Most independent shops end up stitching six subscriptions together to get the tools their business actually needs. Overlay is one place for all of that, plugged into the POS you already use.
Overlay isn't a POS. It's the operating layer that reads from the one you already have — Square, Shopify, or another — and gives you back a proper set of tools to run the business on top of it. Your products, orders, customers, and payments stay where they are. Nothing to migrate, nothing to reconcile twice.
What's inside
The tools you'd otherwise piece together.
The parts of running a shop online that most independent merchants end up buying separately — built in, and speaking to each other.
Dashboard
The view you actually want at 9am
What sold yesterday, who's spending the most this quarter, which bottles haven't moved in sixty days, what's running low and needs reordering — all sitting together instead of scattered across three or four analytics apps. Built for shop owners who care about the numbers behind their week, not marketing decks.
Email marketing
A campaign tool that knows your customers
Every buyer who's ever come through your POS is already on the list — no import, no sync. Compose a newsletter, pick a segment (top spenders, lapsed 90 days, first-time buyers), send. Opens, clicks, and revenue attribution roll back into your dashboard so you can see what actually worked.
Subscription clubs
Wine of the month. Or coffee. Or whatever fits.
Set up a club, put it on your site, let customers sign themselves up. The recurring charges run through your existing POS payment rail — the same processor your card reader uses in-store — so nothing about billing, deposits, or taxes changes. Rosters and packing lists generate themselves each cycle.
Website builder
Drag blocks together and you're done
Pick your colors, drop your logo in, arrange your homepage from a set of blocks — hero, product grid, testimonials, contact. Product cards populate live from your POS, so a change to inventory shows up on the site without you touching a page. Server-rendered, so search engines actually see it.
Customer features
Reviews, wishlists, referrals, all in one place
Verified-purchase reviews (with a store-credit incentive that works). Wishlists your regulars can save privately. A referral program that credits both sides. The customer-facing pieces most shops need at least three separate apps to get.
Team
Invite your staff without opening the whole kitchen
Add anyone on your team by email — they set their own password and get their own login. Revoke individual access without touching anyone else. Everything each person does gets logged, so it's easy to see who did what if a question comes up later.
How it works
Live in about a week.
The whole thing is designed to slot into what you're already running, not replace it. Nothing to migrate, no new payment processor, no re-training your staff on a new POS. We handle the setup end to end — most shops go from first conversation to live site in five to seven days.
See it running
A look at Overlay, with real controls.
This is a small demo of a fictional coffee roaster running on the platform. Click through the sub-tabs on the admin side, or flip to the customer-facing storefront. Nothing to sign up for — just here to give you a sense of what your version would feel like.
🔒thirdridgecoffee.com/admin
Today
A quick look at how the shop is doing right now.
Money made today
$2,847
↑ 18% more than yesterday
Orders today
34
since midnight, your local time
New customers
7
first-time buyers today
Last 2 weeks
Each bar is one day of sales.
Today's orders
Everyone who bought today.
Customer
Ordered
Total
Time
Maya Chen
1× Ethiopia Yirgacheffe, 1× Espresso Blend
$48.00
10:14 AM
James O'Connor
2× Colombia Huila
$44.00
9:41 AM
Alicia Ramos
1× Kenya Nyeri, 1× Guatemala Antigua
$52.00
9:22 AM
Guest
1× Espresso Blend
$22.00
8:58 AM
Customers
Who's bought from you and how much they've spent.
Total customers
1,284
everyone who's ever bought
Total sales
$189K
all-time
Average spend
$147
per customer, lifetime
Your best customers
Sorted by lifetime spend.
Customer
Orders
Lifetime
Last order
Priya Shah
42
$1,847
2 days ago
Marcus Feld
36
$1,522
yesterday
Sarah Levinson
31
$1,398
6 days ago
Tom Nakamura
28
$1,204
3 weeks ago
Elena Vasquez
24
$1,088
4 days ago
Design your site
Drag blocks. Pick colors. See the changes as you make them.
Blocks
≡ Hero
≡ Product grid
≡ Text
≡ Testimonials
≡ Contact
+ Add block
Small batches. Delivered fresh.
Third Ridge Coffee — Portland, OR
Ethiopia Yirgacheffe
Colombia Huila
Kenya Nyeri
Brand
Third Ridge Coffee
Cart (0)
Small batches. Delivered fresh.
Single-origin coffees from farms we visit. Roasted the day before it ships.
Shop the roasts
This week's roasts
Y
Ethiopia
Yirgacheffe
$22
H
Colombia
Huila
$20
N
Kenya
Nyeri
$24
A
Guatemala
Antigua
$21
E
Espresso
Signature Blend
$22
S
Brazil
Sítio Barreiro
$19
-->
All the data above is illustrative — a made-up coffee shop for the sake of the demo. Click any tab. Nothing to sign up for.
Who it's for
Shops where every product is chosen.
Overlay was built for the kind of independent retailer whose customers can tell the difference — bottle shops with a point of view, coffee roasters who know every farm, cheese counters, cigar shops, butchers, chocolate makers, tea importers, specialty grocers, fine florists. If your buying decisions are deliberate and your customers pay attention, this is built for you.
Connect your AI
Run your shop from the AI you already use.
Overlay speaks MCP — the emerging standard for connecting tools to AI assistants. Install it in Claude Desktop, Cursor, or any MCP-compatible client and you can ask your shop questions in plain language, without opening the dashboard.
Real conversations with your shop
"How much did we make yesterday? Compare to last week."
"Which products are running low? Draft an order list for me."
"Show me our top ten customers and their favorite categories."
"Change the hero on our homepage to 'Fresh from the farm.'"
"Invite Sarah from the shop as a team member."
Install once, then talk to your shop like a coworker.
Every feature above comes with the plan — no per-user pricing, no per-order fees, no upsells to unlock the good stuff. Month to month, cancel whenever.
Overlay
$149/mo
The whole platform, however many products you carry, however many people are on your team.
Most independent shops end up paying for a handful of separate apps to get to the same place. Here's the rough sense of what a typical stack looks like — and where Overlay lands against it.
What it does
Typical monthly range
With Overlay
Email marketing and automation
$150–$2,000
Included
Subscription club billing
$99–$499
Included
Product reviews and UGC
$30–$300
Included
Customer analytics and LTV
$99–$399
Included
Inventory forecasting
$29–$249
Included
Site builder or page designer
$39–$249
Included
Multi-user team access
$5–$100+
Included
The ranges above are typical prices across common apps in each category — every shop's stack is a little different. Overlay isn't a replacement for your POS or your payment processor; those keep doing what they do, and Overlay handles everything sitting on top.
Answers
Questions we get.
Do I need to migrate anything?
Nothing. Your products, customers, orders, and inventory all stay in the POS you're already running. Overlay reads from it directly and sits on top — none of your data moves, and nothing has to be kept in sync manually.
What happens to my payments?
They keep going through the same processor they always have. If you're on Shopify, that's Shopify Payments; if you're on Square, that's Square Payments. Overlay never handles the money itself, which means your deposits, reconciliation, chargebacks, and tax reporting all continue exactly as they do today.
Can I keep my current website?
Yes, if you'd like. Overlay can run in two ways: as a management layer on top of the storefront you already have (so you get the dashboards, marketing, clubs, and analytics without touching your existing site), or as a full replacement using Overlay's own block-based site builder. Whichever fits your situation, your domain stays yours end to end.
How long does onboarding take?
Most shops go from first conversation to live in about a week. We handle the setup with you — connecting the POS, arranging your homepage blocks, pointing your DNS. There's real support on the other end, not a help center article.
Who's behind Overlay?
Built by an independent shop owner in Chicago running the same platform live for their own bottle shop. Every feature exists because a real shop needed it, not because it looked good on a roadmap.
What if I need something Overlay doesn't have yet?
Tell us. The roadmap is shaped by what merchants actually ask for, and if it fits the shape of the platform — useful across shops, bundled into the flat fee — it ships.
Let's see if it fits your shop.
A short conversation is enough to know whether this is the right thing for you. No pitch deck, no follow-up drip, no pressure — just a walkthrough of how it would work with what you already have.