Toast vs Square: Which Restaurant POS Should You Choose?

Updated November 12, 2026 · Prices and terms checked on Toast’s and Square’s US websites on that date

Toast and Square are the two point of sale (POS) systems most US restaurant owners end up choosing between. This comparison puts their current plans, card fees, hardware and contract terms side by side, with every figure dated and linked to the official page.

It also covers something other comparisons skip: how each POS affects your marketing measurement, from GA4 and Google Ads conversion tracking to Order with Google and server-side order data.

Quick Answer: is Toast or Square better?

Toast is usually the better fit for full-service, high-volume and multi-location restaurants that want one restaurant-built system and will sign a contract. Square is usually the better fit for cafes, counter service, food trucks and new restaurants that want published fees and hardware prices, and the freedom to cancel anytime. Square publishes its US card rates; Toast quotes each business.

Here is the short version before the detail.

Sources: Toast pricing guide (October 20, 2026), Square for Restaurants US pricing and Toast Merchant Agreement, read November 12, 2026.

What is the difference between Toast and Square?

The main difference between Toast and Square is focus and pricing model. Toast is a restaurant-first platform sold through a quote, with its own payment processing built into the contract. Square for Restaurants is the restaurant version of a POS that also serves retail and services, with self-serve plans and card rates printed on its pricing page.

Both run ordering, payments, kitchen screens, online ordering, loyalty and reporting. The differences show up in how you pay, how long you commit, and how much control you keep over your data and ad accounts.

• Toast suits operators who want depth for table service and multi-location groups. Our Toast POS guide covers how it works, its reports and its contract clauses in detail.
• Square suits operators who want to start small, see their fees upfront and add features as they grow.
• Both host your online ordering for you, which matters for tracking, as the marketing section explains.

Toast vs Square fees: what will each cost?

Toast vs Square fees come down to three lines: monthly software, card processing and hardware. Square publishes all three for the US. Toast publishes starting software prices but quotes processing rates and most hardware for each business, so you cannot compare the full cost until you hold a written Toast quote.

What do Toast and Square software plans cost?

Toast’s restaurant plans start at $0 a month on the Starter Kit and $69 a month on Point of Sale, with Build Your Own at custom pricing, per Toast’s pricing guide. Square’s restaurant plans cost $0, $49 or $149 a month per location, with Square Pro priced by quote for businesses processing over $250,000 a year.

Sources: Toast pricing guide (October 20, 2026); Square restaurant pricing and Square plan comparison, read November 12, 2026. Toast says its pricing applies to new customers and single locations, and includes the first terminal’s software subscription.

What are Square’s card fees, and does Toast publish its rates?

Square’s US card fees are published by plan: 2.6% + 15¢ in person on Free, 2.5% + 15¢ on Plus and 2.4% + 15¢ on Premium. Toast does not publish processing percentages. Its pricing guide only says the Starter Kit carries a higher per-transaction rate and paid plans a lower one, and that rates vary by plan.

Sources: Square restaurant pricing and Toast pricing guide, read November 12, 2026.

Many comparison sites still print Toast percentages. We left them out because Toast’s own pricing pages do not show them today, and under Section 6.2 of the Toast Merchant Agreement Toast can change card rates on 30 days’ written notice. Get your Toast rate in writing for in-person, online and keyed-in cards.

On a single check, Square’s published rates work out like this:

• A $50 in-person check costs $1.45 on Free, $1.40 on Plus and $1.35 on Premium.
• A $30 online order costs $1.29 on Free and $1.17 on Plus or Premium.
• A keyed-in $50 card payment costs $1.90 on any plan, so avoid typing cards where you can.

When does a paid Square plan pay for itself?

Square Plus pays for itself on card savings alone once a location takes about $49,000 a month in in-person card sales. Plus saves 0.1 percentage points on in-person cards and 0.4 points on online cards compared with Free, and 0.1% of $49,000 is $49, the monthly fee. Online sales get you there faster: $12,250 a month of online card sales also saves $49.

Our calculation from Square’s published US rates, November 12, 2026. Per-transaction 15¢ and 30¢ fees are the same on every plan, so they cancel out.

Most restaurants upgrade for features, not rates. Square’s kitchen display app, kiosk software and text marketing are not available on Free, so a kitchen screen alone can make Plus the cheaper path. Use the same math on a Toast quote: multiply the rate difference by your monthly card sales and compare it with the difference in monthly fees.

Which add-ons change the monthly bill?

Add-ons change the bill on both systems. Square prices them publicly, while Toast says add-on pricing varies by business and is quoted.

Sources: Square restaurant pricing and Square plan comparison; Toast pricing guide (“pricing on individual add-ons varies”), read November 12, 2026.

What hardware do Toast and Square sell?

Square lists a US price for every device in its hardware shop, from a $59 card reader to a $1,999 kiosk. Toast names its devices but does not list per-device prices; its hardware page says “starting at $0” for the first device only, with software and processing fees on top. Toast says most restaurants need a terminal, a card reader, a printer and a router to open.

Sources: Toast hardware page (updated September 18, 2026) and Square hardware shop, read November 12, 2026.

Financing works differently too. Square sells devices on monthly credit plans issued by Block at 15% APR, and the plans are not available in six states.

Toast’s pricing page says 0% interest financing is available by application. Toast’s own Toast vs Square page describes Easy Pay as a 180-day lease where Toast holds back 1.75% of sales, with any unpaid balance due at 180 days.

Does Toast or Square lock you into a contract?

Toast uses a term contract and Square does not. Square’s pricing page says there are no locked-in contracts and you can cancel or switch plans anytime. Toast’s Merchant Agreement sets the initial term in your order, then renews it automatically for one-year periods unless you give at least 30 days’ written notice.

Sources: Toast Merchant Agreement (last updated September 10, 2025), Toast’s comparison page (updated November 3, 2026) and Square pricing, read November 12, 2026.

What is the FTC case against Toast?

On October 29, 2026, the Federal Trade Commission, California and seven other states sued Toast in federal court in Northern California. According to the FTC’s announcement, they allege hidden and unauthorized fees, unwanted add-ons, hard-to-cancel subscriptions and support promises customers could not rely on.

Toast says it strongly disagrees and will defend itself, as Digital Transactions reported on October 30, 2026. These are allegations, not findings, and the court will decide the case. Our Toast guide’s contract section maps each allegation to what to confirm before you sign. This is general information, not legal advice.

Toast vs Square for restaurants: which features differ?

Toast vs Square for restaurants is closest on everyday ordering and payments, and furthest apart on table service depth, offline behavior and multi-location tools. Toast includes restaurant tools such as handhelds, kitchen display and multi-location menu publishing as its core. Square puts some restaurant features, such as coursing and seat management, on its higher plans.

Sources: Toast online ordering (updated November 9, 2026), Toast vs Square page, Square restaurant pricing and Square Loyalty, read November 12, 2026. Toast offline terms are in our Toast POS guide.

How do Toast and Square affect marketing and order tracking?

Toast and Square both host your online ordering pages, so neither gives you full control of the checkout where purchases happen. Both let you add Google Analytics and a Meta Pixel and both support Order with Google. The real differences are how you get order data out for server-side tracking, and who controls the ad account if you buy ads through the POS.

This matters because Google Ads and Meta optimize on the conversions you send them. If online orders are missing or counted twice, the bidding learns from the wrong signal and your cost per order drifts up.

Sources: Toast Marketing and Analytics help (updated March 12, 2026), Standard API access (updated August 24, 2026) and webhook subscriptions; Square custom tracking code, Meta for Business, Order with Google and Orders API, all read November 12, 2026.

Can you track online orders in GA4 and Google Ads on each?

Yes on both, but with limits. Each platform lets you place Google Analytics and pixel tags on its hosted ordering site. Neither help page we read lists the purchase event, order value or order id that Google Ads needs for an accurate conversion, so test a real order before you trust the numbers.

Owners run into this on Toast’s own forum. In one Toast Community thread, an owner with Online Ordering Pro could not capture a purchase or the order subtotal. A later reply passed on Google’s findings: a content security policy blocking tags, consent set to denied by default, and a conversion that fired only after a page refresh. In another thread, Toast’s community manager noted the tracking options may need Online Ordering Pro or Toast Websites.

Guests also move between your own website and the ordering domain, which breaks sessions unless you set it up. Our guide to GA4 cross-domain tracking covers that step.

Can you send POS orders to Google Ads server-side?

Yes. Server-side tracking sends each confirmed order from your backend, so it does not depend on tags firing on a hosted page. On Toast, the order feed comes from Standard API access webhooks, which Toast includes with Restaurant Management Suite Essentials for US customers and which are read-only. On Square, the Orders API sends order.created and order.updated webhooks.

Our method is the one published in our guide to capturing restaurant orders server-side:

1. Decide which events fire in the browser, which come from the server, and which use both with deduplication.
2. Send each confirmed order from the backend with the order id as the transaction_id, so GA4 does not count it twice.
3. Forward orders to Google Ads with Enhanced Conversions and the Meta Conversions API, with hashed customer data only where the guest consented.
4. Check the server container preview, GA4 DebugView, a one-order duplicate test, and the Google Ads and Meta diagnostics.
5. Reconcile tracked revenue against the POS or ordering platform’s sales report.

What we see on the Curry Up Now account

We set up and optimize the tracking for Curry Up Now, a multi-location US fast-casual restaurant chain whose online ordering runs on Olo, whose loyalty runs on Thanx, and whose sales figures come from its Toast dashboard. Each location has its own Google Ads account and its own ordering integration, as our multi-location restaurant case study explains.

Before that engagement, one location reported zero tracked purchases against real ad spend, and another counted orders twice because an Olo purchase tag and a Thanx tag both claimed the same transaction. The lesson for anyone choosing a POS: the system that records the sale is rarely the system that fires the conversion, so plan who sends the order to Google Ads before launch.

Revenue rarely matches exactly either. Olo’s GTM template sends the order subtotal as the GA4 purchase value, not the total, so GA4 runs below what the POS reports, as our Olo Google Tag Manager guide documents. Reconcile against the matching column, and judge campaigns against a break-even target as our ROAS vs ROI guide explains.

Who owns your Google Ads account with Toast Advertising?

Toast does, in practice. Toast’s Toast Advertising FAQ (updated April 10, 2026) says Toast creates new Google Ads accounts for these campaigns, an existing Google Ads account cannot be linked, and you manage the campaigns through Toast without direct access to the account. It lists a 15% fee on monthly ad spend for Essentials customers.

Its product page says campaigns start at $15 a day and that additional Toast fees apply. Toast measures orders from its own online ordering and catering, plus estimated in-store sales, and says orders from third-party ordering providers generally cannot be measured. If you already run Google Ads, ask what happens to your account history before you switch. When we manage ads, the account stays in your name.

Which should you choose, Toast or Square?

Choose Toast if you run full service, a busy bar or several locations and want one restaurant-built system, and you are ready to negotiate a contract. Choose Square if you run a small counter-service spot, cafe or food truck, want to see every fee before you sign, and value the option to cancel anytime.

Whichever you pick, your ordering setup is also your local marketing setup. Mark up hours and menu links with restaurant schema markup, and point the order button on your Google Business Profile to your own ordering page.

What do restaurant owners say about Toast and Square?

Reviewers rate Square slightly higher on ease of use and Toast lower on support, while both draw complaints about fees. The ratings below were read on November 12, 2026. G2 does not list a separate Square restaurant product, so its Square figure covers Square Point of Sale as a whole.

Capterra’s sub-scores point the same way: customer service is 3.7 for Toast and 3.9 for Square for Restaurants. Treat ratings as a signal, not a verdict, because both platforms mix restaurant and retail reviewers.

What about Toast vs Clover?

Clover is the third system many owners shortlist, especially when their bank offers it. We could not verify Clover’s current US restaurant pricing on clover.com on November 12, 2026, because its pricing pages only load in a full browser, so we have kept Clover out of the fee tables rather than repeat third-party figures.

The same tests still apply to a Clover quote: are card rates published or quoted, how long is the term, what does leaving early cost, and can you get order data out for tracking? Ask the same questions listed below.

What should you ask before signing with either?

Ask these questions of Toast, Square or any other POS before you sign, and get the answers in writing:

1. What is my card rate for in-person, online and keyed-in payments, by card brand?
2. How long is my term, when does it renew, and how do I give notice?
3. What do I owe in dollars if I leave early or close for a season?
4. Is my hardware bought, financed at what rate, or leased?
5. Which add-ons am I paying for, and what does each cost a month per location?
6. Can I add GA4, Google Tag Manager and Meta Pixel to the ordering pages, and can I get order data by API or webhook?
7. If I buy ads through the POS, who owns the ad account and can I take it with me?

Frequently asked questions

How can we help with your restaurant’s tracking?

Your POS choice decides where order data lives. We connect that data to GA4, Google Ads and Meta for restaurant groups on Toast and Olo, and the same method applies to Square, so you judge campaigns on real orders rather than clicks. See our conversion tracking services and how we choose a Google Ads agency for restaurants.

How we built this comparison: every price, rate and term comes from Toast’s and Square’s own US pages, the FTC’s announcement and the review sites named, each linked and read on November 12, 2026. A person on our team fact-checks it before publishing. Prices change, so confirm them on a current quote.