How to choose a restaurant POS in 2026

Choose a restaurant POS by how you serve, then by total monthly cost and contract. A dining room needs handhelds, coursing and split checks. A counter needs speed, a kitchen screen and perhaps kiosks. A food truck needs card payments that work offline. Shortlist two or three systems built for your service, get written quotes, and run the same demo on each.

Price pages differ in what they show, from printed card rates with cancellation in any month to quoted rates with a multi-year term.

Which POS features matter for your type of restaurant?

Restaurant type	Must work on day one	Ask the vendor to show you
Full service	Floor plan, coursing, split checks by seat, handhelds at the table	Fire a course from a handheld, split a four-top by seat, move a check to another table
Quick service	A fast counter screen, a kitchen display, online and delivery orders in one queue, kiosks if you want them	Ring ten orders in a row, then send online and kiosk orders to the kitchen screen
Bar	Tabs held on a card, quick reorders, tip-outs	The rail test in our bar guide, run by your own bartender
Café or bakery	Drinks with several modifiers, loyalty, a low monthly fee	Ring a drink with three modifiers plus a pastry, and count the taps
Food truck	Card payments with no Wi-Fi, battery life, one small device	Turn off Wi-Fi, take a card, and ask how long offline payments can wait to sync
Multi-location	Menu changes pushed to every store, reports by location, per-location pricing	Change a price at one store, then at all stores, and pull a report comparing them

Vendors print some of these limits. On Square's pricing page, preauthorized bar tabs, split checks, custom floor plans and tableside ordering come with Square Plus and Square Premium but not Square Free. Course management and the drive-thru workflow are marked for Premium only.

For trucks and patios, Square declines offline payments if the device does not reconnect within 24 hours of the first one, and the seller carries the risk of any declined or disputed offline payment. Toast lists 4G cellular on applicable models of its Toast Go 3 handheld, and its pricing page describes an offline mode that keeps orders, tickets, receipts and card payments going until the connection returns.

For groups, Square charges its Plus and Premium fee for each location, and Toast's printed prices apply to new customers and single locations only. Lightspeed's pricing table marks multi-location management on its Essential and Premium plans but not on Starter.

What do the major restaurant POS systems charge?

These prices are copied from each vendor's US site. Hardware, processing and add-ons are extra unless a cell says so. For a closer look at three of them, see Toast vs Square and Clover POS pricing.

POS	Plans as printed	In-person card rate as printed	Term	Start here if
Toast	Toast plans: Starter Kit starting at $0/month; Point of Sale starting at $69/month; Build Your Own at custom pricing	Not printed on the pricing page; the Point of Sale plan lists flat-rate processing	Set in your order under Toast's merchant agreement	You want Toast's own restaurant hardware, 24/7 support in every subscription, and one quoted package
Square	Square plans: Square Free $0/mo., Square Plus $49/mo., Square Premium $149/mo., each per location	Square in person: 2.6% + 15¢ on Free, 2.5% + 15¢ on Plus, 2.4% + 15¢ on Premium	No locked-in contracts; cancel or switch anytime	You want every price in public and a free plan to start on
Clover	Clover bundles: full-service from $179/mo for 36 months; quick-service from $135/mo for 36 months; or buy the hardware plus a monthly fee	Clover in person: 2.3% + 10¢ for a card tapped, swiped or inserted	36-month subscription, or a hardware purchase	You want hardware and software in one fixed monthly payment from Clover.com
Lightspeed	Lightspeed plans: Starter 69 USD, Essential 189 USD, Premium 399 USD, with no billing term beside the figures; Enterprise by quote. KDS $30/screen per month.	Not printed	Not stated on the pricing page	You run more than one location and want multi-location management in the plan
SpotOn	SpotOn plans: All-In Plan $0/station per month; POS Essentials $55/station per month; Build Your Own at custom pricing	SpotOn card present: All-In 2.79% + $0.20; Essentials 2.45% + $0.15 (Amex 3.19% + $0.15)	All-In: 2-year minimum term and processing minimums. Essentials: month-to-month.	You want no upfront hardware cost and accept a higher card rate, or you prefer paying per station
TouchBistro	TouchBistro plans: Point of Sale starting at $69/month (hardware, processing and other fees extra); Essentials Bundle starting at $119/month with hardware (processing and other fees extra); Custom Setup by quote	Not printed	Not stated on the pricing page	You run table service and want tableside ordering and floor plans in the base plan
Shift4 Dine (formerly SkyTab)	Ask Shift4 for a quote	Ask Shift4	Ask Shift4	You want one Shift4 system for handhelds, kiosks, kitchen screens and online ordering

SkyTab became Shift4 Dine on May 12, 2026, according to Shift4's announcement, which says customers keep the same products and support. Its Shift4 Dine help center has sections for handhelds, kiosks, the kitchen display system, online ordering and multi-location management.

SpotOn's pricing page prints its Station 15 at $750 each and its handheld at $297 each on POS Essentials, marked down from $995 and $495.

What should you ask about contracts and card processing?

You pay processing on every card sale, so small rate gaps add up. On Square's printed rates, the 0.1-point gap between Plus and Premium in person comes to $40 a month on $40,000 of card sales. Get every rate in writing, for every way a guest pays.

1. What is my rate for a tapped or dipped card, a typed-in card from a phone order, an online order and American Express? Square charges 3.5% + 15¢ for a manually entered card on every plan, more than any of its in-person rates.
2. Can the rate change during the term? Toast's merchant agreement lets Toast change card processing rates during the term with 30 days' written notice.
3. How long is the term, and does it renew? The same agreement starts with the initial term in your order, then renews for one-year periods.
4. What does it cost to leave early? Toast's early termination fee equals the software fees left in the term, or $150 for each month left on a Pay-as-you-go subscription.
5. Is there a processing minimum? SpotOn's All-In Plan lists processing minimums and a 2-year minimum term.
6. Do I own the hardware at the end? Clover's bundles are a 36-month subscription, or you buy the hardware and pay a monthly fee.
7. At what card volume do custom rates start? Square says businesses processing over $250,000 a year can ask about custom pricing.
8. Which add-ons cost extra per device or per location: kitchen screens, kiosks, handhelds, online ordering, payroll?

How should you run a POS demo?

Send each vendor your top 20 items with their modifiers, your device count and your monthly card sales a week ahead, and ask them to load your menu. Run this script with the person who will use the system most.

1. Ring your busiest order with three modifiers and an allergy note. Count the taps, then check which kitchen screen or printer gets each item.
2. Take a tapped card, a typed-in card and a split payment. Find each fee in the report.
3. Void one item, comp another and refund a paid check. Note which steps need a manager.
4. Mark an item sold out. Check that it drops off online ordering and any kiosk.
5. Send a test order from each channel you use: online, delivery app, kiosk and phone. Check each lands on the kitchen screen with its dining option.
6. Drop the internet. Take an order and a card, reconnect, and check both went through.
7. Clock a server in and out, add tips, and pull the tip-out and labor reports.
8. Change a price. For a group, change it at one store, then at all of them.
9. Ask for a written monthly total: software, each device, add-ons, processing at your volume, and the fee to leave.

Bars should add the rail test from our bar POS guide. If you are adding kitchen screens, run the mock rush in our kitchen display guide before your first busy night.

What else has to connect to the POS?

List every system that sends orders to the POS or pulls data from it: online ordering, delivery apps, reservations, payroll and phone ordering. Square's pricing page, for example, lists third-party order management for delivery partners such as Grubhub and DoorDash, and reservation integrations with OpenTable and SevenRooms. Ask each partner whether the link moves full orders with modifiers or only sales totals.

If you take phone orders, check that your phone tool writes into the POS you pick. Maple's Pro phone ordering, and its drive-thru and kiosk units in early access, write orders into the POS systems on its integrations page, including Toast, Square, Clover, SkyTab (now Shift4 Dine), Lightspeed and SpotOn.

Published by Maple. This AI-assisted guide combines each vendor's own US pricing, product, agreement and help pages with an original decision table and demo script. It does not report hands-on testing of any POS or a quote from any vendor, and it does not name a best system.