POS pricing compared: what each provider publishes
Ten point-of-sale providers that sell to US restaurants and retailers, read on their own pages on 17 September 2026. This page records what each one publishes — and, just as usefully, what it does not.
How to read this page
Every figure below comes from the provider's own website, checked on 17 September 2026, and is linked in the sources list at the foot of the page. Where a provider does not publish something, the cell says not published. Nothing is estimated, and no figure has been carried over from memory or from a third-party review site.
Each of the ten now has its own page setting out what that provider publishes, what it withholds and what has to be asked for in writing; they are linked from the table rows below and listed together further down.
Two limits are worth stating up front. Published prices change without notice, and several of these pages render prices in the currency of the visitor's country, so a figure seen from outside the United States is not automatically a US price. Both limits are flagged in the rows they affect.
What the ten providers publish
| Provider | Monthly software published | Processing rate published | Hardware | Contract terms published | Processing locked to them |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clover | Yes, inside packages: retail from $16/mo over 36 months or $349 up front; higher retail tiers $1,899 + $84.95/mo and $2,648 + $104.90/mo. Restaurant packages $1,799 + $89.95/mo up to $4,447 + $129.85/mo | Not published on the pricing pages | Priced, either up front or spread across a 36-month package | The 36-month package length is published; cancellation and early termination are not | Sold with Clover's processing; the pricing pages note the prices shown are for buying online |
| Square | Free plan at $0; the paid plan prices load dynamically and were not present in the page source | Yes, in full: in person 2.6% + 15¢, 2.5% + 15¢ or 2.4% + 15¢ by plan; online 3.3% + 30¢ or 2.9% + 30¢; keyed or card on file 3.5% + 15¢; ACH 1% (minimum $1) | Sold outright, prices published in its shop | States no locked-in contracts and that you can cancel or switch at any time | Yes — Square processes its own payments |
| Toast | Not published on the pricing page as rendered | Not published on the pricing page as rendered | Described as an up-front cost that varies by package and installation, with 0% financing available on application and subject to approval | Not published | Sold as a bundle including its own processing |
| Shopify POS | Yes, but localised by country: from a Canadian connection the page rendered CA$49, CA$132 and CA$517, a Plus tier from CA$3,400 on a one- or three-year term, and a POS Pro add-on at CA$119 per location billed yearly. US amounts not verified on the date checked | Yes, in the same localised currency: 2.6%, 2.5% or 2.4% plus 0¢ in person by plan | Not published on the pricing page | Month-to-month for the lower plans; the Plus tier states a one- or three-year term. Cancellation detail not published | No — third-party gateways are allowed, with a published extra fee of 2%, 1% or 0.6% by plan |
| Lightspeed | Retail: $89, $149 and $289 per month, one register each, with annual billing stated to save up to 18%. The restaurant pricing page rendered in Canadian dollars from this connection, so its plan prices are not recorded here as US prices | Retail pricing page shows a 1.5% card-present figure for Lightspeed Payments, with a note that prices vary and additional service fees may apply | Not published on the retail pricing page | Yes, in its service agreement: 90 days' notice not to renew, an early termination amount equal to the remainder of the term plus repayment of discounts received | Its service agreement makes Lightspeed Payments mandatory in eligible jurisdictions, with an additional monthly fee for using a third-party processor; that fee amount is not published |
| SpotOn | Yes: all-in at $0 per station per month, essentials at $55 per station per month, build your own quoted, and a core bundle add-on at $50 per month plus 20 basis points of card volume capped at $200. Small-business page: Terminal $25 per month and Terminal + Loyalty $90 per month, both with $240 of hardware | Yes: card present 2.79% + 20¢ and keyed 3.79% + 20¢ on the all-in plan; card present 2.45% + 15¢ (American Express 3.19% + 15¢) and keyed 3.45% + 15¢ on the essentials plan | Priced: Station 15 $750 (from $995), Station 10 $415 (from $550), handheld $297 (from $495), guest display $200, router $300, plus implementation costs. Financing offered | Two pages differ: the pricing page states a two-year minimum term and processing minimums on the all-in plan, while the point-of-sale terms describe the restaurant POS and processing agreement as month to month, cancellable at any time. The terms add a first-year hardware cost-difference clawback, and a $995 conversion fee with doubled software licence cost for moving to another processor | Sold with its own processing |
| TouchBistro | Yes: from $89 per month for the POS, or from $99 per month for the Essentials Bundle including hardware and payments, plus a custom tier. Both prices are asterisked — hardware, processing and additional fees apply | Not published | Not priced separately; financing offered for venues with two or more terminals | Not on the pricing page. Its terms of service publish the mechanism: the initial term is whatever the sales quote states, it auto-renews for an equal period unless either side gives 30 days' notice, and a defined Default Amount covers remaining software, hardware and processing fees plus repayment of incentives | The $99 bundle includes its payments; a standalone processing choice is not described on the pricing page |
| Heartland | A $0 start is promoted for its retail POS, with no subscription, setup, hardware or shipping fee. The standard monthly price outside that offer is not published | Not published | Covered by the promoted offer for up to ten stations; list prices not published. $150 per station may be charged where no processing statements are supplied | Partly, in the offer footnote: a three-year contract is required and an early termination fee may apply, with the amount not published. Renewal and notice terms not published | Yes — the footnote requires payments to be processed through Heartland, and requires a 4% cash discounting programme |
| NCR Voyix (Aloha) | Not published | Not published | Not published | Yes, in the Master Agreement for Restaurants linked from its legal index: a 36-month initial term, automatic one-year renewals unless either party gives 90 days' notice, termination for convenience on 90 days' notice, and, as stated damages, 100% of the remaining program fees including amortised up-front costs. New York law and JAMS arbitration | It sells its own payment solutions; the pricing consequence is not published |
| Epos Now (in place of Revel) | Two published answers: the pricing page served $399 up front plus $84 per month against a $1,099 reference price, while Appendix 1 of its US terms publishes Plus at $0 up front and $99 per month and Basic at $0 up front and $129 per month | Yes, on its payment processing page and in its terms: 2.6% + $0.10 on all cards, refunds free, custom pricing for larger businesses not published | Priced on the pricing page from $399 against a $1,099 reference, behind countdown-timer promotions. The terms publish a Hardware Cost of $2,000 on Plus and $1,500 on Basic where zero-up-front hardware is not returned within 60 days | Yes, in its US terms: monthly rolling ends on one calendar month's notice; a fixed period runs to its last day then continues month by month; leaving a fixed period early costs the aggregate of remaining monthly payments, less 3.5% on payment | Not locked, but priced: the Basic proposition allows third-party payments at $129 per month against $99 with Epos Now Payments, and falling below the published minimum transaction level downgrades you to Basic |
Recorded as published on each provider's own site on 17 September 2026. Terms change, and anything marked "not published" has to be requested from the vendor in writing — it is not a figure anyone outside the company can quote for them. Revel Systems' own domain redirected to Shift4 on the date checked, so Epos Now takes the tenth place.
The pattern in the table
Read down the columns rather than across the rows and a split appears, and it is not the split you would expect from brand size. Square publishes essentially everything a buyer needs to model a year: plans, every channel's rate, and hardware prices. SpotOn publishes plans, rates and hardware prices too. Epos Now publishes a flat card rate, and its terms publish an early-termination formula, a hardware liability and an inflation-linked right to leave on a price rise. Shopify POS publishes plans and rates but localises the currency. Clover publishes device and package pricing tied to a 36-month figure, but no card rate. Lightspeed publishes retail plans and its contract terms in detail. TouchBistro publishes two asterisked monthly prices and no rate, though its terms publish the renewal mechanism and a defined Default Amount. NCR Voyix publishes no price at all, yet its restaurant master agreement is one of the more forthcoming documents here on term, renewal and exit cost. Toast and Heartland publish least about the recurring cost — Heartland's clearest published figures are the conditions in a footnote.
The useful lesson is that the pricing page and the legal page are separate acts of disclosure, and a provider can be generous on one and silent on the other. Four of these ten publish more about what leaving costs than about what staying costs.
None of that makes any provider better or worse. It does mean the comparison you can do from a website is shallower than it looks, and that the questions below decide the real number.
How to compare them properly
1. Total first-year cost, not monthly price
Add twelve months of software, the hardware (or twelve payments of it), installation, and twelve months of card fees at your own volume and card mix. A $0 plan with a 2.79% card-present rate and a $55 plan with a 2.45% rate cross over at a volume you can calculate in a spreadsheet — and on the providers that publish no rate at all, you cannot start the calculation until they send one.
2. Processor lock-in
Ask directly: can this POS run card payments through a processor other than yours, and what does that cost per month? Where the answer is no, the rate you sign is the rate you keep for as long as you keep the software, because renegotiating means replacing the till.
3. Hardware ownership
Bought, rented, or financed on a separate agreement are three different exposures. A separate equipment lease is usually its own non-cancellable contract with its own term, and cancelling the POS does not cancel it. Get the answer in writing, with the document name.
4. Exit terms
Term length, renewal mechanism, notice period, and the early termination amount — four figures, all of which belong in the agreement before signature. Lightspeed publishes all four. Most of this group publishes none of them.
5. Read the footnote on any free offer
Where a headline says $0, the conditions attached to it are the price. Heartland's retail offer is the clearest published example in this group: the footnote sets out a three-year contract, a required 4% cash discounting programme, processing through Heartland, a $250,000 minimum annual card volume, a cap of ten stations, two months of statements to obtain a quote, and an early termination fee that may apply. All of that is published; it is simply published in the footnote.
Where an independent agent fits
The structural difference is worth stating plainly, because it is a difference in how the deal is put together rather than a claim about price. A POS company that bundles processing quotes you one number and keeps the processing margin inside it. We place the merchant account with a processor and name every line: interchange, network assessments, and the markup, separately. You can then take the POS you prefer and price the processing against it, instead of accepting whichever rate came attached to the software. On some accounts a bundle wins on total cost; the point is that you can check.
If you want that checked against your own statement, the free statement analysis reads the last three months and returns the effective rate line by line.
Individual provider pages
- Clover POS pricing: what Clover publishes
- Square POS pricing: what Square publishes
- Toast POS pricing: what Toast publishes
- Shopify POS pricing: what Shopify publishes
- Lightspeed POS pricing: what Lightspeed publishes
- SpotOn POS pricing: what SpotOn publishes
- TouchBistro pricing: what TouchBistro publishes
- Heartland POS pricing: what Heartland publishes
- NCR Voyix Aloha pricing: what NCR Voyix publishes
- Epos Now pricing in the US: what Epos Now publishes
Best-of guides
- Best POS systems for restaurants (2026)
- Best POS systems for retail (2026)
- Best credit card processing for restaurants (2026)
- Best credit card processing for retail (2026)
Head-to-head comparisons
Alternatives guides
- Best Square alternatives for restaurants and retail
- Best Toast alternatives for restaurants
- Best Clover alternatives for restaurants and retail
- Best Shopify POS alternatives for retail
Related guides
- POS vs payment processing: two bills, two contracts
- Buy, rent or lease your payment hardware
- Best POS system for small business: 2026 cost comparison
- How to compare POS terminal brands: a buyer's checklist
- Payment processing for restaurants
- Retail payment processing and POS
- Early termination fees and liquidated damages clauses
Sources
- Clover, retail systems pricing, checked 2026-09-17: clover.com
- Clover, restaurant systems pricing, checked 2026-09-17: clover.com
- Square, payment processing fees (US), checked 2026-09-17: squareup.com
- Square, pricing (US), checked 2026-09-17: squareup.com
- Toast, pricing, checked 2026-09-17 (the page returns 403 to automated requests; read in a browser on the same date): pos.toasttab.com
- Shopify, POS pricing, checked 2026-09-17 (rendered in Canadian dollars from this connection): shopify.com
- Lightspeed, retail POS pricing, checked 2026-09-17: lightspeedhq.com
- Lightspeed, restaurant POS pricing, checked 2026-09-17 (rendered in Canadian dollars from this connection): lightspeedhq.com
- Lightspeed, service agreement, checked 2026-09-17 (terms render client-side and were read in a browser): lightspeedhq.com
- SpotOn, restaurant pricing, checked 2026-09-17: spoton.com
- SpotOn, small business pricing, checked 2026-09-17: spoton.com
- SpotOn, point of sale terms, checked 2026-09-17: spoton.com
- TouchBistro, pricing, checked 2026-09-17: touchbistro.com
- TouchBistro, terms of service, checked 2026-09-17: touchbistro.com
- Heartland, point of sale, as read 2026-09-17 (the site returns HTTP 403 to automated requests): heartland.us
- NCR Voyix, terms and conditions index, checked 2026-09-17: ncrvoyix.com
- NCR Voyix, Master Agreement for Restaurants (United States Hospitality Subscription Program Agreement — SMB), read 2026-09-17: linked from ncrvoyix.com/legal/terms-and-conditions
- Epos Now, US pricing, checked 2026-09-17 (campaign offers; several variants present in the same markup): eposnow.com
- Epos Now, US payment processing, checked 2026-09-17: eposnow.com
- Epos Now, US terms and conditions including Appendix 1 pricing, checked 2026-09-17: eposnow.com
Clover, Square, Toast, Shopify, Lightspeed, SpotOn, TouchBistro, Heartland, NCR Voyix, Aloha, Revel and Epos Now are trademarks of their respective owners and are used here for identification only. CELER Merchants is not affiliated with, or endorsed by, these companies. Prices and terms change; confirm current pricing with each provider before deciding.
Related questions
No page can answer that honestly, because most of the cost depends on figures the providers do not publish. Half of the ten providers on this page publish no card-processing rate at all, and several publish no contract length. Price the same twelve months against your own statement, using written quotes, before deciding.
Processing is priced per account, and some providers sell through resellers whose margins differ. Whatever the reason, the effect is the same for a buyer: the largest recurring cost is not on the page, so it has to be requested in writing before signing.
It means the POS software will only run card payments through that company's own processing. If your processing rate later turns out to be uncompetitive, you cannot change it without replacing the POS as well. Ask whether a third-party processor is permitted and what it costs per month.
The headline usually refers to software or hardware only. Read the footnote on the provider's own page: conditions can include a multi-year term, a required pricing programme, mandatory processing through that provider, a minimum annual card volume and an early termination fee. Those conditions are the price.
Six things in writing: the term length and how it renews, the notice period to leave, the early termination amount, whether hardware is bought, rented or financed on a separate non-cancellable lease, whether processing is locked to that provider, and who owns an export of your data.
Send one statement. Every fee named, back, usually within 4 hours.
It is free, there is nothing to sign and nothing to cancel. We read your current merchant statement line by line, name every fee on it — including the ones buried in the fee schedule — work out your true effective rate, and send the written analysis back, usually within 4 hours. Do not want to wait? Call 1-888-705-7896 and we will read your statement with you on the call in about 5 minutes.
Every fee named, usually within 4 hours. Or call now and we quote you on the spot.
Everyone else in this industry says twenty-four hours. We say four — and if that is still too slow, pick up the phone and get your numbers while you are on the call. No contract, nothing to cancel, no pressure.
Agent vs provider: CELER Merchants compared
How an independent agent differs from a single provider. No rates guessed; each page links the provider's own pricing page.