Kevin: Hello, Mr. Jake and Mr. Daniel. How are you guys doing today?

Jake Newbold: Doing good, Kevin. How about you, buddy?

Kevin: Good, man. I figured we needed to get another episode of Trigger Point in, right? This is everybody’s favorite FFL podcast. We’ve got a really great one to talk about today. Let’s talk about money. How does that sound?

Jake Newbold: I like that conversation.

Kevin: Okay. Everybody looks at the monthly numbers when they’re shopping for point-of-sale software. But the monthly software fee isn’t necessarily what the system actually costs you. So today, we’re going to break down what an FFL should really be looking at when they’re evaluating how much their point of sale costs. Do you guys feel like jumping into this one?

Jake Newbold: Sure.

Kevin: All right. It’s an important one, obviously.

Jake Newbold: It is.

Kevin: So here’s the big question: when somebody asks, “How much does FFL point-of-sale software cost?” what’s the real answer? Jake, we’ll start with you.

Jake Newbold: Well, yeah. Obviously, money is a huge part of the decision, right? It’s about what you’re going to pay for a system that’s going to run your whole business. It’s one of the number one questions we get: “What are you guys going to cost? You gave me this great demo, it looks great, but is this going to cost us thousands of dollars?”

The answer is, it depends.

A home-based FFL is way different than a $10 million gun store with multiple locations, shooting range memberships, and all of that. A single-location retailer is different from a multi-store, multi-operation business. So there are a lot of things an owner has to consider.

First, what’s the core software subscription? Trident One is a software-as-a-service solution, so you pay a monthly SaaS licensing fee. I think most of the top point-of-sale systems in the industry are pretty competitive. Trident One kind of lands in the middle, usually anywhere from $250 to $400 a month. On average, I think we’re around $300 to $350 a month.

But there are a lot of other issues to consider as well. Are you going to get charged for the number of users who are accessing the system? A lot of our competitors charge extra based on the number of users. Trident One is cloud-based, and we charge one monthly fee. It doesn’t matter if you have one user or a thousand users accessing your system.

Are there any upfront costs? That’s a big one, especially for retailers just starting out in the industry. Sometimes they’re a little short on capital and don’t have the upfront funds to pay a large upfront cost. With a lot of on-premise solutions, there is a big capital cost. Some of our competitors are not really cloud-based, so they require a lot of servers and equipment to be brought in, and that’s pretty expensive.

What type of hardware do they need to buy? Trident One will work off pretty much anything. A $100 laptop will run the system just fine. An iPad, whatever they’ve got, usually whatever system the store has, Trident One will work fine on it for the most part, as long as they have decent internet. So that’s a big one: what are the upfront costs?

We used to charge an implementation fee because it takes a lot of effort from our development team, onboarding team, and training staff to get a retailer’s site built, get all their inventory in, and get them trained. We don’t get paid, and the monthly SaaS fee doesn’t start until they’re up and live.

There was something to be said for having skin in the game, and I still like that, but for probably the past four or five months, we’ve done away with all upfront costs. With Trident One, it’s basically free to start. You will pay your monthly fee. If you need a website built, there may be different fees for that or some type of integration, but for the core software system, circling back to your question, it’s going to cost around $300 to $350 a month.

We also provide, as we’ve touched on in previous episodes, truly Second Amendment-friendly credit card processing. We’re usually very competitive on rates as well, so we’re often able to save a retailer or range operation some money on that side too.

I’m sure I missed some things, but again, there are multiple things to consider. Do you want a system where you’re paying one fee that basically does it all? Or do you need another system to run your range, another system for gunsmithing, another system for your memberships, and so on?

There are operators out there running four or five different systems because they don’t have one system that does everything they need. So that’s what you need to consider. Do you have to pay extra for a driver’s license scanner? Do you have to pay extra for range management or a calendar-type feature? With Trident One, you don’t. It’s all included.

Another big one, too, is that some of our competitors charge for customer service calls and tickets. We don’t do that. We’re not going to nickel-and-dime you. You get everything under the hood for one price. Daniel, you can fill in. I’m sure I missed some things.

Kevin: Well, that’s great information there, Jake. Let me bounce the next question to Daniel. A lot of questions come from different clients and prospects. Daniel, what are some of the hidden costs gun store owners tend to miss when they’re looking for a new POS?

Daniel Peterson: That’s another interesting question. When business owners are trying to consider the complexity of what they’re trying to solve—not only starting a business, but maintaining or even growing their business—there’s the cost of getting everything going.

A lot of the advertising or marketing programs out there show one very low dollar amount that kind of gets you to bite. But then after that, there are add-ons. Maybe you need some of the things Jake mentioned, like different integrations. Then it’s, “Oh, well, that’s an extra charge. That’s an extra charge.”

These hidden costs that aren’t transparent out of the gate start to add up very quickly. At the end of it, you look at your bill for that service, and it’s way north of the one-time pricing that we offer here.

So it really comes down to the different businesses. I think that’s the approach we try to take here in terms of cost and the different processes a business is going to need. At the end of the day, that low dollar amount that you think is saving you money—there’s a difference between a low price and cheap. Cheap software can become very expensive when you have to buy and add on five other pieces just to do the one thing you thought it was going to do.

So you really have to consider the complete offering.

Kevin: Yeah, Jake kind of touched on that earlier. He talked about charging for multiple users or multiple stations, and you start getting nickel-and-dimed.

Daniel Peterson: Right. I think that’s one of the approaches we take. These businesses shouldn’t have to come up with the exact question to get the answer they’re truly asking for. We know what you’re asking. We’re in this business. We know how shops work. We know what you need to operate. So we try to make it very transparent upfront.

Kevin: Gotcha. Next question: how is Trident One priced differently from some other traditional point-of-sale systems?

Jake Newbold: Yeah, I touched on that a little earlier, but I think one of the big things is unlimited users under one monthly fee. We’re not going to nickel-and-dime you as your operation grows. You shouldn’t have to pay more if you add another employee who needs access to your system. We don’t believe you should be punished for hiring employees. That just didn’t make sense to us.

Some competitors use that model. Up to a certain number of users, you pay one price. Once you break that threshold, you pay another price for another user tier. That’s just not how we run.

Trident One provides unlimited users under that one fee. Currently, it averages around $350, or $349 a month, per location. There are some exceptions. If you’re using only the bare bones of the system, we have a little flexibility here and there. But currently, as of 2026, that’s our monthly fee. We’re not hiding anything from you. That’s what you pay, and you get everything under the hood for that price.

Kevin: Well, I think another big one you touched on earlier was that Trident One is not currently charging any upfront setup fees. Is that correct?

Jake Newbold: That’s correct, and that’s massive.

Over the past seven or so years that we’ve been doing this, we’ve experimented with different pricing. We’ve done different tiers: “If you’re just going to be a retailer, this is what you pay. If you’re going to be a range as well, this is what you pay. If you have memberships or e-commerce, this is what you pay.”

We did that for a while, and then we went to quote-based pricing. We would look at how big the operation was and then internally look at different metrics, like how long it was going to take us to build their site, get them trained, and everything else. Then we would quote them a one-time implementation fee.

We found that it just didn’t make sense for us. We would rather have them as a client than lose them over pricing. We’d rather partner with you, work with you, and have you as a partner than lose you because you couldn’t afford us.

So, to answer your question, as of now and for the past few months, we’re not charging any upfront fees.

Kevin: Got you. Let me go to another question. Why does cloud-based software change the cost equation?

Daniel Peterson: I would weigh in and say that, depending on how different systems are set up, our system being cloud-based means there’s no separation of versioning within our system. The last person to come onto Trident One has the most up-to-date version, which is the same version as the earliest person who came onto Trident One.

Everyone is working off the latest and greatest technology we have. We’re always able to update and innovate. With non-cloud or on-premise systems, you’re waiting for a version to come out that may or may not conform to the investment you’ve made into your operations and servers. Maybe your server is not up to date, so then you have to upgrade it at a cost in order to get the new licensing and update.

In today’s world, we all live in the cloud. We need the flexibility to operate wherever we have access to the internet. It provides a lot more efficiency and access for the businesses themselves because you don’t have to drive all the way down to the shop to run that one financial report you need to send to the CPA or turn in somewhere. Maybe it’s ordering from your distributors or whatever else you have to do. You can access it from wherever you are.

The entire investment related to on-premise software is a hard cost that you realize on day one. Then you have to figure out how much use you can get out of it over however many years and divide that by the cost. With the cloud and the way we’re structured, you don’t have to realize that cost in the same way. You can focus on growth.

You don’t have to ask, “What is it this month?” It’s going to be the same this month as it is next month. You don’t have to get into depreciation on the books and so forth. It’s no different than paying your energy bill or your cell phone bill. You’re using it, it keeps rolling, and that monthly cost stays consistent, which also helps the bottom line. It’s not a variable cost anymore. It’s constant.

Kevin: A lot of feedback I’ve gotten from prospective customers coming into Trident One is that they don’t have to invest in all the upfront hardware. They’re not required to buy certain terminals or stations. That’s definitely a benefit when you’re talking about reducing capital costs and what their outlay looks like.

Why don’t you speak on that for a second? What feedback have you heard from customers that have joined Trident One specifically around not having to go out and purchase all these brand-new specialized terminals and machines?

Daniel Peterson: I would say it puts the power back into the business’s hands. Once you take care of that checklist item, you don’t have to keep returning to it and updating everything just to keep your business going.

You can focus on new products. You can focus on your own customer listing. It allows them to know that part has been taken care of, and they don’t have to keep a budget for some upcoming hardware cost that might come around the corner at any point in time.

It takes the focus off of some of the operational concerns that exist just to make sure the doors stay open. Business owners can focus on taking care of their customers and making sure they’re providing good service instead of worrying about whether their server is up to date.

Kevin: Gotcha. We’re talking about how much everything costs, so let’s flip the script here. What’s the cost of having all of your systems disconnected or not connected? I think that’s one area where we know Trident One shines because we’re able to connect everything.

What are some things a business owner should think about when setting up their own gun store, specifically the cost of not having everything connected?

Jake Newbold: Oh, man. You’re starting to talk operations, Kevin. I’m a marketing guy. Daniel, you’re the operations guy.

Daniel Peterson: From my perspective, if we go back to the idea that every business is different and unique, there’s no one thing off the shelf that serves every business owner’s needs. So you have to be able to approach it in a flexible way.

We have enough options in how our integrations work within the system to understand what the business owner is trying to accomplish and figure out what needs to be plugged in or unplugged for things to move most efficiently.

At the end of the day, inventory management and financials, which are contained within the retail point of sale, are a large key to these businesses. But then you start getting into different sales channels. Maybe they need their website to speak to a different group. Maybe the range software needs to meet compliance requirements.

It becomes a world where there are so many different directions a business can take that it can be quite overwhelming. The goal is to bring all of those different channels together into an integration where our clients can step into one place and effectively manage all of those channels.

That means bringing in the website to connect with e-commerce, range software, memberships, training classes, new-owner classes, and people coming in. Obviously, it also means making sure the bound book and compliance pieces are speaking well together. Then you have all of your reporting.

Each time you bring in a disconnected system, it comes with its own operational process required by that service. It also creates another entry point for data. Any time you’re doing multiple entries, you create opportunities for multiple mistakes.

Through integrations, you can consolidate and minimize that entry. We’re pulling the same information and putting it where it needs to go. That helps keep everything aligned and supports reconciliation between systems.

There’s also a cost to it. Depending on the processes businesses are trying to execute and the different channels they’re trying to use, there is always going to be another cost that comes with it. When you start getting into, “If you’re going to use this system just to run your business, here’s another add-on,” we’ve eliminated that. We want to promote growth and efficiency, and I think that’s what we’re executing on now.

Kevin: Great answer. All right, I’ve got a big one for Jake. Jake, what should a gun store owner put on a checklist when comparing two FFL point-of-sale quotes?

Jake Newbold: I would compare ten things.

First, the monthly cost of the software. Ask about how many users you can have. Are you limited to a certain number of users, or can you have as many as you want, like Trident One offers?

Second, are there different costs for multiple locations, and what are they? Maybe you have a warehouse, and you want your warehouse to talk to your retail store.

Third, hardware. Do you have to purchase a bunch of hardware, servers, computers, receipt printers, label makers, and so on?

Fourth, what type of internet service do you need? Does it have to be landline, or can it be wireless?

Fifth, are there any upfront implementation costs for training and onboarding?

Sixth, the compliance piece. What does the compliance software cost? Is it embedded, or is it a separate price to maintain your bound book and all your compliance requirements?

Seventh, credit card payment processing. I can’t emphasize that one enough. It’s not only about pricing, but making sure you find a software company that works with a true Second Amendment-friendly bank doing the credit card processing, like Trident One has.

Eighth, range functionality. Do you have a shooting range?

Ninth, e-commerce. Are you going to be selling products on your website? What is the cost of that? Are there additional costs for running your range or for integrations?

Tenth, customer support. That’s a big one. As I mentioned, some of our competitors charge extra for support tickets and customer support.

The last thing is what other systems you still need after purchasing it. Does it handle everything, or do you need more?

I think the right question folks need to ask isn’t, “What does the point of sale cost?” The right question is, “What does it cost me to run my entire operation?”

Kevin: That makes a ton of sense right there. That was great, Jake.

All right, I’m going to wind this one down here. I’ve been spitballing a lot of questions at you. When does a fully integrated FFL platform make the most financial sense? You guys can tag-team that one.

Daniel Peterson: I’ll add a few thoughts here. I would say, naturally, anything that seems too good to be true probably is. Cheaper isn’t always better.

We don’t offer the lowest pricing all around, but when you consider the complexity of the services we’re offering with the integrations, and the idea of operating a fully licensed gun store that’s trying to cover all those different areas, there’s value in consolidating those processes.

I go back to what we talked about earlier: not all businesses have the same needs. Therefore, there are different considerations. But when you’re looking for that platform, it has to add value, not just reduce cost. I think Trident One does a very good job of that. It’s more of a value add than just a cost conversation.

Jake Newbold: Just to hammer that home, Trident One isn’t always going to be the cheapest offer. That’s just not the case. Like Daniel said, it depends on different needs. A guy just starting out selling guns in his garage after getting his FFL is a lot different from a million-dollar-a-year operation with multiple stores, locations, and ranges.

Don’t buy software based on the cheapest number on a pricing page. Buy the system that gives you the lowest total cost and the best control over your operation.

Kevin: Well, I can quote you on that one, Jake. That’s a good one right there. I think that’s a perfect one to end on.

That was great stuff. You guys are answering questions that people are looking for online. They’re asking these questions every day, and it’s helpful to give straight answers to everybody. I think it’s important that we educate all of our prospects and people out there with good information.

I appreciate you guys taking some time today and doing this, and I look forward to seeing you on the next go-around.

Jake Newbold: Thanks for having us, man.

Daniel Peterson: Take care. Have a good one.