Toast vs Square, with the cost math neither one publishes
We sell neither of these. That makes this the easiest honest page on the site, and a useful test of whether the rest of it is worth your time.
Judd Alsup and the Equip Payment Solutions team, who install and support restaurant POS systems nationwide and sell Shift4 Dine and Clover.Updated August 9, 2026. Sources and dates cited on every figure.
The short answer
- Choose Square for a simple room that values published rates and no contract: 2.6% or 2.4% plus 15c, $0 to $149 a location, leave anytime.
- Choose Toast for a complex or high volume room whose kitchen earns its depth, and only with your effective rate in writing; reported 2.49% to 3.69% plus 15c.
- The tiebreak is your average ticket and volume; the flip point is visible in our calculator in under a minute. We sell neither system.
The rest of this page is the case for each line, with sources.
Toast and Square, on the numbers
| System | Software | Card present rate | Contract | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Toast | $0 to $69per terminal, reported | 2.49% to 3.69%+ 15c, reported | 1 to 3 years | The rate climbs with add-ons. Online ordering and delivery move Starter Kit from 3.09% to 3.39%, and gift cards and loyalty take it to 3.69%. That higher rate then applies to every order, not just the online ones. Processing is mandatory and hardware is locked to Toast. |
| Square | $0 / $49 / $149per location, published | 2.6% / 2.5% / 2.4%+ 15c, published | None | The free plan carries the highest rate. Above roughly $25,000 a month in card volume it costs more than the paid one. Kitchen display and kiosk are excluded from free. |
Square, Genius, SpotOn, Shift4 and Lightspeed software figures are published by those vendors and were read on their own pages on 8 August 2026. Toast, Clover and TouchBistro figures are reported by Merchant Maverick, Expert Market, POSUSA, NerdWallet, business.com and KORONA POS, cross checked against at least two independent sources where possible and labelled where sources disagree. Software units differ: Square prices per location, Toast and Shift4 per terminal, Clover per device, SpotOn per station. Rates change without notice. General guidance, not legal, tax or accounting advice.
Where each one wins
Square wins on small tickets and no contract
No contract, no termination fee, published rates, and per location software so a four terminal room pays once. For a cafe or a fast casual counter this is often the right answer outright.
Square wins on knowing what you will pay
You can price Square from its website in about two minutes. You cannot do that with Toast at all, and that is a real difference in how the two companies treat buyers.
Toast wins on restaurant depth
Coursing, kitchen routing, complex modifiers and its handheld hardware are genuinely built for full service rooms. Square strains at exactly the point where a busy dining room starts needing them.
Toast wins on the kitchen
If your bottleneck is the pass rather than the counter, Toast's kitchen tooling is stronger. Weigh that against a rate you cannot see until you are in a sales process.
How to actually decide between these two
Do it with three numbers and one honest self assessment. The numbers: monthly card volume, average ticket, and how many terminals the room needs. Those three drive the entire cost difference, and the calculator turns them into a monthly figure for each system in about thirty seconds. The self assessment: is your service model simple enough that Square's tooling covers it today and in two years? A counter, a small floor, straightforward menus: yes. Coursing, deep modifiers, a packed Friday floor: that is Toast's territory, and pretending otherwise to save a rate difference usually costs more in service friction than it saves in fees.
If the math and the model point different directions, weight the model. A processing spread of half a point on $30,000 a month is $150; a POS that fights your service style costs you table turns, staff patience and remakes, which is more. And if you do go Toast, go in with the one demand this site keeps repeating: your effective rate, at your volume, in writing, before signatures. Toast's own investor filings say the average restaurant on the platform pays 2.58%. If your quote is meaningfully above that number, say the number out loud in the negotiation and watch what happens.
One more honest note: neither of these is what we sell. If your room sits in the middle where both fit, our Shift4 Dine comparison makes the case for a third option with the processor margin visible, and names where it loses. Read all three and decide with the numbers in front of you.
Questions owners ask
Which is cheaper?
It flips on average ticket and volume. Square's fifteen cent fee punishes small tickets, and Toast's rate climbs as you add modules. Put your own numbers in the calculator rather than trusting either company's framing.
Where is the crossover between them?
As a rough shape from the published and reported figures: simple rooms under roughly $25,000 a month in cards lean Square, complex or high volume rooms where kitchen tooling earns its keep lean Toast, and the middle depends on how many Toast modules you would actually buy, because each one moves the rate on every order.
What do owners regret about each?
The Square regret we hear is outgrowing it: modifier depth, floor management and tip governance strain as the room gets busier. The Toast regret is the bill's shape: a rate nobody wrote down, add-ons that arrived at $50 to $75 a month each, and a termination clause that made the regret academic for another year.
Do you sell either of these?
No. We place Shift4 Dine and Clover. We publish this page because most owners shortlist these two first and deserve a straight comparison before they call anybody.
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