Quick service / counter / POS and payments
The best POS for counter service
Scored and compared prices dated
The short answer
Square wins for most counter operations on speed and setup cost, and Toast wins once you are running a kitchen line that needs ticket routing. The deciding number is seconds per transaction at your busiest fifteen minutes, not the feature list.
Reviewed by the editorial team · updated 10 August 2026
Step 3
What matters most to you?
Pick one or two. Everything below re-scores instantly, and we show you the maths.
Winner overall
Square for Restaurants
The default answer for anyone who wants to be selling this afternoon.
The trade-off
Offline mode takes the card without knowing if it will clear, so a declined payment surfaces after the customer has gone.
Why it won
- price
- ease of setup
- support
- volume
- integrations
Our scores, 1 to 5, defined on the methodology page.
Everything else, ranked the same way
| # | Product | From | Contract | Card rate | Score | Price checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Square for Restaurants The default answer for anyone who wants to be selling this afternoon. | Free, then $49 | none | 2.6% + 10¢ in person on the free plan, 2.5% + 15¢ on Plus | 4.2 | Pricing checked 10 Aug 2026 |
| 02 | SpotOn The one people actually praise for picking up the phone. | Free, then $55 | 2-year minimum on the $0 plan, month to month on Essentials | 2.79% + 20¢ on the $0 plan, 2.45% + 15¢ on Essentials | 3.6 | Pricing checked 10 Aug 2026 |
| 03 | Toast The one built for restaurants only, with the lock-in that implies. | Free, then $69 | multi-year is typical | 2.99% + 15¢ on the free Starter Kit, 2.49% + 15¢ on the $69 plan | 3.6 | Pricing checked 10 Aug 2026 |
| 04 | Lightspeed Restaurant Strong reporting and stock control, priced for somewhere above the small independent. | From $69 | month to month available | 2.6% + 10¢ on Starter, negotiable on higher tiers | 3.2 | Pricing checked 10 Aug 2026 |
| 05 | TouchBistro iPad-based, runs on a local network, keeps working when the internet does not. | From $69 | annual | through TouchBistro Payments, required for new customers | 3.2 | Pricing checked 10 Aug 2026 |
| 06 | Clover Sold through resellers, which is the single most important thing to know about it. | From $59.95 | 36 months is common when hardware is bundled | roughly 2.3% to 2.6% + 10¢ in person, varies by who sold it to you | 3 | Pricing checked 10 Aug 2026 |
What's different about buying this for quick service / counters
Counter service lives or dies on throughput. A system that takes three seconds longer per order costs you real covers across a lunch rush, and no amount of reporting depth makes that back. When you demo, do not let the salesperson walk you through the reporting; make them ring up your five most common orders while you time it.
The second thing that separates these systems is modifier handling. A burrito with four choices, a coffee with three, a sandwich with a swap. If modifiers take an extra screen, that cost lands on every single order you take, forever.
Card processing rates matter more here than in most categories because your average ticket is small and your transaction count is high. Fixed per-transaction fees, the flat 10¢ or 15¢ bit, hit a $6 coffee much harder than a $60 dinner. Read the fixed component, not just the percentage.
Kitchen routing is the thing most counter operators underbuy. If orders reach the line on a printed ticket, someone is walking. A screen with proper bump-bar behaviour is a real efficiency gain once you are past about 150 covers a day, and it is priced as an add-on almost everywhere.
Questions people actually ask
- How many tills do I actually need?
- One per person taking payment at peak, which is usually fewer than the sales quote assumes. Extra registers are a recurring per-month charge on several systems, so it is worth being precise.
- Is a tablet POS robust enough for counter service?
- For a café, generally yes. In a hot, greasy, high-splash environment, purpose-built hardware lasts longer, and the replacement cost of tablets over three years often closes the price gap.