Toast vs. Square: Battle of the POS System 2023

Our research suggests Square is a better point of sale (POS) system than Toast, especially for smaller eateries, because it has a wider selection of features, better hardware integrations, and excellent help tools. Businesses can get started with Square for free too. While Toast has a free starter kit too, it’s best suited to single-location restaurants.

Toast is still a great choice for food businesses though. From its restaurant-focused reports to data-driven menu engineering, Toast actually boasts better hospitality features than Square. This, combined with the system’s industry-leading onboarding options, make it an especially strong option for large, full-service, and expanding restaurants. 

Both of these POS systems have a lot more to them than meets the eye, so read on to discover how they stack up when it comes to features, price, support, and usability. 

Alternatively, if you’d like to receive quick, custom quotes from other leading point-of-sale solutions, use our free POS comparison tool.

In this guide:

• Toast vs Square: Head-to-Head
• Best Value for Money: Square
• Best for Features: Toast
• Best for Business Development
• Best for Help & Support: Square
• Best for Ease of Use: Toast
• What are Some Alternative POS Systems?
• Our Research and Methodology
• Verdict & Next Steps
• Frequently Asked Questions

When comparing POS solutions like Toast and Square, we focus on specific criteria that include restaurant features and help and support options to provide you with the most accurate information possible. You can jump to our research and testing section to learn more about how we make our verdicts.

Toast vs Square: Head-to-Head

According to our research, Square is stronger than Toast overall, scoring better in most key categories including user satisfaction, help and support, and price. It also ranks higher in business development in our wider research. If you run a small food business like a cafe or food truck, Square will be especially useful because you can get up and running for free; all you need is a mobile device to connect to its card machine.

However, while Square is our top-rated restaurant POS system, both systems are extremely capable of performing a variety of important tasks including table management, reservations, and menu customization. In fact, with Toast ranking better for till features, with a near-perfect score (4.9/5) for its restaurant features, when compared with Square’s impressive score (4.8/5), our research suggests that Toast’s capabilities are slightly more versatile.

If your food business onboards new staff regularly, Toast also offers some of the best training and onboarding features we’ve reviewed. It is worth noting that it does have a steeper startup and monthly prices, and its support options were rated 1/5, suggesting that it’s much less capable than Square at responding to customer queries.

Best Value for Money: Square

With a perfect price score of 5/5 compared with Toast’s lackluster 3/5, Square POS is better value than Toast, hands down.

Square’s basic Restaurant package costs $60 per month and contains every feature you would need to make sales and handle payments. In contrast, Toast’s New Restaurant Basics package retails at $69 per month, or new restaurants can bundle POS & payroll together for $110. If you want to unlock basic marketing, online ordering, and loyalty tools, you’ll need to fork out $165 per month for Toast Essentials. Square charges smaller transaction fees on all of its pricing tiers too, only charging businesses 2.6% + 10¢ for card-based sales on its free and restaurant plan, compared with Toast’s steeper levy of 3.5% + $0.15.

Learn more about Square’s pricing system here, and see how both of the provider’s plans compare in our table below:

NB: All plans include analytics, ecommerce and accounting functionality.

Toast vs. Square: Which has the best free plan?

Both Toast and Square allow businesses to use their system for free. However, our research suggests Square’s is much more generous. In comparison to Toast’s Pay-as-you-go Starter plan, which lacks a lot of basic marketing and delivery features, Square’s Free plan offers fairly advanced tools, including service charge reporting, item availability, remote menu, and grid management. These tools, combined with Square’s card payment reader, make it a much better option for smaller, budget-conscious businesses.

Best for Features: Toast

Both systems are packed with a powerful suite of features, but with a restaurant feature score of 4.9/5, compared with Square’s 4.8/5, Toast’s toolkit is slightly more competitive.

Unlike Square, Toast was specifically designed with eateries in mind, and this is reflected in the features it provides. Toast’s front-of-house capabilities are second to none because its menu reports give users access to their top-performing menu items and it has perishable inventory management, which offers real-time product insights to maximize turnover and reduce food waste.

Toast also offers more kitchen-specific features than Square too, making it a better choice for businesses with large back of house teams. For example, Toast boasts high-quality kitchen display systems, advanced prep station routing tools, and kitchen productivity reporting features. Toast also offers unique drive-through features which make it a better choice for businesses that carry out this function.

Read our Toast POS review for a full breakdown of the provider’s pricing plans and features.

This isn’t to say Square’s back of house features are lacking, because the provider offers a number of kitchen-friendly features that include kitchen and assembly display systems to ticket timers and alerts. Our research also suggests that while Toast’s restaurant-focused features are advanced, Square offers a greater variety of tools, including a wider selection of bill-splitting and performance tracking features.

While Toast charges a premium for many basic features, most of Square’s features are included for free. This cements its position as the most cost-effective option for food businesses.

Both Square and Toast offer state-of-the-art restaurant features, and you can see how their offerings stack up below.

Best for Business Development: Square

If you want to take your food business to the next level, look no further than Square. Square receives a perfect score of 5/5 for its business development features in our wider research, compared with Toast’s score of 4/5.

Square’s favorable rating is largely attributed to its built-in CRM platform Square Customer Engagement, which grants users access to valuable marketing, feedback, and customer loyalty features. Unlike Toast’s loyalty program which comes at a premium, these capabilities are available at no cost to businesses, cementing Square as the best choice for small businesses.

However, for those who are willing to pay extra, Toast’s business development tools are nothing to sniff at. From customizable email marketing features to a committed loyalty program, Toast offers a range of CRM capabilities that are designed to help a business further its reach and grow its customer base.

Learn more about our best-rated restaurant point-of-service in greater detail in our Square POS review.

What are Some Alternative POS Systems?

Toast’s offering isn’t as strong as lots of its competitors, especially if you’re only just learning how to use a POS system, while Square is the best point-of-service we’ve researched, it won’t fit the needs of every business. If you’re curious about how Toast and Square fair against other POS systems, check out their top alternatives below:

How Do We Score Toast and Square POS Against Other Systems?

Every restaurant POS system brings something unique to the table, but the truth is that some solutions are much stronger than others. When comparing Square and Toast against similar providers, our skilled insights team considered a number of factors to make sure our verdicts are as accurate as possible:

• Restaurant features – Is the solution geared or accommodating towards food businesses? Does it offer high-quality restaurant features like customizable floorplans, booking features, and inventory management?
• Price – How affordable is a system’s average pricing plan? Are free trials or plans available?
• Help and support – How useful is a POS when businesses need support? Does the provider offer a broad range of customer support features like knowledge centers and user forums?
• Customer score – How popular is the product, according to its user base? Are its customer reviews more positive than its competitors?

After researching each POS system diligently and answering the questions above, each restaurant POS system was awarded a five-star ranking in each of these categories, as well as an overall score. These scores help us determine how providers like Square and Toast weigh up against others in the industry and crucially, help food businesses connect to their ideal point of service.

With eight years of experience researching the industry, we’re somewhat of an authority when it comes to POS research. You can learn more about our research process here.

Frequently Asked Questions