Toast vs Square (2026): $9,037 vs $1,764 Over Three Years — and the Website Neither Lets You Keep

Q: Toast or Square: which is cheaper?

Square, on software, by a wide margin. Three years of Square Plus is $1,764 and three years of Toast Core is $9,037 — $170 a month plus a $1,153 kit — and Square is the only one of the two with no contract to exit. Square Free is $0 a month, carrying a higher card rate instead. What Toast's Core buys that Square Plus does not is a deeper restaurant POS: coursing, a kitchen display, delivery-app integrations and 24/7 restaurant support, sold with a two-year term.

What each one charges in 2026

Toast, on Traditional

BasicRegister, reports, 24/7 support — no online ordering

$69/mo

CoreAdds online ordering, delivery, DoorDash / Uber Eats / Grubhub

$219/mo

GrowthAdds the Toast website, gift cards, loyalty, SMS and email

$578/mo

Pay-as-You-GoNo software fee: 3.09% (Basic) to 3.69% (Growth) + 15¢ a card

$0/mo

Square, per location

FreePOS app, item library, invoicing, a basic online site · 2.6% + 15¢ in person

$0/mo

PlusRestaurant POS features, loyalty, email and SMS · 2.5% + 15¢ in person

$49/mo

Premium24/7 phone support, advanced reporting, lowest rates · 2.4% + 15¢

$149/mo

HardwareTerminal $299 · Handheld $399 · Stand $149 + an iPad · Register $899

$0-$899once

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.

Square's three plans are per location and there is no contract — the pricing page says cancel or switch anytime, which is the single biggest difference on this page. A branded online ordering page, a basic website and an item library are included from Free. Online card payments cost 3.3% + 30¢ on Free and 2.9% + 30¢ on Plus and Premium; in person, 2.6% + 15¢ on Free and 2.5% + 15¢ on Plus. Tap to Pay on an iPhone or an Android phone needs no hardware at all.

Card rates on Traditional are 2.49% + 15¢ in person and 3.50% + 15¢ online, for American Express and for any card that is not present. Toast's own terms restrict its services to approved Toast hardware, and its pricing page marks online ordering, the Toast website, loyalty and gift cards as add-ons with no price shown. The website itself lands in Growth at $578 a month; an existing customer adds it through a Digital Storefront add-on whose price is not on the pages we read.

The catch is not a contract, it is the shape of the thing. A Square Online site is a page you assemble and maintain in Square's editor, hosted by Square, and it cannot leave: Square's own support guidance says there is no website backup or download for a Square Online site, and the only export in the Dashboard is a spreadsheet of your item library, orders and customers. If you leave Square, you keep the items and the domain — not the page.

The three-year math, with the assumptions written down

Toast Core: 36 × $219$7,884

Toast countertop kit, paid once$1,153

Toast, three years at Core$9,037

Toast Growth (the pack with the website): 36 × $578 + $1,153$21,961

Square Plus: 36 × $49$1,764

Square Premium: 36 × $149$5,364

Square hardware, paid once (Terminal to Register)$299-$899

Square, three years at Plus, with a Terminal$2,063

ShopLaunch Local Pack, paid once$199

Difference still in your account, against Toast Core$8,838

Software and hardware only, before a single card is taken. On both sides the card rate is a separate line and we leave it separate rather than pretending a website touches it.

The card rate, honestly: in person the two are within a rounding error of each other — Toast 2.49% + 15¢ against Square Plus 2.5% + 15¢ — so the rate does not decide it. Online is the interesting one. Toast charges 3.50% + 15¢; Square charges 2.9% + 30¢. On a $25 online order that is $1.03 either way: Square's lower percentage is exactly eaten by its higher fixed fee. Below about $25 Square is dearer per order; above it, Square is cheaper. A shop taking 400 online orders a month at a $45 average pays Toast about $682 and Square about $642 — a $40 monthly difference that does not close a $7,273 software gap.

The trap both of them share: the website is part of the terminal

This is the part of the bill neither pricing page is hiding, but neither one puts it in a sentence: in both systems the website is a feature of your account, not a file you own.

Toast keeps the site in the pack

The Toast website arrives with Growth at $578 a month; online ordering arrives with Core. Both stop the day the subscription stops, and Toast's terms restrict its services to approved Toast hardware, so the website and the register are one purchase. Ask what the monthly bill is if you keep the terminal and drop the website pack — the answer depends on the pack and the term, and it should come in writing.

Square keeps the site in the account

A Square Online site is built in Square's editor and hosted by Square. Square's own support guidance says there is no website backup or download for it, sites cannot be transferred between Square accounts, and what exports is the item library as a spreadsheet. Leave Square and you keep your items, your orders and your domain — not the pages.

The domain is the tell. In both systems you can point your own domain at their site, and the domain stays yours; what does not come with you is the thing the domain points at. A shop that changes register — and over ten years most do, because the hardware ages and the contract ends — pays for the website twice: once in the subscription, once in the rebuild. That rebuild is the cost this site exists to remove.

Side by side

Same job on the left, two very different contracts in the middle, and the part that survives a change of register on the right.

Toast vs Square vs ShopLaunch over three years: Toast Core costs $9,037 ($219 a month plus a $1,153 kit on a two-year term), Square Plus costs $1,764 ($49 a month, no contract), and the ShopLaunch page is $199 once. Leaving Core with 14 months left costs $3,066. — The same three years on one card, at US list prices read 11 November 2026. Software and hardware only; card processing is out on all three sides.

	Toast (Core / Growth)	Square (Free / Plus / Premium)	ShopLaunch
List price today	$69 / $219 / $578 a month, plus a $1,153 kit	$0 / $49 / $149 a month per location, hardware separate	$49 / $199 / $499, once
What you pay in year 2	$2,628 at Core · $6,936 at Growth	$588 at Plus · $1,788 at Premium, or $0	$0
Contract	2 years, then a year at a time	None — cancel or switch anytime	None
Leaving early	Software fees left in the term · $150 a month left on Pay-as-You-Go	Nothing beyond the month	Nothing to cancel
Hardware	$1,153 kit up front; approved Toast terminals only	$149 Stand + iPad, $299 Terminal, $399 Handheld, $899 Register; Tap to Pay needs none	None. Your phone and your printer
Card rate, in person	2.49% + 15¢ (Traditional)	2.6% / 2.5% / 2.4% + 15¢	We process nothing
Card rate, online	3.50% + 15¢	3.3% / 2.9% / 2.9% + 30¢	We process nothing
A register for a full-service room	Yes: floor plans, coursing, kitchen display, delivery-app integrations, 24/7 restaurant support	Yes, and lighter: table maps and coursing on Plus, but no kitchen display of its own and no caterer-grade tooling	No POS, ever
Online ordering with payment	Yes, from Core ($219)	Yes, from Free — 3.3% + 30¢, 2.9% + 30¢ on Plus	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	A Square Online site included from Free — you build and maintain it	Built for you in 24 hours
Can the site leave with you	No — it stops with the subscription	No — no site export, only the item library as a spreadsheet	Yes. The HTML, the CSS and the images are the deliverable
Guest and order data	Held in Toast's platform	Held in Square's platform	We collect no guest data at all
Three-year software + hardware	$9,037 at Core · $21,961 at Growth	$1,764 at Plus · $5,364 at Premium, plus $299-$899 of hardware	$199

Toast figures are the Traditional Starter Kit prices on pos.toasttab.com read 7 and 11 November 2026 — single location, first terminal, before tax. Square figures are squareup.com/us/en/pricing and squareup.com/us/en/hardware read 11 November 2026 — US list, per location, before tax, and its hardware prices are what you pay for the device, not the software. Card rates are the vendors' published rates and exclude American Express on Square, which is quoted separately. Both vendors price by country and change prices without notice; check your own checkout.

What the $199 actually is

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.

A mobile page on a real URL — hours, prices, photos, tap-to-call, directions. One link for your Instagram bio, Google listing and texts.
A digital menu with one QR per table — print-ready PDF, no app for the guest, no waiting for a printed card.
Three print-ready posters — window hours, counter QR, menu board. A4 and A3.
Five Instagram posts (1080×1080) with the captions written.
The files themselves — the HTML, the stylesheet and the images, in a folder you can hand to any host or any printer.

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.

Which package does this job?

The page and the menu are the Local Pack. Nothing here is a subscription, and nothing renews — and it works with whichever register you keep.

Starter The link

One page, one QR, done.

$49one-time

Delivered in 1 business day

One-page mobile site — hours, prices, photos, address, tap-to-call
Call and directions buttons, pinned to the screen
QR poster PDF for the counter and the window
Your own edit key, so a price change is a minute of your time

Start — $49

One month of Square Plus, and nothing after it.

Local Pack This comparison

The page, the menu and the print pieces.

$199one-time

Website + menu + posters + posts

Everything in Starter
Full menu or service list — up to 30 items, grouped, priced, descriptions written
3 print pieces — window hours, counter QR, menu board
5 Instagram posts (1080×1080) with captions
Google Business Profile text — category, hours, description
Search title and description, plus a share card that looks right in a text
One round of edits included

Get the Local Pack — $199

The one most shops order.

Full Launch Everything

A real menu, built and written.

$499one-time

For a menu of up to 60 items

Everything in Local Pack
Up to 60 items, every one described
A photo gallery laid out as a scroll, not a grid of squares
10 Instagram posts + A3 posters + table tents
Google Business Profile setup text — categories, services, hours
A one-page look at 3 nearby shops' prices and online presence
30 days of small updates — 5 changes

Get Full Launch — $499

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.

Questions this comparison raises

Toast or Square: which is cheaper?

Square, on software, by a wide margin. Three years of Square Plus is $1,764 and three years of Toast Core is $9,037 — $170 a month plus a $1,153 kit — and Square is the only one of the two with no contract to exit. Square Free is $0 a month, carrying a higher card rate instead. What Toast's Core buys that Square Plus does not is a deeper restaurant POS: coursing, a kitchen display, delivery-app integrations and 24/7 restaurant support, sold with a two-year term.

Which one should a restaurant actually buy?

A full-service room with a kitchen and a bar usually needs what Toast sells and Square does not: floor plans that hold under a Friday, coursing, a kitchen display, delivery-app integration. A café, a counter-service shop, a bakery or a food truck usually does better on Square: $0 to $49 a month, no contract, hardware from $149 plus an iPad, and Tap to Pay with no hardware at all. That is the honest split, and it is the same split the register salespeople would give you.

What does leaving Toast early actually cost?

On Traditional, the software fees left in the term: leaving Core with 14 months left 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.

Can I keep the website if I leave Toast or Square?

Not as a site. A Toast website stops with the subscription it is bundled into; a Square Online site has no export at all — Square's support guidance says there is no website backup or download, and the Dashboard exports your item library, orders and customers as spreadsheets, not your pages. What you can keep is the material: your words, your photos, your menu items as a CSV, and your domain. A rebuild from that material is the work nobody quotes at the start.

Do I need a POS to have a website?

No. A page with your hours, your menu and your phone number does not need a terminal, an account or a card reader behind it — ours is one static HTML file and a stylesheet, with no platform between the guest and your hours. If you are buying a register this month, buy the register on its own terms and buy the page from someone who does not sell hardware.

Who takes the payment, and is my card safe?

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.

One page, printable, for the person who signs

Both price ladders, the three-year totals, the early-exit arithmetic and the website rule, on one printable A4 page.

Download the PDF

Where the numbers come from. Toast: pos.toasttab.com/pricing for the approved-hardware wording and the 2-year agreement, read 11 November 2026; the Traditional Starter Kit prices — $69 Basic, $219 Core, $578 Growth, $1,153 countertop kit, 2.49% + 15¢ in person, 3.50% + 15¢ online — from Toast's Starter Kit checkout as read and published on 7 November 2026 by expresso.io/blog/toast-pricing, and the early-termination formula — remaining software fees on Traditional, $150 a month on Pay-as-You-Go — from Toast's Merchant Agreement (last updated 10 September 2025) as summarised by Orbix POS on 21 October 2026. Square: squareup.com/us/en/pricing and squareup.com/us/en/hardware, read 11 November 2026 — Free $0, Plus $49, Premium $149 per location; 2.6% / 2.5% / 2.4% + 15¢ in person and 3.3% / 2.9% / 2.9% + 30¢ online; Terminal $299, Handheld $399, Stand $149 plus an iPad, Register $899. The no-export rule is Square's own support guidance (no website backup or download for Square Online; item library exports to Excel or CSV). The $45 average online ticket in the card-rate paragraph is our worked example, not a vendor figure. ShopLaunch does not sell POS hardware, card processing or online ordering with payment. Prices are US list, before tax; vendors change them, so check before you sign. Last checked 11 November 2026. Something out of date? Tell us and we will correct it with the source.

The other head-to-head

Head to headToast vs BentoBoxThe website with a register, or no website without one: $6,444 to $21,961.

Every competitor, on the same terms

Sixteen more, each priced over three years from the vendor's own page — restaurant POS, ordering, booking apps and the DIY builders.

POS + websiteToast vs ShopLaunch$219-$578/mo on a 2-year term, plus a $1,153 kit.POS + websiteSquare for Restaurants vs ShopLaunch$0-$149/mo, ordering included.restaurant websitesBentoBox vs ShopLaunchNow sold only with Clover POS, no price published.POS + hardwareClover vs ShopLaunch$179-$354/mo for 36 months, non-cancelable.direct orderingChowNow vs ShopLaunch$229-$409/mo plus a $119-$499 setup.POS + orderingSpotOn vs ShopLaunch$0-$55 a station, on a 2-year term.direct orderingOwner.com vs ShopLaunch$249-$499/mo, plus 5% of orders.menu + marketingPopmenu vs ShopLaunch$179-$499/mo, plus $1 an order.pizza orderingSlice vs ShopLaunch$2-$3 on every pizza: $47,764-$66,204.POS + orderingTouchBistro vs ShopLaunch$119/mo for POS + online ordering.POS platformLightspeed Restaurant vs ShopLaunch$69-$399/mo, plus $30 a screen.booking appSquire vs ShopLaunch$30-$250/mo per shop, plus $25/mo for the page.booking appBooksy vs ShopLaunch$29.99/mo + $20 a barber, and the 30% Boost cut.booking appFresha vs ShopLaunchNo free plan since 2026, and a 20% marketplace fee.DIY builderWix vs ShopLaunch$29-$39/mo on a yearly plan, and no export.DIY builderSquarespace vs ShopLaunchCore $29/mo, and the design never exports.

Everything on one page: the 2026 cost comparison · the fee calculator · barbershops & salons.