Toast, Square and Clover together power a large share of North American hospitality, and most comparisons of them read like affiliate content. This one focuses on the three things that actually determine what you pay and how trapped you feel in year three: processing lock-in, what’s included versus add-on, and who owns the hardware.
Key takeaways
- All three lock your processing to some degree — that's the biggest hidden cost.
- Toast: deepest restaurant features, $0 starter tied to Toast Payments, per-device add-ons.
- Square: easiest start, no contract, highest published rate on the free tier.
- Clover: durable hardware at $799–$2,498, per-app pricing, least transparent quotes.
- Compare three-year all-in cost including processing — not the monthly headline.
The comparison at a glance
| Toast | Square | Clover | SeroPOS | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Software | $0–$165+/mo | $0–$60+/mo | ~$45–$95/mo | $29.99–$49.99/mo |
| Published card rate | ~2.49–2.99% + 15¢ | ~2.6% + 15¢ (free tier) | ~2.3% + 15¢ | Your negotiated rate |
| Processor choice | Toast only | Square only | Fiserv network | Global Payments, Moneris, Gravity |
| Hardware | Toast devices | Square or tablets | Proprietary $799–$2,498 | Devices you own |
| Kiosk | ~$1,024 + $69/mo | $149 + $50/mo per device | ~$3,499 + $34.95/mo per device | Included |
| Contract | Varies | None | Often multi-year | None |
| Platforms | Toast hardware | iOS, Android | Clover devices | iOS, Android, Windows, Mac |
All figures are publicly published at time of writing. Vendors change pricing — verify before signing.
Where each one genuinely wins
Toast is the strongest pure restaurant product of the three. Floor plans with server sections, coursing, tip pooling, product-mix reporting with labour overlays — it’s built by people who understand full service. If you run a $1M+ full-service restaurant and the processing rate is acceptable, it’s a defensible choice.
Square is the easiest thing in the world to start with. No contract, free tier, hardware you can buy at a store. For a food truck, a market stall or a new café testing a concept, that removal of friction is worth real money.
Clover makes hardware people like using: durable, spill-resistant, purpose-built for a counter. Quick-service operators who want a physical till that feels solid tend to like it.
Where all three cost you
Processing lock-in. This is the one to understand properly. At $40,000/month in card sales, the difference between 2.5% and 2.99% is about $2,350 a year — more than most POS subscriptions. When you can’t shop that rate, you have no lever on your single biggest technology cost.
Feature add-ons. Kiosks, online ordering, loyalty and advanced reporting are frequently separate line items. The pattern is the same everywhere: the quote is for the base, the invoice is for the base plus what you actually needed.
Hardware commitment. Toast and Clover devices don’t work with anything else. When you leave, you leave the hardware behind.
The fourth option
If the three above share a model — lock the processing, sell the hardware, meter the features — the useful comparison is against something structured differently.
SeroPOS is $29.99/month (Standard) or $49.99/month (Pro), with no contract, and it includes:
- Self-ordering kiosk mode with no per-device fee
- Kitchen display and printed tickets
- Commission-free online ordering and QR menus
- Floor plans and table management
- Loyalty, multi-location, 25+ reports
- Offline order taking — orders and kitchen tickets keep working without internet
- Server/client mode for multiple terminals on one local database
- AI forecasting and AI phone ordering
- QuickBooks and Xero sync on Pro
And it runs on iPhones, iPads, Android devices, Windows PCs and Macs — so hardware is whatever you already have.
A three-year cost sketch
Single restaurant, $40,000/month card volume, two kiosks:
| Toast | Square | Clover | SeroPOS | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Software (36 mo) | ~$3,600 | ~$2,160 | ~$2,520 | ~$1,080–$1,800 |
| Kiosks (2, 36 mo) | ~$7,000 | ~$3,900 | ~$9,500 | ~$600 hardware |
| Processing (36 mo) | ~$43,000 | ~$44,900 | ~$41,000 | ~$36,000 at 2.5% |
| Total | ~$53,600 | ~$51,000 | ~$53,000 | ~$38,000 |
The processing row dominates every column — which is the entire argument for choosing a system that lets you negotiate it. See how much a POS system really costs.
How to actually decide
Ignore the demo. Run each candidate for two weeks in your own venue and test five things: build your hardest order, print a kitchen ticket someone else can read, split a bill four ways, close the day and reconcile in under ten minutes, and find a specific sale from last Tuesday.
Any system that passes all five is fine. The rest is price and lock-in — which is why we’d suggest starting with the one that costs $29.99 and asks for nothing but 14 days.
Beat your current processing rate — guaranteed
Software is the small number on your bill. Card processing is the big one — and it’s the number most POS platforms won’t let you negotiate, because Toast, Square and Clover all steer you to their own processing.
SeroPOS doesn’t. We integrate with Global Payments, and we will beat the processing rate you’re paying today.
Our rate-beat guarantee
Send us a recent merchant statement and we'll put a better rate in writing — or tell you honestly that you're already on a good deal. No obligation, and you don't have to switch to get the quote.
What that’s worth depends entirely on your card volume:
| Monthly card volume | Saving at 0.25% | Saving at 0.50% |
|---|---|---|
| $20,000 | ~$600/yr | ~$1,200/yr |
| $40,000 | ~$1,200/yr | ~$2,400/yr |
| $80,000 | ~$2,400/yr | ~$4,800/yr |
| $150,000 | ~$4,500/yr | ~$9,000/yr |
For most established restaurants and retailers that’s thousands of dollars a year — money leaving the business every month without ever appearing as a line you’d notice.
The terminal we recommend: Global Payments T650p
The T650p is the terminal we pair with SeroPOS for most merchants. It’s a Verifone-built Android smart terminal with a 5.5” HD touchscreen, a built-in receipt printer, Wi-Fi, 4G LTE and Bluetooth, a swappable battery for tableside and delivery use, a camera for QR and barcode scanning, and PCI 5.x certification.
Integrated with SeroPOS, the amount travels from the register to the terminal automatically — so nobody keys $63.99 as $6.39 during a rush, tips are captured correctly, and your end-of-night batch matches your sales report without manual reconciliation.
Talk to us about processing — send a statement and we’ll show you the real number for your business.
Download SeroPOS — free trial, no credit card, no sales call.
