A self-hosted queue system that isn't $789 a month

A waiting room needs one boring thing: issue the next number, show it on a screen, call it up. Clinics, workshops, service counters, government offices, repair shops — they all run this, and the software that does it is priced like enterprise infrastructure.

What the category actually costs

• Qminder lists Business at $9,468/year and Premium at $12,588/year, with Enterprise quoted above them (pricing, read 21 July 2026, re-read 5 September 2026). Two corrections from that re-read. First, the page publishes monthly prices of its own — $869 and $1,149 — so the "about $789/month" this guide carried was the annual figure divided by twelve rather than anything Qminder prints. Paying monthly costs $10,428 a year against $9,468 committed annually: a $960 premium for not committing. Second, the plans are metered by user — 25 users included on Business and 50 on Premium, with locations, visitors and service lines unlimited. The meter here is staff, not counters.
• Waitwhile has a free tier — one location, 50 visits/month — then Starter from $31/month and Business from $55/month, with Enterprise quoted (pricing, read 21 July 2026, re-read 5 September 2026). An earlier version of this line called those tiers "per location". They are not. Both include up to ten locations; what they meter is visits — up to 2,500 a month on Starter and 5,000 on Business (read 5 September 2026). A single busy clinic can outgrow the cheaper tier without opening a second door, which is a different failure mode from the one we had described, and annual billing takes 20% off.

And unlike invoicing or note-taking, there is no strong free open-source option for a business queue-and-display system. So your realistic choices have been: pay enterprise SaaS every month, or build a spreadsheet-and-shouting workaround.

The buy-once option

Tokora is a self-hosted queue and token-display system you purchase once and run on your own machine — $69, and one of the five products in the Retail Suite. Issue numbered tickets, call the next one, and show a live "now serving" board on any screen — a TV, a tablet, a spare monitor — with no monthly fee and no per-location or per-user meter.

Try the Tokora demo ↗Live, on sample data, no sign-up.

• One payment, unlimited counters and screens. A second service desk does not cost more.
• Runs on hardware you already have. It is a web page; point a browser at it. No proprietary kiosk, no Apple-TV-only setup.
• Your data stays yours, on your server. The waiting-room board never phones home.

At $869 a month — or $789 if you commit to the year — Qminder's entry plan costs more in one month than most small operations should ever spend on a number board. Tokora is the same core job — issue, display, call — bought once.

When each one wins

• Stay on Qminder/Waitwhile if you need deep cross-location analytics, built-in SMS notifications to customers, and appointment booking bundled in, and the monthly cost is trivial relative to your operation.
• Own it with Tokora if you run one or a few counters, you want a reliable "now serving" board without an enterprise contract, and "buy once, run it on my own screen" beats a recurring bill.

The honest limits, from its own page: Tokora is the queue and display — announcements are visual, text alerts go out only through your own Twilio account, there is no email, push or WhatsApp, and it does not handle appointment booking (that is Slotly's job). If bundled SMS or scheduling is core to you today, the SaaS tools include it. If you just need the board, you have been overpaying for it. The demo is open without a sign-up.

Every product here shows its honest limitations in plain text before you spend a cent, and the rent-vs-own math runs the numbers for any tool in the catalog — but for a queue display, the arithmetic is barely worth doing: one month of Qminder buys Tokora several times over, and then the meter simply stops. The best self-hosted queue systems in 2026 is the wider field, including what is not there.