intake

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Intake vs The Edge

The Edge is desktop software you buy by the store and by the workstation. Intake runs in a browser instead, so the counter can be a Mac, a PC, an iPad, or the phone in your pocket, and the selling side runs on Shopify.

What The Edge asks of you

Buy licences by store and by workstation, install on Windows machines, and put the staff through training before the counter runs.

What Intake asks of you

Open a Shopify store if you do not have one, add Intake, and sign in. Any counter, any device with a browser, nothing to image, and nothing to update.

Side by side

Where the two differ

Everything in their column comes from The Edge's own public pages.

Where you work

Intake

In a browser on a Mac, a PC, an iPad, or a phone, or inside Shopify next to your products.

The Edge

On Windows computers.

Getting started

Intake

Open a Shopify store, then add Intake to it in a click.

The Edge

Buy it, install it, and train on it.

Adding a second counter

Intake

Open it on another device. Staff unlock it with their own PIN.

The Edge

Another workstation licence.

What it costs

Intake

$650 a month per location you enable, then a monthly price for each module you turn on. No setup fee and no licence per computer. Shopify's own plan is separate, from $39 a month.

The Edge

$4,600 for one store and one computer. $12,450 for two stores and six.

Support after the first year

Intake

Included.

The Edge

20% of the purchase price, every year.

Working away from the shop

Intake

Sign in from anywhere.

The Edge

Only on the Windows computer it is installed on.

Where a bought piece goes

Intake

Into one inventory, ready to sell at the counter the same day, with what you paid and its photos.

The Edge

Into their own inventory, apart from where you sell online.

Learning it

Intake

One screen: price the piece, take the ID, pay.

The Edge

Beginner, advanced, and on-site classes.

Prices and features checked against The Edge's and Shopify's published pages, August 2026. Spotted something out of date? Tell us and we will correct it.

Why Intake

What changes when the counter leaves the desktop

No workstation licences, no install night, and the same buy visible from the case, the office, or home.

A monthly app, not a licence on a computer

The Edge is sold by store and by workstation. Its published sample pricing starts at $4,600 for one store with one workstation and runs to $12,450 for two stores with six. A second counter is another workstation. Intake is $650 a month per location, plus whatever modules you turn on, and opening another device at that location does not add a licence.

The counter moves. A workstation does not

The Edge publishes Windows system requirements for the machines it runs on. Intake opens in a browser, so a buy can start on the iPad at the case and finish on the Mac in the office, and the owner can read the day from home without a remote desktop.

Support you pay for once

After the first year, The Edge renews technical support at 20% of the list purchase price each year, on top of software you already bought. Intake updates itself and support comes with it.

Nothing to install, image, or maintain

No workstation to set up when you add a counter, no server in the back office, and no software to update on each machine. A new hire signs in and starts buying.

Selling happens where people already shop

A finished buy becomes a product with what you paid, a SKU, and its photos, in the same inventory the register and the website read from. You can sell it at the counter the same day, and it goes online when its hold is up. There is no second inventory to keep in step.

One flow instead of a curriculum

The Edge sells introductory, advanced, and on-site classes, and counts total hours trained as a headline number. Twenty years of features is also twenty years of interface. Intake has one path through a buy, and a new buyer can learn it in a shift.

Compliance is part of the buy, not a separate chore

Every ID is checked against Do Not Buy as it is captured, completed buys file to LeadsOnline with item photos, and each piece carries the date it can be listed. The record is built while the buy happens.

FAQ

Questions worth asking

Shopify is the software a shop runs on: the register at the counter, the website, the checkout, the inventory, and the customer list. Millions of stores use it. You pay a monthly plan, from $39, and you add the apps your shop needs. Intake is one of those apps, the one that buys.

Keep comparing

Other systems

Anyone at your counter buys the way you would

Shopify runs the selling. Intake runs the buying. Together they are the whole shop: your rates, your counter, your record.

Install on Shopify