Pricing that fits how your cafe actually runs

One flat hourly rate is the easiest thing to set up and the most expensive habit to keep. It leaves money on the table when every seat is full on a Saturday night. It empties the room on a slow Tuesday afternoon when a lower price would have brought people in. The rate that is right at 9pm is rarely the rate that is right at 2pm.

HandyCafe bills sessions the way a real cafe runs: the price can change with the clock, a PC and a console do not have to cost the same, members can pay less than walk-ins and you decide whether people pay up front or when they leave. None of it needs a spreadsheet on the side.

Prepaid or pay at the end

The first choice is how money changes hands. You can run both at once depending on the customer.

• Prepaid. The customer pays for time or loads a balance. The session counts down from there. When the time is up the station locks. Good for busy hours and for anyone you do not know yet.
• Postpaid. The session runs on an open tab and you settle up when they leave, the same way a bar runs a check. Good for regulars and for members with an account behind them.

You are not locked into one model for the whole floor. A trusted member can run postpaid while a walk-in pays prepaid at the next machine over.

Rates that move with the day

This is where a flat rate quietly costs you. With HandyCafe you set a pricing schedule. The same seat can be one price in the afternoon and another at peak. A few ways owners use it:

• A happy hour that fills empty machines in the dead part of the afternoon.
• A weekend and evening rate for the hours people will pay full price anyway.
• A late-night rate for the overnight crowd.

Set it once, forget it

The schedule runs itself. You are not standing at the counter changing prices at 6pm every day. You draw the week once and HandyCafe applies the right rate at the right time.

A PC and a console are not the same product

A high-end gaming PC and a console cost you different amounts to run and are worth different amounts to the customer. They should not share one price by default. HandyCafe lets you price stations by what they are. Your best rigs earn their keep and a casual console seat stays approachable.

Members can pay less, on purpose

A regular who sits down three times a week is worth more to you than a one-off and the price can say so. Members can be charged a different rate than guests, which gives people a concrete reason to sign up and come back. If you want the full picture on accounts and loyalty, that is its own topic in member accounts, wallets and QR login.

What the customer sees

None of this should be a mystery to the person paying. On a prepaid session they see the time counting down. On a member account the cost comes off a balance they can check. There is no argument at the counter about what a session cost, because the numbers were on the screen the whole time.

Setting it up

1. Open pricing settings on the server and set your base rate for PCs and for consoles.
2. Open the schedule and paint your week: happy hour, evenings, weekends, nights, whatever matches your traffic.
3. Decide member pricing. Accounts get their own rate if you want to reward them.
4. Pick prepaid, postpaid or both and let the front counter charge accordingly.

It all lands in the numbers

Every session, at whatever rate applied, flows into your reports and your cash register. End of day adds up without you rebuilding it by hand. Prepaid sales are tracked so you know what has been paid for but not yet used. Pricing is not a setting you configure once and forget; it is the dial you turn when you want a quieter afternoon to pay for itself.

And if a member runs late on a postpaid session, you can keep it open and settle when they are ready, without the station cutting them off mid-game.