Toast vs. Square: What Each One Actually Costs

These are the two systems restaurant and retail owners ask about most, and comparing them is harder than it should be — because only one of them tells you what processing will cost before you talk to a salesperson.

Everything below comes from Square's and Toast's own websites. Where a figure is not published by the company itself, we have said so rather than filling the gap with a number from a review site.

Square: every rate published

Square publishes its full processing schedule openly. As of this writing, on their own fee page:

Source: squareup.com/us/en/payments/our-fees. Monthly plan prices are per location.

Square applies the same rate to every major card — Visa, Mastercard, Amex, Discover — and states that PCI compliance is included in the rate rather than billed separately. Plus and Premium each carry a 30-day free trial. Businesses processing over $250,000 per year can request custom pricing.

Toast: hardware and software published, processing not

Toast publishes plan structure and hardware terms on its pricing page. What it does not publish anywhere on its own site is a processing rate. The pricing page directs you to request a custom quote, and states plainly that Toast is not a payment card processor but a payment facilitator that partners with processors.

What Toast does state publicly, in its own footnotes:

• The advertised $0 entry applies to first-device hardware only, on the Pay-As-You-Go plan. Software and processing fees still apply.
• An $85/month inactivity fee may apply.
• Hardware return may be required upon cancellation.
• Toast software runs only on Toast-approved hardware. You cannot bring your own, and Toast can change which devices are approved at its discretion.
• Upfront costs are hardware plus implementation, varying by package; 0% financing is available by application.
• Toast Care support is included with every software subscription, 24/7.
• Published pricing applies to new customers and single locations only.

Source: pos.toasttab.com and pos.toasttab.com/pricing.

Where the real cost difference usually lands

For most restaurants, monthly software is not the deciding number. Consider a room doing $60,000 a month in card volume: the difference between Square Free and Square Premium is $149 a month in software, but 0.2% of that volume is $120 a month in processing — and a rate difference of half a percent is $300 a month. Processing dominates.

Illustration using Square's published 2.6% in-person rate on a hypothetical $60,000 month. Your figures will differ. The point is the proportion, not the exact number.

Structural differences that outlast the pricing

Which one fits

Square tends to fit smaller and mixed-format operations, businesses that want predictable published costs with no negotiation, seasonal businesses that would be hit by an inactivity fee, and anyone who values being able to walk away without hardware entanglements.

Toast tends to fit full-service restaurants that will genuinely use restaurant-specific tooling — coursing, kitchen displays, floor plans, integrated online ordering — and that have enough volume to negotiate processing meaningfully.

Neither fits well if you are paying for a deep feature set you do not use, or if you are on a flat published rate at volume high enough that interchange-plus pricing would beat it. Both of those are common and both are fixable without changing your entire operation.

The question to ask either one

Whatever they quote, convert it to an effective rate: total monthly fees divided by total monthly card volume. That single number is comparable across any two providers. A headline rate is not.

All pricing figures are drawn from Square's and Toast's own public websites and are subject to change. 5 Apollo is not affiliated with Square or Toast; both names are trademarks of their respective owners. This article is provided for general educational purposes and reflects information available as of August 2026. It is not legal or compliance advice, and it is not a substitute for reviewing your own merchant agreement or consulting an attorney about your specific situation. Card network rules, state law, and processor pricing change; verify current requirements with your processor or the relevant regulator before acting.