When trying to run a busy restaurant, the last thing you want is for your POS system to slow you down. It may take too long to ring up an order, or it frequently freezes or crashes, disrupting service and frustrating your customers. Problems like these can cost you precious time and money, hurting your bottom line and ruining your customers' experience. With so much riding on your restaurant's POS system, you must choose the right one—not just in terms of features and reliability but also cost. Restaurant POS system costs can vary widely based on factors like hardware, software, and payment processing fees. This article will walk you through a comparison of two top contenders: Toast and Clover. Understanding the differences between Toast and Clover, including their pricing structures, will help you choose the best POS system for your business to enhance efficiency, simplify operations, and maximize profitability.

The POS Exchange specializes in helping businesses like yours find the best POS system for their needs. With our extensive library of articles, expert reviews, and unbiased comparisons, you can find the perfect solution to meet your goals.

Which POS System Is Better, Clover or Toast?

Clover and Toast are popular point-of-sale systems that help food and beverage businesses manage daily operations and long-term success. Both boast intuitive designs and customizable features that help restaurants: 

• Improve efficiency
• Enhance customer satisfaction
• Boost profitability

Overview of Clover 

Clover offers POS packages for various industries, including restaurants. Its all-in-one solution has user-friendly software and hardware options that streamline payment processing and daily operations. Clover’s features help business owners: 

• Manage inventory
• Monitor sales
• Tend to managerial tasks

Who Is Clover For?

Clover’s versatile POS services suit many businesses, particularly those with diverse needs and plans to scale rapidly. Clover offers a comprehensive feature set, including customer and POS inventory management tools and payment processing options. You can also customize apps within the system to extend their functionality—another reason we recommend Clover if you own a quickly growing business.

Clover includes various hardware options, including countertop terminals, a handheld POS machine, and more advanced setups. Each device has a straightforward user interface, allowing your staff and customers to navigate the system intuitively. 

Exploring Clover’s Customer Engagement Tools and POS Features for Business Growth

Clover’s tiered packages are stacked with POS features, such as: 

• Starter
• Standard
• Advanced

Whether processing orders from your e-commerce site or calculating tips for your servers, you’ll find the hardware you need to operate efficiently.

No matter how much your business grows, Clover makes providing excellent customer service easy. You can use Clover’s customer engagement tools to: 

• Communicate directly with customers
• Send promotional messages
• Offer rewards
• Learn their preferences

Overview of Toast 

Toast POS stands apart from the competition, particularly for its restaurant-specific tools. While many systems offer general features that help business owners manage operations and enhance customer experiences, Toast’s tools cater to food and beverage businesses’ unique needs.

Toast’s integrated system helps restaurants track inventory, accept payments, manage staff, and maintain orders in one place. The platform also assists with long-term management and improving daily operations. 

Who Is Toast For? 

We think the name says it all—Toast is a POS system made for restaurants. It excels in restaurant-specific features like tableside ordering and splitting checks. Plus, with its menu customization tools, you can create and adjust menu items, subgroups, prices, and descriptions through an intuitive interface. Toast also specializes in online ordering and delivery and integrates with third-party delivery services.

Toast offers a free Quick Start Bundle, a Core plan, a Growth plan, and a custom plan to serve businesses of every size. These plans include various terminals, such as a kitchen display system and a handheld device to accept tableside payments. We appreciate that Toast helps you access a mobile POS solution so your restaurant can receive and process payments on the go. 

Key Toast POS Features: Self-Service Kiosks and Integrated Payment Processing

We also like Toast’s self-service POS kiosk, which speeds up the checkout line and frees your staff. Customers who prefer to interact with an employee can do so, while others can use Toast’s Flex device to place and view orders and complete their payments. Toast’s integrated payment processing is another standout feature. Functions like split checks and tipping adjustments work with restaurants’ unique payment workflows.

Toast POS Reporting, Analytics, and Seamless Third-Party Integrations

We were impressed by Toast’s robust POS reports and analytics capabilities. The platform also: 

• Automates tasks
• Generates invoices
• Organizes orders and sales
• Creates custom quotes

Learn more about its features and functions in our complete Toast review.

Toast integrates with third-party delivery services, creating a seamless process of: 

• Receiving
• Managing
• Fulfilling orders

Toast’s menu management system makes updating and changing menu items, creating categories, and setting item prices and descriptions easy. It also makes tracking and analyzing POS sales reports and inventory usage easy.

Related Reading

• Toast vs Square
• Quick Service Restaurant POS System

In-Depth Toast vs. Clover Comparison

Monthly Fees: Understanding the Costs of Clover and Toast

Clover's monthly fees depend on your plan level (Starter, Standard, and Advanced) and business type. For example, home and field and professional services can get the Starter plan for $14.95 per month on the low end. The Starter plan costs $160 monthly if you have a full-service dining establishment. This price includes hardware (a Station Solo with a cash drawer and receipt printer). 

You can also pay upfront for the hardware, in which case you’d pay $1,699 plus $84.95 per month. A full-service restaurant on the Standard plan would pay $210 or $2,298 plus $99.90 monthly, but you’d also get a handheld Flex unit. The Standard plan provides more functionality, such as tableside ordering. 

Choosing the Right POS System for Your Restaurant

A full-service restaurant on the Advanced plan would pay $310 per month or $4,097 plus $114.85 per month. With this plan, you’ll receive the hardware on the Standard plan, a Station Duo with a merchant-facing POS and a customer-facing screen. Clover charges several incidental fees. For example, if a customer's transaction doesn't go through, you'll incur a chargeback fee of $30 for credit cards and $25 for rejected ACH payments. 

Toast has two options for its Starter Kit package: Pay as You Go and Standard. With the Pay as You Go option, you pay nothing upfront and no monthly fee. Instead, you pay a higher processing fee. On the Standard plan, you pay upfront for the hardware you want. You also pay a monthly fee and a lower processing fee. 

Toast's Flexible Pricing Plans for Different Restaurant Sizes

You’d pay $875 upfront plus $69 monthly to get hardware comparable to Clover’s Station Solo. You’d receive the following: 

• Toast Flex POS terminal
• Toast Tap payment device
• Router
• POS software
• Setup support

When it comes to monthly fees, Toast is the clear winner. It provides more hardware than Clover's standard plan for much less money. Low-volume restaurants can get the entire system for nothing upfront and no monthly fee, making a big difference in cash flow.

Payment Processing Costs: Comparing Clover and Toast

Clover’s processing rate is 2.6% + $0.10 flat for in-person transactions and 3.5% + $0.10 for online or manual transactions (if you accept credit cards over the phone). Clover also has a program that allows businesses to pass the processing fee to the customer. In this scenario, customers paying by credit card would be automatically charged an additional 3 percent with no per-transaction fee. 

Customers paying by debit would not pay more, but the business would be charged only 1.75% + $0.25 per transaction. Toast’s payment processing rate depends on whether you opt for:

• Pay as You Go: The rate is 2.99% + $0.15 per transaction. 
• Standard Plan: 2.49% + $0.15 per card-present transactions and 3.5% + $0.15 for card-not-present transactions. 

Navigating POS System Costs in a Changing Regulatory Environment

The proposed Credit Card Competition Act of 2023, which has not yet become law, requires large banks to offer merchants the option of accepting cards other than Mastercard and Visa. This is intended to increase competition and reduce credit card processing fees. The winner here depends on your business type. 

For low-volume restaurants, Toast's Pay as You Go plan is competitive enough in processing rates to justify no upfront or monthly costs. Clover makes more sense if you have lower check amounts and a high transaction volume, as with quick-service or fast-food restaurants. With Toast’s lower rates and higher per-transaction fees, fine-dining restaurants will save the most money.

Ease of Use: Which POS System Is More User-Friendly?

Clover’s backend software and POS system are intuitive and extremely easy to use. The interface is well-labeled and straightforward, whether running a report or processing a transaction. Clover’s marketing and loyalty program modules are beneficial. SMS marketing is built-in, and customers are automatically enrolled after they opt-in. 

The Clover system makes setting up an e-commerce site fully integrated into Clover’s payment, inventory, and customer data systems easy. For restaurants, Clover supports linking ingredient inventory with online menus so items no longer available won’t be displayed. Toast’s restaurant-focused software has many more features than Clover’s system, so learning and setting up takes longer.

Mastering Your Restaurant POS System: A Guide to Setup and Training

For example, Toast’s Order & Pay can help you accept mobile payments by enabling customers to order and pay from their mobile phones with little interaction with the server. Toast also facilitates transmitting tableside orders to the kitchen. While Toast offers plenty of setup and troubleshooting support, its additional features incur a steeper learning curve than Clover’s system. 

Clover is the winner in ease of use if you're most concerned about the initial setup. Once the system is set up, however, Clover and Toast are intuitive and easy to use.

POS System Hardware: Assessing Clover vs. Toast Hardware Options

Clover’s proprietary hardware is compatible with many payment processors. And in terms of looks, Clover’s POS and handheld hardware are second to none. The sleek design and attractive, intuitive hardware is suitable for higher-end businesses. Clover allows you to accept various payment types, including: 

• Credit cards
• Digital wallets like: 
  
  • Apple Pay
  • Google Pay
  • Samsung Pay
• Debit cards with PIN capability

In addition to POS stations with screens, stands, cash drawers, and receipt printers, Clover offers Clover Flex and Mini handheld tablets that facilitate tableside payments. Its Station Duo has a large POS screen for employees and a smaller, customer-facing screen for: 

• PIN entry
• Tipping
• Signature

Clover's Hardware Advantage and Flexibility

Clover’s POS hardware is so popular that the vendor sells it to customers who don’t use its payment processing service. So, if you’re unhappy with Clover’s payment processing once your contract is over, you can still use its equipment with another payment processor. Clover's robust and detailed POS reports enable business owners and managers to monitor inventory levels, sales by time (down to the hour), and employee productivity. 

Toast’s POS hardware design is not quite as attractive as Clover’s, but it has much of the same functionality. Like Clover, Toast offers a countertop kit with: 

• A screen
• Stand
• Payment device
• CPU

Receipt printers are sold separately. Toast also has a handheld point-of-sale terminal similar to Clover’s Mini, although there is nothing comparable to the Clover Flex, a mini tablet with a bigger screen.

Self-Service Kiosks and Handheld Terminals: Enhancing Efficiency in Restaurants

While Toast’s hardware isn’t as attractive as Clover’s, its unique options stand out.  For example, its handheld POS terminals allow servers to take orders and payments. We also like Toast’s guest self-service kit; it will enable customers of fast-food or quick-service restaurants to place their orders and pay for everything on their own. Unlike Clover, Toast’s hardware can only be used for payment processing services. 

If you eventually change processors, you must repurchase POS terminals and other hardware. The best hardware for your business type depends on your business type. Quick-service and fast-food restaurants will benefit from Toast's less expensive hardware and self-service kiosks, while other retailers and fine-dining restaurants may prefer Clover's sleeker look.

Business Features: What Operational Tools Do Clover and Toast Offer?

Clover and Toast both offer an excellent selection of features for restaurant facings. Toast has the best restaurant features in our research, with advanced reservation tools to control flow and view reports. Clover is quite respectable for restaurants, too, though. The biggest boon for Clover is that its POS can perform backend operations directly on the device rather than going to a back office, which is the case with Toast. 

We found that both Clover and Toast offer respectable systems with built-in functionality, bulk-loading features, and profit management tools for inventory management. Still, Clover takes the edge because it provides low and no stock alerts, while Toast misses that feature. 

Beyond the Basics: Exploring Niche POS Features

Another big plus for Clover is that it works with all operating systems, namely iOS and Android. On the other hand, Toast only offers an Android app, so if you’re more of an Apple fan, Clover is a no-brainer. It’s also worth noting that Clover provides a range of retail features, while Toast is exclusive to restaurants. 

As a result, Clover is a top pick for those running multiple businesses or who just want one of the best retail POS systems. Toast has an edge over Clover regarding tip management, though. Most notably, the POS allows users to share tips between employees automatically and provides tipping/gratuity reports so you can keep track of the business’s income.

Optimizing Restaurant Operations with Advanced POS Features

Toast’s menu management capabilities are advanced, too, with its new menu builder offering users a streamlined way to create and edit menus in a couple of taps. Toast is also a lot better when it comes to reservations and waitlists. Clover doesn’t offer any built-in functionality, requiring third-party integrations to take them. 

Even then, Toast still provides far more functionality, allowing you to post on Google, Yelp, OpenTable, and Resy, some of the biggest names in the industry. As you can see, there is a lot of give and take in Clover vs Toast, so understanding exactly what you need in a POS system is vital to making the right decision.

Customer Service: Which Company Has Better Support?

Clover provides 24/7 phone support and email support, which may take a little longer. It also includes plenty of online help and resources for merchants if they encounter problems. 

On the other hand, Toast has 24/7 phone support, 24/7 email, and 24/7 chat support, so your questions are more likely to be answered quickly, whichever contact method you use. Toast also offers generous troubleshooting resources online.

Clover vs Toast: Assessing Fees, Subscriptions, and Optional Features

Unlike Clover, you must use Toast as your payment processor to utilize its software for various POS solutions.

Toast’s website does not detail the ins and outs of processing fees. The reason for this will depend on your establishment’s model: for instance, whether it’s a: 

• Mobile food station
• A full-service
• Dine-in operation

Prices are customized according to business needs and respective transaction volume. The approximate in-person card processing fee is 2.49% + $0.15 per transaction. Restaurants are responsible for paying standard card-not-present processing fees for online orders: 

• 3.5% + $0.15 for Visa, Mastercard, and Discover
• 3.89% + $0.15 for AMEX
• The same rates apply for keyed-in transactions.

Protecting Your Restaurant: Navigating the Complex World of POS Contracts

Toast offers to match your current processing rates if you are switching from another service provider. There’s a catch. Toast dictates that credit card processing fees can be raised anytime via contract. Given the volatile and ever-changing nature of the market, this makes planning and strategizing a challenge.

Another challenge that Clover and Toast users sometimes encounter is getting out of long-term contracts. These contracts can last up to 36 months. Cancellation triggers a premature termination fee, usually equating to the sum of the remaining contract period fees and processing penalties.

Hidden Costs of POS Systems: Understanding Payment Processing Fees

As a solution, Clover recommends using its parent company, Fiserv, to process payments. If you exercise this option, expect to pay 2.3–2.6% plus $0.10 for in-person transactions. Online and keyed-in transactions incur a fee of 3.5% plus $0.10. Please note that prices may vary if the user opts for another service provider.

Also, note that Clover may charge setup fees in some instances. These fees include a $50 debit card setup charge for new merchants plus a $150 application fee.

Related Reading

• Cheapest POS System for Restaurant
• How to Use POS System Restaurant
• iPad Restaurant POS
• Lightspeed vs Square

Book a Free Demo With POS Exchange to Learn About Our Customized POS System Solutions Today!

The POS Exchange brings over 20 years of restaurant expertise, serving 200,000+ merchants and processing billions annually. Our tailored POS system solutions help businesses speed up checkouts by 30%, implement dynamic pricing, and manage customer reviews while reducing overhead. 

Perfect for:

• Full-service restaurants
• Pizza shops
• Coffee houses
• Multi-location enterprises

We offer end-to-end service, from brilliant consultation and interactive demos to local installation and 24/7 support. Our mobile iPad POS systems streamline operations with features like:

• Order management
• Bill splitting
• Inventory control

With integrations for business management tools and advanced security measures, we ensure your POS system grows with your business. Trust our expertise to help you avoid the common pitfall that affects 38% of new business owners who choose the wrong POS system. 

Whether you're managing:

• A busy restaurant
• A local café
• Operating a multi-location business

The POS Exchange delivers customized POS system solutions that tell your unique business story. Book a free demo with POS exchange to learn about our customized POS system solutions today.

Related Reading

• Restaurant POS Launch Plan
• How Does a Restaurant POS System Work
• TouchBistro vs Square

‍

‍