Square vs Toast vs Clover (2026): Which POS Is Best for a Restaurant, What Each Really Costs, and the Rate That Decides It

Square vs Toast vs Clover: which POS is best for a restaurant?

As of 2026: Square if you want to start at $0 a month and grow into paid tiers with published rates; Toast if you run a full-service restaurant and want a system built for nothing else, and can live with its processing lock-in; Clover if you want a hardware-first counter setup sold through a bank or reseller and you are willing to negotiate the rate. All three take a percentage of every card swipe, so the monthly software fee is rarely the real bill. For a restaurant doing $60,000 a month in card sales, a 0.25-point difference in the processing rate is $150 a month, every month, before anyone talks about software. This comparison prices the three the way an owner should: software, processing, hardware, add-ons, and the phone call none of them answers.

Square pricing in 2026

Square publishes its full rate card, read directly from squareup.com/us/en/pricing on September 8, 2026.

• Square Free: $0 a month per location. In-person card processing 2.6% + 15¢.
• Square Plus: $49 a month per location. In-person 2.5% + 15¢.
• Square Premium: $149 a month per location. In-person 2.4% + 15¢. Businesses processing over $250,000 a year can ask for custom pricing.
• Same across plans: online transactions 2.9% + 30¢, manually keyed cards 3.5% + 15¢, invoices 3.3% + 30¢.
• Restaurant add-ons: the Square KDS (kitchen display) app is $30 a month per device on Plus and $20 on Premium, and is not available on Free; the Square Kiosk app is $50 per device on Plus and $30 on Premium. Hardware starts at $59. Payroll starts at $35 a month plus $6 per person paid.

The monthly fee applies to each location you run, so a three-location group on Plus is $147 a month before hardware or KDS. Square's pitch is transparency, and the pitch holds: every number above is on one public page.

How much does Toast POS cost?

Toast's pricing page blocks automated fetches, so every figure here is third-party reported (2026 buyer guides and cost breakdowns) and says so; confirm the current number on pos.toasttab.com before you budget.

• Starter Kit: reported at $0 a month in software, paired with a higher processing rate reported at 2.99% + 15¢.
• Point of Sale plan: reported from $69 a month, with processing reported at 2.49% + 15¢ and custom hardware configurations.
• Add-ons are where the bill grows: online ordering is reported around $75 a month, loyalty and gift cards around $50 each, email marketing around $75, kitchen display software around $25, and payroll around $90 plus $9 per employee.
• Hardware and onboarding are separate, with onboarding reported at up to $95 an hour.

Toast is restaurant-only software that runs on Toast's own hardware and Toast's own payment processing, which is the trade you make for the depth: table maps, coursing, split checks, and handhelds built for a dining room. The "free" plan is free the way a lead-marketplace account is free; the processing rate is the price.

How much does Clover cost?

Clover's pricing page renders only in a browser, so these are third-party reported 2026 figures as well; Clover is also sold through banks and resellers, so the number you are quoted can differ from the number on clover.com.

• Quick-service restaurant plans: reported at roughly $59.95 a month for Standard and $89.95 for Advanced.
• Full-service dining: reported from roughly $89.95 a month for Standard, with Advanced bundles reported at $135 to $165 a month when paired with hardware.
• Retail and services plans start lower, reported around $14.95 a month for a Starter tier.
• Processing: reported at roughly 2.3% to 2.6% + 10¢ in person depending on plan, and about 3.5% + 10¢ keyed.
• Hardware commitments: Clover devices are bought outright or bundled into multi-year agreements, with 36-month terms reported through resellers.

Clover's appeal is the counter: purpose-built terminals, a large app market, and a processing rate that a strong operator can negotiate down because the sale runs through a merchant-services relationship. Its risk is the same relationship: read the term length and the early-termination clause before you sign.

Is Square worth it for a restaurant?

Yes for a counter-service concept, a food truck, a cafe, a bar, or any restaurant that wants to start at $0 and add paid features when the volume justifies them. Less so for a busy full-service dining room that lives on table management and handhelds, where Toast's restaurant-only depth usually wins. The honest math: on Free you pay 2.6% + 15¢ per swipe and nothing monthly; on Plus you pay $49 a month per location to drop to 2.5% + 15¢ and unlock the restaurant features. At $40,000 a month in card sales, the 0.1-point rate difference is about $40, so Plus pays for itself on features, not on rate. Square is worth it when the published rate is close to what the others quote you and you value never having to negotiate.

Square vs Toast: the full-service question

Toast for full-service dining, Square for everything else, is the short version and it is roughly right. Toast's reported entry rate on the free plan (2.99% + 15¢) is a half point above Square Free (2.6% + 15¢); its paid plan's reported 2.49% + 15¢ is within a hair of Square Plus (2.5% + 15¢) at a similar monthly price ($69 reported vs $49). The difference is what the software is for. Toast is a restaurant operating system with a bill that grows by add-on; Square is a general commerce platform with a restaurant mode and a flat, published price. If your revenue is tables and tickets, price Toast's add-ons honestly and it still usually wins. If your revenue is a counter and a card reader, Square is cheaper to start and simpler to leave.

Clover vs Square: the counter question

Square if you want published rates and no contract; Clover if you want purpose-built counter hardware and a negotiated rate through your bank. Both fit quick-service well. Clover's reported in-person rate can dip below Square's, but only through a merchant agreement with a term attached; Square's rate is what the page says and you can cancel the software plan any month. For a single-location cafe the difference over a year is usually the hardware: a Square reader from $59 against a Clover terminal bundle on a multi-year term.

Toast vs Clover

Toast for full-service restaurants; Clover for quick-service counters that are already banking with a Clover reseller. Toast has the deeper restaurant feature set and the more predictable software ladder; Clover has the wider hardware and app ecosystem and a quote that depends on who is selling it. Reported full-service Clover bundles ($135 to $165 a month with hardware) land near Toast's paid plan plus one or two add-ons, so the decision is depth against flexibility rather than price.

What none of them does: answer the phone during the Friday rush

A POS system takes the order once the guest is in front of it. It does nothing about the reservation call at 7 p.m. that rings out while the host is seating a party of six, the large-party inquiry that goes to voicemail, or the takeout caller who hangs up and orders from the place that picked up. Hospitality businesses lose 30 to 50 percent of inquiries to slow or missing responses, and none of that shows up in a POS report because the order never existed. An AI receptionist that answers every call, takes the reservation or the question, and writes the result into the system you already run is the layer that closes it: SaaS options run $25 to $1,000 a month by tier, and a custom voice or booking agent you own runs $5,000 to $10,000 one-time plus $100 to $300 a month in usage. The restaurant-specific playbook is in AI for restaurants, and the cost side is in how much does an AI receptionist cost.

The bottom line

Square if you want $0 to start, published rates, and no contract. Toast if you run a dining room and will price its add-ons honestly. Clover if the counter hardware and a negotiated rate through your bank matter more than a published number. Then fix the leak the POS report cannot see: the call that never became an order. Book a free strategy session and we will show you how many of those you are missing before you sign a processing agreement.