This one is not close on price. Clover's Starter bundle is $6,444 over three years with the terminal, the cash drawer and the printer inside it, against $9,037 for Toast's Core and its $1,153 kit, and Clover's in-person card rate is lower too: 2.3% + 10¢ against 2.49% + 15¢. So the honest answer is Clover — followed immediately by the reason to hesitate: Clover holds you for 36 months you cannot cancel, Toast for 24 with a stated exit fee. Two contracts of different lengths, one shared trap: in both, the website is a feature of the terminal. $199 once is the line that comes off either bill.
The countertop starter kit is $1,153 up front on Traditional (Toast Flex terminal, Tap card reader, router) or $0 on Pay-as-You-Go, and it is yours, not leased. The checkout states a 2-year software agreement that then renews a year at a time unless either side gives 30 days' written notice. Leaving early costs the software fees left in the term, or $150 for each month left on Pay-as-You-Go — fourteen months left is $3,066 on Core, or $2,100 on the $0 plan.
Clover prices a whole system, not a licence. The 14-inch Station Solo, the cash drawer and the receipt printer are inside the monthly, with the Restaurant Growth software plan on top: $179 a month for 36 months on Starter, $239 with a handheld for tableside ordering, $354 with a customer-facing screen. The same bundles can be bought the other way — $1,799, $2,548 or $4,447 down and $89.95, $109.90 or $129.85 a month — which puts three years at $5,037, $6,504 or $9,122 and leaves the hardware yours, while the software fee keeps running.
The subscription is a lease in everything but name. Clover's own pricing FAQ answers "Can I cancel my subscription?" with "Subscriptions are non-cancelable and ineligible for refunds" — a term that can be paid off early, or broken by a buyout or an upgrade, but not walked away from. At the end of the 36 months you buy the equipment or return it, and if you tell Clover nothing the term extends at the same monthly charge; the purchase price is quoted only after you give notice. Clover is Fiserv's brand, and the same FAQ is explicit that a Clover device bought elsewhere cannot be used with another processor: the terminal, the software and the card rate are one contract.
Toast's answer to all of that is the pack itself: Core bundles online ordering, delivery and the delivery apps; Growth adds the Toast website, gift cards, loyalty and marketing at $578. Clover bundles a table map, open tabs, bill splitting, contactless QR order-and-pay and an online menu page with no-fee online ordering into all three plans, and sells a kitchen printer as an accessory — a kitchen display is not on the bundle card, and that is the gap a full-service room notices on a Friday.
Software and hardware only. Both vendors charge card processing on top and both are cheaper to run than the subscription suggests, so it gets its own arithmetic.
The rates point the same way. Toast charges 2.49% + 15¢ in person, Clover 2.3% + 10¢: on a $30 ticket $0.90 against $0.79. At $40,000 a month in card-present sales — 1,333 tickets — Toast charges about $1,196 and Clover about $1,053, which is $143 a month and $5,148 across three years. Add the subscription gap and Clover Starter is about $7,700 cheaper than Toast Core over three years for a room taking $40,000 a month. There is no volume at which that flips, because Clover wins both lines; what Toast sells at that price is not cheaper, it is different.
Online is a wash. Toast 3.50% + 15¢ against Clover 3.5% + 10¢: the same percentage and a nickel less on every order — $1.55 against $1.50 on a $40 basket. Nobody should choose a register on five cents, and we are not going to pretend otherwise.
Two different contracts, one identical structure. In both systems the website is a feature of the account, not a file you own, and the account exists because of the terminal.
The Toast website arrives with Growth at $578 a month, or as a Digital Storefront add-on with no published price, on the same two-year agreement whose exit is the software left in the term — $8,092 at Growth with 14 months to run. Toast's terms restrict its services to approved Toast hardware, and nothing on its pages offers the site as a download.
Clover's bundles include an online menu page and no-fee online ordering, and both belong to the subscription that Clover's FAQ calls non-cancelable and ineligible for refunds. A designed site means BentoBox, which Clover now sells only to Clover POS customers, in a quote with no published price — so the website is priced twice: once inside the bundle, once as a module you negotiate.
The domain is the tell again. Either vendor will host a site on a domain you own and the domain stays yours; what does not come with you is the page behind it. A shop that changes register pays for the website twice — once in the subscription, once in the rebuild — and the rebuild is the cost this site exists to remove.
Same room, same job, two commitment lengths — and the part that survives whichever of them you sign.
| Toast (Core / Growth) | Clover (full-service bundles) | ShopLaunch | |
|---|---|---|---|
| List price today | $69 / $219 / $578 a month, plus a $1,153 kit | $179 / $239 / $354 a month for 36 months, hardware inside | $49 / $199 / $499, once |
| What you pay in year 2 | $2,628 at Core · $6,936 at Growth | $2,148 at Starter · $4,248 at Advanced | $0 |
| Contract | 2 years, then a year at a time | 36 months, non-cancelable and ineligible for refunds | None |
| Leaving early | Software fees left in the term · $150 a month left on Pay-as-You-Go | Pay the term off, or break it with a buyout or an upgrade; no refunds | Nothing to cancel |
| Hardware | $1,153 kit up front; approved Toast terminals only | Inside the subscription; buy or return at the end; no notice means it extends | None. Your phone and your printer |
| Card rate, in person | 2.49% + 15¢ (Traditional) | 2.3% + 10¢ tapped, swiped or inserted | We process nothing |
| Card rate, online or typed in | 3.50% + 15¢ | 3.5% + 10¢ | We process nothing |
| A full-service room | Coursing, kitchen display, delivery-app integrations, 24/7 restaurant support | Table map, open tabs, bill splitting, tableside from Standard, QR order-and-pay; kitchen printer accessory, no kitchen display in the bundle | No POS, ever |
| Online ordering with payment | Yes, from Core ($219) | Included in all three bundles, no per-order fee | No. We do not take orders or payments |
| The website | In Growth at $578/mo, or a Digital Storefront add-on with no published price | An online menu page; a designed site means BentoBox, Clover-only, in a quote | Built for you in 24 hours |
| Can the site leave with you | No — it stops with the subscription | The menu page stops with the subscription; on BentoBox, ask in writing | Yes. The HTML, the CSS and the images are the deliverable |
| Three-year software + hardware | $9,037 at Core · $21,961 at Growth | $6,444 at Starter · $8,604 Standard · $12,744 Advanced | $199 |
Toast: pos.toasttab.com/pricing read 11 November 2026 for the approved-hardware wording and the two-year agreement; the Traditional Starter Kit prices — $69 Basic, $219 Core, $578 Growth, $1,153 countertop kit, 2.49% + 15¢ in person, 3.50% + 15¢ online — are from Toast's checkout as read and published on 7 November 2026 by expresso.io/blog/toast-pricing; the exit formula (software left in the term on Traditional, $150 a month on Pay-as-You-Go) is from Toast's Merchant Agreement, last updated 10 September 2025, as summarised by Orbix POS on 21 October 2026. Clover: clover.com/pricing/restaurant read 11 November 2026 — Starter $179, Standard $239, Advanced $354 a month for 36 months, or $1,799 + $89.95, $2,548 + $109.90 and $4,447 + $129.85; 2.3% + 10¢ tapped, swiped or inserted, 3.5% + 10¢ typed in; online menu page and no-fee online ordering included; clover.com/pricing for the non-cancelable wording, the buy-or-return rule and the auto-extension. The $40,000 monthly volume and the $30 ticket are our worked examples, not vendor figures. Prices are US list, before tax.
Not a template you fill in, and not a replacement for a register. We take your hours, prices and photos, build each piece, and hand back files and a live link.
One form, five minutes. Live the next business day. No app for you or your guests, no monthly fee, and no cut of anything you sell.
The page and the menu are the Local Pack. No register, nothing that renews, and nothing to cancel in month five.
Three months of the difference between the two, paid once.
The one most shops order.
Everything, plus 30 days of us on call.
Payment is taken by Polar Software, Inc., our merchant of record, on their checkout page — we never see your card. By ordering you agree to our terms and refund policy. The files are yours to keep and reprint.
Clover, on both lines. Three years of Clover's full-service Starter is $6,444 with the hardware inside, against $9,037 for Toast Core and its $1,153 kit; and Clover's card-present rate is lower, 2.3% + 10¢ against 2.49% + 15¢, which at $40,000 a month is another $5,148 across three years. What Toast sells at that price is a shorter commitment — 24 months instead of 36 — and a deeper restaurant POS: coursing, a kitchen display, delivery-app integrations and 24/7 restaurant support. Clover's bundle has the table map and the tabs; it does not have the kitchen display.
On Traditional, the software fees left in the term: leaving Core with 14 months to run is 14 × $219 = $3,066, and leaving Growth is $8,092. On Pay-as-You-Go it is $150 for each month left — $2,100 for 14 months, whatever pack you are on. Two exits are free: written notice at least 30 days before the term ends, and leaving in writing after Toast announces a change to your card rate or its core POS fee, before the change takes effect.
Clover publishes no number, and that is the point. Its pricing FAQ says subscriptions are non-cancelable and ineligible for refunds, that an agreement can be paid off at any time or broken by a buyout or an upgrade, and that the purchase price is quoted once you give notice. So the number to get in writing before signing is the buy-out at month 12 and at month 36 — and to ask the bank or reseller selling it too, because Clover says termination terms vary by partner.
No. Toast's website is sold inside Growth and stops with the subscription; a Square-style export does not exist there either. Clover's online menu page belongs to the subscription, and its designed-site product, BentoBox, is now sold only to Clover POS customers with no published price — ask, in writing, who owns the domain and what the site looks like on the last day of the term. What you keep is your words, photos, menu items and domain; the rebuild from them is the hidden line in both contracts.
No. A page with your hours, your menu and your phone number needs no terminal, no account and no card reader behind it — ours is one HTML file and a stylesheet, with no platform between the guest and your hours. Buy the register on its own terms; buy the page from someone who does not sell hardware.
Polar Software, Inc., our merchant of record, takes it on their checkout page. Your card details are entered there, never on this site, and they handle the receipt and the tax. We never see your card number.
Both bundles, the three-year totals, the card-rate arithmetic and the two contract terms that decide the next three years, on one printable A4 page.
Sixteen more, each priced over three years from the vendor's own page — restaurant POS, ordering, booking apps and the DIY builders.
Everything on one page: the 2026 cost comparison · the fee calculator · barbershops & salons.
Send your shop once. We build the page, the menu, the posters and the posts, and hand it back the next business day — with the files. Nothing to cancel, nothing welded to a terminal, and nothing that stops working when you change POS.