranked category at 30.1%, with Mapal (11 mentions) and Flow (6) together outweighing anything we hold a score for. Read this as a category being bought hard under compliance pressure, before anyone has settled on what good looks like.
Payments · 75.9 High
The most trustworthy number in the index: 181 reviews, 57.5% coverage, satisfaction 3.98. Dojo alone accounts for 43 of 146 recent mentions and rates 4.2. Share of stack has flattened this quarter, down 1.3%, having been rising at the start of September. The standing caveat is directional rather than statistical: both major POS vendors are pushing payment attach rates hard, so a growing share of this satisfaction is earned inside bundles operators did not separately choose.
Point of Sale · 72.3 High
The deepest evidence base in the index by some distance: 244 reviews across 14 scored vendors, and the only ranked category gaining real share this quarter at +8.9%. Satisfaction of 3.71 is unremarkable and the spread inside it is the story: Square at 4.0 across 84 reviews and Lightspeed at 3.8 across 44, against Oracle Simphony at 2.8 and Kobas at 2.2. The legacy tail drags the average down while the cloud entrants pull the median up.
Loyalty & CRM · 69.9 Medium
The biggest climber since our early-September extract, up 3.8 points, almost entirely on satisfaction: 3.61 now against 3.50 three weeks ago, as the review base grew to 41. Leat leads at 4.0, with Como 3.9 and both Embargo and Pepper at 3.8; Airship sits well back at 2.4. Coverage has improved to 59.3%. Momentum is still the weakest of any ranked category at 53.4, because loyalty remains what gets cut when margin is the conversation.
People Mgmt & Scheduling · 69.8 High
The best coverage in the index at 73.0%, meaning we can see most of this market, and it returns the second-lowest satisfaction of any ranked category at 3.39. Fourth (3.2 across 32 reviews) and Harri (3.2 across 15) carry the largest estates and the weakest scores, with Rotaready at 2.5 and S4labour at 2.0 below them. Bizimply (4.5) and Opsyte (4.2) sit at the top on smaller bases. Share of stack fell 6.1% in the quarter October's compliance deadlines came into view, which is a mismatch worth naming.
Inventory & Stock · 67.6 High
Bottom of the ranked index on the lowest satisfaction of any category, 3.31, and the sharpest fall in share at 18.7%. That decline has moderated from the 29.9% we recorded three weeks ago, but the direction has not changed. MarketMan leads on mentions with 18 and scores 3.2; Nory is 3.4, Fourth 3.2. No vendor with meaningful volume clears 3.5. This remains the clearest gap between what operators say they need, food cost control in a year of drought-driven vegetable inflation, and what they are actually buying.
Operator satisfaction by vendor
Scores out of 5, from verified operator reviews. Vendors with fewer than five reviews are marked thin: the score is real but the base is small, so read it as a signal rather than a verdict. Within each category, vendors with a substantive review base are listed first by score, thin-evidence vendors after them.
Point of Sale
| Square | 4.0 | 84 |
| Lightspeed | 3.8 | 44 |
| Zonal | 3.6 | 24 |
| SumUp | 3.5 | 24 |
| Toast | 3.5 | 33 |
| Access | 3.5 | 8 |
| Tevalis | 3.3 | 7 |
| WRS thin | 4.8 | 2 |
| Vita Mojo thin | 4.5 | 2 |
| Aloha thin | 3.7 | 3 |
| Tabology thin | 3.3 | 2 |
| pointOne thin | 2.9 | 4 |
| Oracle Simphony thin | 2.8 | 4 |
| Kobas thin | 2.2 | 3 |
People Management & Scheduling
| Opsyte | 4.2 | 7 |
| All Gravy | 4.1 | 9 |
| Deputy | 3.9 | 9 |
| Workforce.com | 3.8 | 8 |
| Monotree | 3.7 | 8 |
| Planday From Xero | 3.7 | 8 |
| Nory | 3.4 | 23 |
| Fourth | 3.2 | 32 |
| Harri | 3.2 | 15 |
| Rotaready | 2.5 | 12 |
| S4labour | 2.0 | 5 |
| Bizimply thin | 4.5 | 4 |
| Sona thin | 3.0 | 2 |
| Tayl thin | 3.0 | 4 |
Payments
| sunday | 4.2 | 8 |
| Dojo | 4.2 | 39 |
| Square | 4.0 | 84 |
| Lightspeed | 3.8 | 44 |
| URocked thin | 4.5 | 3 |
| DNA Payments thin | 2.2 | 3 |
Inventory & Stock
| Supy | 3.5 | 6 |
| Nory | 3.4 | 23 |
| Fourth | 3.2 | 32 |
| MarketMan | 3.2 | 22 |
| WRS thin | 4.8 | 2 |
| Crunchtime thin | 3.5 | 2 |
| Apicbase thin | 2.8 | 2 |
Loyalty & CRM
| Leat | 4.0 | 6 |
| Como | 3.9 | 5 |
| Embargo | 3.8 | 8 |
| Pepper | 3.8 | 6 |
| Airship | 2.4 | 7 |
| Feedelity thin | 4.5 | 3 |
| HGEM thin | 4.0 | 2 |
| Paytronix thin | 3.3 | 4 |
Learning & Development
| SIDEWAYS | 4.3 | 7 |
| All Gravy | 4.1 | 9 |
| Monotree | 3.7 | 8 |
| CPL Learning | 2.9 | 11 |
| Tayl thin | 3.0 | 4 |
Second column: score out of 5. Third column: number of verified reviews. Vendors appear in every category they are tagged to.
How this index moves next quarter
Q3 2026 is the baseline. Satisfaction scores in this edition carry no date stamp, so we cannot yet show quarter-on-quarter movement on the half of the index that matters most. The adoption half already moves, and does so in this report. From Q4 2026 every review is dated on capture, and the index will publish full movement: score, direction, and which component drove it. Three things would change the picture materially: coverage in Learning & Development and Finance (we need scores on Mapal, Flow, Xero and Sage before either category can be trusted), the October compliance deadlines landing on People Management momentum, and whether inventory buying recovers once winter food pricing bites.
Sources and limits: read before quoting
- Satisfaction comes from operator reviews held in the Stacked marketplace: 573 reviews across 69 vendors, of which 558 across 54 vendors carry a score used here. Reviews are collected by the Stacked team from operators running the systems. Work emails are held for verification only and never published.
- Adoption comes from Stack Score tech-stack submissions: 3,053 tool records from 550 operator brands, self-reported, spanning Q4 2025 to Q3 2026. Organisation-level only; no personal data.
- Q3 2026 is a partial quarter. The latest submission in this extract is 23 September, with one week of the quarter remaining. Momentum is calculated on share, which limits but does not eliminate the effect.
- Q1 2026 carried an unusually large submission volume (1,714 records against 313–508 in surrounding quarters). Using share of stack rather than raw counts is what stops that quarter distorting every momentum figure.
- Vendors are tagged to multiple categories, so a vendor such as Fourth or Nory contributes to more than one score. This is deliberate: operators buy the suite, and the suite is judged in each category it competes in.
- A place in this index is earned rather than bought, and marketplace tier, whether Lite, Promote or Approved, has no bearing on score, rank or inclusion. The six category leaders in the tables above split evenly: two Lite, two Promote, two Approved.
