Short answer
Choose MiniPOS if you sell alone from one counter and want a phone app for sales, stock and madeni. Choose SmartBiashara on a Starter or Basic plan if you need a proper till, barcodes, cashiers and up to three branches. Move to the fuller ERP setup on Standard or Enterprise when warehouses, payroll, manufacturing or many branches enter the picture.
On this page
SmartBiashara makes more than one tool for selling and running a business, and the names overlap. Owners often ask whether they need “the mini one”, “the POS” or “the ERP”. This guide is a rewrite of our older comparison. It explains what each option is today, what it costs in shillings, and the signs that tell you it is time to move up.
First, a correction to the old version of this article
Our earlier comparison treated SmartBiashara POS and SmartBiashara ERP as two separate products with separate feature lists. That is no longer the right way to think about it. Today the point of sale is the till screen inside SmartBiashara. Every plan, including the TSh 15,000 Starter plan, already has inventory and accounting sitting behind that till. What changes as you move up the plans is how many branches, users and products you can have, and which specialised modules (hotel, manufacturing, repair, projects and so on) are turned on.
So the real choice is between three setups:
- MiniPOS, a separate light app for one person selling from a phone.
- SmartBiashara used mainly as a POS, on the Starter or Basic plan, for shops with a counter, cashiers and maybe two or three branches.
- SmartBiashara used as a full ERP, on Standard, Enterprise or Enterprise Pro, for businesses with warehouses, many branches, staff on payroll or production.
What MiniPOS is
MiniPOS is an app you install on an Android phone from Google Play, or open on the MiniPOS website. It is built for kiosks, small dukas, market traders, salons that sell a few products, and food sellers.
You add your products, record sales, and the stock count drops with each sale. Customers who buy on credit go on a due list, so the madeni (money owed) live in the app instead of a school exercise book. Income and expenses roll into a simple loss/profit view. The app offers more than 47 languages and multi-currency settings. HRM and payroll tools come with the paid Standard and Premium plans, and the MultiBranch plans let you run more than one location.
MiniPOS has its own sign-up, login and subscription. It does not share data with SmartBiashara.
Where MiniPOS stops: it is not designed for warehouses, purchase orders with goods received notes, double-entry accounting, or a team of cashiers with different permissions. When you need those, you have outgrown it.
What SmartBiashara looks like as a POS
Picture a mini-supermarket in Mbeya with two tills and a stockroom at the back. The owner wants fast checkout, barcode scanning, receipts, M-Pesa, Tigo Pesa and Airtel Money recorded against each sale, and a separate login for each cashier so every sale is tied to a name. That is SmartBiashara on the Starter plan.
What this setup gives you day to day:
- A checkout screen that works in any browser on a phone, tablet or laptop, and is built to keep selling when the connection drops.
- Barcode scanner support, and an Excel bulk import so you can load hundreds of products in one go.
- Real-time stock that falls with every sale and rises when you receive goods from a supplier.
- Admin, Manager and Cashier roles, so the person at the till only does till work.
- Invoices and quotations sent by WhatsApp or email, and reports you can export to Excel, PDF or CSV.
Add a second or third shop and the Basic plan (TSh 35,000 a month) covers up to 3 locations, with CRM, customer credit limits and the WhatsApp gateway included.
What SmartBiashara looks like as a full ERP
Now picture a distributor in Dar es Salaam with a main warehouse in Ubungo, four shops across the city, twenty staff, and an accountant who comes in at month end. Here the till is only one part of the job. The owner needs purchase orders and goods received notes, supplier ledgers, inter-store transfers, payroll with NSSF and PAYE, and books the accountant can trust.
All of that runs on the same system, which is why we call it ERP software: one database for sales, stock, purchases, money and people. The higher plans add room and modules:
- Standard (TSh 45,000 a month): 5 locations, 20 users, plus hotel management, asset management and instalment sales.
- Enterprise (TSh 55,000 a month): up to 50 locations and 100 users, unlimited products and invoices, plus manufacturing, repair job sheets, project management and the API connector.
- Enterprise Pro (TSh 850,000 a year): no caps on locations, users, products or invoices.
Side-by-side comparison
| MiniPOS | SmartBiashara as POS (Starter / Basic) | SmartBiashara as ERP (Standard and up) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Best for | One seller, kiosk, market stall | Shops with a counter and cashiers | Chains, wholesalers, producers |
| Runs on | Android app and web | Any browser: phone, tablet, laptop | Any browser: phone, tablet, laptop |
| Locations | 1, or more on MultiBranch plans | 1 on Starter, 3 on Basic | 5 on Standard, 50 on Enterprise, unlimited on Enterprise Pro |
| Stock | Product counts and purchases | Real-time stock, batches and expiry, adjustments | Same, plus warehouses and inter-store transfers at scale |
| Customers on credit | Due list | Credit limits and CRM from Basic | CRM, credit limits, instalments from Standard |
| Accounting | Income, expenses, loss/profit | Accounting included | Accounting included, FIFO or LIFO valuation |
| Staff | Paid plans add HRM and payroll | Admin, Manager, Cashier roles; HR and payroll | Same, with up to 100 users on Enterprise |
| Specialised modules | None | None | Hotel, assets, manufacturing, repair, projects (by plan) |
What each option costs in shillings
All SmartBiashara prices exclude VAT and service levy. Yearly billing costs ten months’ price for twelve months.
| Option | Plan | Price |
|---|---|---|
| MiniPOS | Free trial | Free for 14 days |
| MiniPOS | Standard / Standard MultiBranch | TSh 15,000 per 30 days / TSh 20,000 per 31 days |
| MiniPOS | Premium / Premium MultiBranch | TSh 150,000 per 360 days / TSh 200,000 per 365 days |
| SmartBiashara | Starter (1 location) | TSh 15,000 a month or TSh 150,000 a year |
| SmartBiashara | Basic (3 locations) | TSh 35,000 a month or TSh 350,000 a year |
| SmartBiashara | Standard (5 locations) | TSh 45,000 a month or TSh 450,000 a year |
| SmartBiashara | Enterprise (50 locations) | TSh 55,000 a month or TSh 550,000 a year |
| SmartBiashara | Enterprise Pro (unlimited) | TSh 850,000 a year |
MiniPOS prices come from the MiniPOS plans page and are billed separately. For SmartBiashara, every plan starts with a 14-day free trial with no credit card. The full breakdown is on our pricing page.
Notice that MiniPOS Standard and SmartBiashara Starter cost the same each month. The difference is what you get for the money. MiniPOS is quicker to learn on a phone. Starter gives you a proper till, cashier roles, barcodes and full accounting, which matters once someone other than you is handling the cash.
How to choose: a practical checklist
MiniPOS is enough if most of these are true
- You are the only person who sells, or one helper at most.
- You keep fewer products than you could list on two pages of a notebook.
- You sell from a phone, at a market, from a kiosk or door to door.
- What you want most is a record of each day’s takings and who owes you.
SmartBiashara on Starter or Basic fits if
- You have a counter, a till and at least one cashier you need to control.
- You use or want to use a barcode scanner.
- You receive stock from suppliers and want to check deliveries against what you ordered.
- You have one shop now and expect a second or third within the next year.
- Your accountant keeps asking for figures you have to piece together by hand.
Plan for the full ERP setup if
- You hold stock in a warehouse or depot and move it to shops.
- You run, or plan to run, more than three branches.
- You pay staff monthly and need payroll with NSSF and PAYE.
- You make products (bakery, juice, furniture), repair devices, run rooms, or bill by project.
- You want one set of books for the whole group instead of a spreadsheet per shop.
Moving up without starting again
The most expensive mistake is choosing a tool that fits this month and fails next year. Two things make the move easier.
From MiniPOS to SmartBiashara. The apps do not sync, so plan the move. Copy your product list into an Excel sheet and tidy it (one row per product, with cost and selling price), then bulk import it into SmartBiashara during your free trial. Settle or note customer balances on the MiniPOS due list before you switch, so no credit gets lost in the gap. Choose a quiet day, such as a Monday morning, to start selling on the new till.
Between SmartBiashara plans. You stay in the same account, so your products, customers and history come with you. Upgrading changes your limits and switches on modules. A shop in Morogoro that starts on Starter can move to Basic the week it signs the lease for a second branch.
A note on hardware and internet
None of the three options needs a special computer. MiniPOS runs on an Android phone. SmartBiashara runs in a browser, so an existing laptop or tablet can become a till. Add a barcode scanner and a receipt printer when the queue gets long enough to justify them. Because connections in many towns come and go, test the offline behaviour on your own devices during the trial, with your own network.
Still unsure?
Start with the free trial that matches your best guess. Fourteen days of real sales will show you quickly whether you need more or less. If you want a second opinion, message our team on WhatsApp at +255 749 900 050 (Monday to Saturday, 8am to 8pm EAT) and tell us how many products, staff and locations you have. We will tell you which option fits, including when that answer is MiniPOS.