Short version: Square starts at $0 a month with a published in-person rate of 2.6% + 15¢ per tap, dip, or swipe on its Free plan, and Toast starts at $0 a month on its Starter Kit or $69 a month on its Point of Sale plan per Toast's own pricing comparison. Square is the safer pick for a small cafe or a roaster selling bags online. Toast makes more sense once you run drive-thru volume or a real kitchen ticket flow. Everything below is pulled from both companies' pricing pages as of July 2026.
The real difference is not the monthly fee
Both companies will happily start you at $0 a month, so the sticker price tells you almost nothing. The useful differences are in processing and transparency.
Square publishes every rate on its pricing page: 2.6% + 15¢ in person on the Free plan, 2.5% + 15¢ on Plus ($49 a month per location), and 2.4% + 15¢ on Premium ($149 a month per location). Online payments run 3.3% + 30¢ on Free and 2.9% + 30¢ on Plus and Premium. There are no locked-in contracts, so you can cancel or switch plans anytime. You know your costs before you ever talk to a salesperson.
Toast does not publish its processing rates. Its plans advertise "flat-rate processing" but the actual percentage comes out of a quote for your specific restaurant. The $0 Starter Kit's Pay-as-you-Go option, which gets you hardware with no upfront cost, carries a platform fee applied to every transaction and a two year agreement, per the footnotes on Toast's comparison page. Not automatically a bad deal, but you cannot comparison shop it from your couch.
Toast vs Square pricing at a glance
Everything here comes from squareup.com, Square's hardware page, and toasttab.com, checked July 2026.
| Square Free | Square Plus | Toast Starter Kit | Toast Point of Sale | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Software per month | $0 | $49 per location | Starting at $0 | Starting at $69 |
| In-person card rate | 2.6% + 15¢ | 2.5% + 15¢ | Quoted, not published | Quoted, not published |
| Online card rate | 3.3% + 30¢ | 2.9% + 30¢ | Quoted, not published | Quoted, not published |
| Entry hardware | $59 Reader to $899 Register | Same hardware lineup | Kit with 1 terminal, no upfront cost on Pay-as-you-Go | Choose your own hardware, priced by quote |
| Contract | None, cancel anytime | None, cancel anytime | Two year agreement on Pay-as-you-Go | Quoted per restaurant |
| Support | Phone 6am to 6pm PT weekdays, first 90 days | Phone 6am to 6pm PT weekdays | 24/7 Toast Care included | 24/7 Toast Care included |
Square's hardware is retail-priced on its site: the contactless Reader is $59, Square Terminal is $299, Square Stand for iPad is $149, the Handheld is $399, and the second generation Register is $899. Toast sells hardware only through its sales process, either purchased, financed, or bundled into the Pay-as-you-Go rate.
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Drive-thru: Toast, usually
Drive-thru coffee is a throughput business, and this is where Toast's restaurant DNA earns the quote process. Toast lists drive-thru as a dedicated concept it builds for, and its handheld terminals exist specifically for line busting, the single biggest lever on drive-thru ticket times. Kitchen displays, order routing, and 24/7 support all come from a company that only does food service.
Square can do it. The $399 Handheld takes orders in the line and Square's kitchen display app runs order screens, but the KDS app is not available on the Free plan and costs $30 a month per device on Plus, per Square's pricing page. Stack a Plus subscription, KDS devices, and handhelds, and the gap between Square's published pricing and a negotiated Toast quote narrows. Running two lanes and a walk-up window? Get the Toast quote before deciding.
Sit-down cafe: Square, unless you serve real food
A counter-service cafe slinging espresso and pastries does not need most of what Toast is built for. Square's Free plan covers the register, the item library, and basic reporting at $0 a month, and a Stand with an iPad or a $299 Terminal gets you live for a few hundred dollars with no contract. If your margins are tight in year one, the ability to walk away or downgrade at any time is worth a lot.
The math changes if you run a kitchen. Ticket routing, coursing, and menu complexity are where Toast pulls ahead, and its $69 a month Point of Sale plan is aimed at exactly that shop. A cafe doing weekend brunch service with a flat-top is closer to a restaurant than a coffee bar, and should shop like one.
Roaster with retail: Square, clearly
If you roast and sell bags, whether over the counter, wholesale, or online, Square is the stronger fit. The Free plan includes an online site builder and invoicing, so the same item library powers your counter, your web store, and your wholesale invoices. Online orders process at 3.3% + 30¢ on Free, dropping to 2.9% + 30¢ if you upgrade to Plus. Toast has been expanding into retail, but its platform is built around restaurant service, and a roaster's revenue mix of shipped bags, subscriptions, and wholesale invoices maps more naturally onto Square's tools.
Worth reading next
If you are budgeting a shop, staff is a bigger line item than the POS. Our barista pay breakdown covers what wages plus tips actually look like by state. And if you want to stop paying for machine service calls, there is a real espresso machine technician course path worth knowing about.
FAQ
Is Toast or Square cheaper for a small coffee shop? Usually Square. Its Free plan is $0 a month with a published 2.6% + 15¢ in-person rate and no contract, while Toast's $0 Starter Kit carries a per-transaction platform fee and a two year agreement on Pay-as-you-Go. For high-volume shops, a negotiated Toast quote can close the gap.
Does Toast publish its processing rates? No. Toast's pricing pages list software plans starting at $0 and $69 a month but processing is quoted per restaurant. Square publishes all of its rates publicly.
Which POS is better for selling roasted coffee beans online? Square. Its Free plan includes an online store builder tied to the same item library as your register, with online payments at 3.3% + 30¢, or 2.9% + 30¢ on the $49 a month Plus plan.
Running these numbers for your own shop and stuck on something? Ask us through the contact page and we will give you a straight answer.