Toast POS vs Square for Restaurants

Square Point of Sale

Clover

Revel Systems

Cloud ERP

Coolfire Core

E-Stock Web

Compare Toast POS and Square for Restaurants based on features, pricing, verified reviews, integrations & more on GetApp. Find out which software is best for your business in 2026.

Restroworks

Restroworks (previously Posist) is a premier cloud-based restaurant management platform, serving over 20,000 restaurants in 50+ countries. It offers comprehensive solutions including POS, and streamlines operations like FOH, BOH, and CRM. Esteemed clients include Taco Bell and Subway. 

SpotOn

SpotOn Restaurant is a cloud-based point of sale (POS) solution designed to help small to medium businesses in the hospitality industry streamline online payments, tableside orders, and fraud protection. The labor management module lets users handle employee hours, gratuities, shifts, and more.

Lavu

Lavu is an iPad-based restaurant POS system designed for various food service establishments including full-service restaurants, cafes, and food trucks. The platform offers integrated features such as dual pricing options, online ordering, kitchen display systems, and automated payroll processing. Restaurant operators can manage their business remotely with detailed reporting tools while benefiting from customizable menu modules that allow for quick adjustments to inventory and pricing.

Toast POS solution is a cloud-based restaurant management platform for restaurant owners to reduce staff & operational costs and improve customer experience

Access Controls/Permissions

Accounting Integration

Activity Dashboard

AI Copilot

Alerts/Notifications

Barcode/Ticket Scanning

Billing & Invoicing

Built-in Accounting

Cash Management

Commission Management

Contact Management

Credit Card Processing

Customer Accounts

Customer Management

Customizable Branding

Customizable Reports

Data Import/Export

Delivery Estimate

Delivery Management

Discount Management

eCommerce Management

Electronic Payments

Electronic Signature

Email Marketing

Employee Management

Food Delivery Dispatching

For Bakeries

For Bars/Clubs

For Food Trucks

For Restaurants

For Retail

Gift Card Management

Inventory Control

Inventory Management

Inventory Optimization

Inventory Tracking

IoT Integration

Item Management

Kitchen/Menu Management

Loyalty Program

Menu Builder

Mobile Access

Mobile Payments

Multi-Location

Online Ordering

Online Payments

Order Entry

Ordering Automation

Order Management

Order Scheduling

Order Tracking

Payment Processing

Point of Sale (POS)

Point of Sale (POS) Integration

Pricing Management

Product Identification

Promotions Management

Real-Time Analytics

Real-Time Monitoring

Real-Time Reporting

Receipt Management

Reporting/Analytics

Reporting & Statistics

Reservations Management

Restaurant POS

Retail Inventory Management

Returns Management

Returns Tracking

Sales Reports

Separate Checks

SMS Messaging

Split Checks

Staff Management

Status Tracking

Table Management

Third-Party Integrations

Tips Management

Transaction History

Wait List Management

Website Personalization

By industry, Toast POS reviewers are most commonly professionals in restaurants (52%). The most frequent use case for Toast POS cited by reviewers is restaurant POS (82% of reviewers).

Users and use cases

Reviewers appreciate Toast POS's reasonable and flexible pricing, often finding it more affordable than competitors. However, some reviewers feel that costs rise quickly with add-ons, and they report concerns about unexpected overall expenses.

Value for money

The Toast POS integrations most frequently cited by reviewers are: 7shifts (an employee scheduling product rated 4.4 out of 5 for its integration with Toast POS), Sling (an employee scheduling product, 4.3), and OpenTable (a reservations product, 4.8).

Integrations

Toast POS is a restaurant POS solution with key features that include reporting and analytics, order entry, order management, payment processing, sales reports, online ordering, and more.

Toast POS

Web-based

Windows

Android

Linux

Starter Kit

Point of Sale

Build Your Own

Night Auditor

The company I work for uses Toast POS to charge guests to their room number; sometimes the systems don't communicate and tabs are left unpaid.

Marketing Executive

Handhelds device for contactless payment is the winner as customer don't have to head to cashier to make payment and can pay the meal from the comfort of the table.

Founder

I would say the only thing about Toast that I don't like is their pricing for implementing integrations. Because even when the integration is necessary, myself or my consulting clients have a hard time justifying the additional spend over necessary expenses.

I enjoy that the system will lock out after a period of time of not using it; prevents theft and guest information being leaked.

General manager

We lost over £20,000 in the first month of using the system, due to complete negligence by toast staff in supporting us with basic issues, and set up of the toast system.

Event sales coordinator

The pros is a lot of the sales summaries can be located online which makes it easy to look up specific bills etc.

Payroll Manager

Als that when viewing an individual check on back end, it is not full screen

Treasurer

This process took more than two months and included email, telephone, and service tickets. When our payments to TOAST stopped due to this problem, we got more attention.

We might give the system one more try if Toast POS customer success team can help to train and configure the system for us.

Admin

Toast sold a gift card for a restaurant that was no longer in business.

Co Owner

I got inspired by their facebook advertising but now I will request all the small business owners not to get inspired by that promises which they can’t fulfill.

WAITRESS

Sometimes most of the aggravations come from managers not updating the information.

Catering Coordintor

They give options to utilize the service in ways that best benefit our business & how we personally operate.

Loan servicing representative

Overall I love using the Toast Pos application to check out at restaurants.

Its pretty self explanatory and updates fairly quickly.  

Owner

Unfortunately my cafe never got off the ground due to the landlord having a bunch of illegal apartments in the building.

Owner Chef

I've been using toast for seven + years, and the big reason I stick with them, is they are always adding new features.

Further to this, I have been trying to contact several members of the toast team so we can send the system and hardware back (as we certainly won’t be using it again) and, surprise!

General Manager

Overall it speeds profitability through short training, consistent operation, while allowing for quick transaction.

HR Manager

Support calls can take a long time to get to the right department and have someone know how to fix the issue.

They have no customer service for users.  

Marketing Director

We expressed we had an advertisement running for several days that we spent money on to promote that we were on doordash and that money has now been wasted, not to mention the potential sales we have lost.

What I like least about toast POS is that there can be issues with the payment.

All the payment is securely process by Toast payment processing.

The software runs efficiently and the layout is very organized.

Director of Training

A one of the longest running TOAST users, almost 10 years, I love it because it's functional, easy to use and customize, if you know the program. If you don't have a TOAST expert on your internal team, it can be challenging as customer service is poor and they don't have operational experience that relates when you are trying to resolve an issue.

The team couldn't deal with troubleshooting terminals on the telephone with support and serving customers at the same time.

Food and Beverage Manager

We have a hard time integrating with InforHMS and sometimes the integration with Resy malfunctions.

Food & Beverage Personnel, Rental/Repir Technician

With over fifteen years of customer service experience covering all types of industries imaginable, the Toast POS software stands out when regraded by it's ease of integration, system set-up and navigation, customization and guest interaction interface.

Chef Manager

I've used it in a few different kitchens to manage the menu and track sales.

I think there is a slight lag from when we get updates & when they actually take place.

The major problem, and the reason for the one star review, is the absolutely disgraceful customer service and support!

Manager and Owner

We love the online ordering features, the terminal setup and the customer service.

A truly simple and effective system, the credit processing aspect is where I have the most concerns, but like taxes, it's unavoidable to a certain degree, but it's well documented that PROCESSING is a racket, where companies can, will, and do take advantage of unknowing, business operators who just simply don't have the time to research and find the best, most fair processing fees.

Restaurant Manager

They have options for screen sharing as well.

After contacting customer care they gave us the runaround yet again ultimately telling us it was not a billing hold but a hold placed by the onboarding team.

Waitress and Bartender

It as easy printing out receipts and closing out checks after payment.

Functionality, ease of use of the POS and tons of features and options that can be modified to our liking.

It can often be very glitchy and will crash out

Manager

Customer support is excellent and I’ve never had any security issues.

Simple and easy to integrate into my workplace's numerous departments, Toast POS offers a user friendly platform to build an inventory into with the option to edit the information therein whenever required, even in real time when alterations are needed to complete a guest's order.

I order  product the messed up my order and charge me and have another the send me and charge me for the sand me label after three day sen the product back after milion call and email and no supervisor to talk and if you do he can Resolve anything and not get my credit back till after 28 days this is the most Ridiculous thing I ever hear you lost me as a customer and you'r not supporting Restarant business

For example, when credit card processing goes down, which happens often with them for some reason, you then have to key in cards (which Toast then charges  higher merchant fees to do this) and then you have to get to the store and either wait until your slow or closed to fix the issue for the next day.

I would use Toast when I was working at my waitressing/bartending job.

The customer invoice section needs an easier way to edit the invoices besides voiding and putting them back into the system. If there is a way, the tech that i talked to needs shown.

Overall my experience with toast has been positive, I haven’t had too many bug issues.

I really liked the layout of the ap and the display of the system.

You either get someone excellent that can walk you through the issue or someone with no clue that keeps you on the phone rather than transferring to someone who can assist.

Area Director

The labor does not update live to the minute online.    If you are having to check labor from your phone or PC you have to drill down into the labor tab to get live data.

The system is very capable,except for some issues with payment terminals that were eventually resolved.

Users report Toast POS payment processing is fast, reliable, and easy to use, supporting various payment types including Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, cash, credit/debit cards, and gift cards. Reviewers appreciate next-day deposits and the ability to process payments offline, though some mention issues with network outages and offline payments leading to declined cards. They say Toast POS integrates with HMS for room charges but note communication problems. Users feel rates are sometimes high and wish for more processor flexibility. Of the 56 Toast POS users who gave detailed accounts of their use of Payment Processing, 95% rated this feature as important or highly important.

Customer Support

User Interface

Phone Support

Updates

Restaurant Use

Fees and Charges

Sales Tracking

Limited email and receipt functionality

Operations Director

Further, I recently had a support issue that I had to call and email about for 3 weeks straight every day in which they continued to offer no support and today told me they refused to send me to the integrations department because the problem I was experiencing was not a toast problem.

71% of reviewers feel negative about Toast’s email and receipt capabilities. Some users report difficulties reaching support via email, with responses often delayed or misdirected. Reviewers indicate that emailing receipts is cumbersome, especially for pre-approval or catering needs, as receipts can only be sent after transactions are completed. They say account and communication issues are not easily resolved through email, leading to prolonged problems. Some reviewers feel the lack of efficient email support and receipt management complicates business operations.

High and unpredictable fees

The billing and invoicing is somewhat troublesome. When Toast charges you for things that you don't subscribe to it took me months to get it fixed while still having to pay for things we did not sign up for or use.

91% of reviewers feel negative about Toast’s fees and charges. Some users report frustration with unexpected charges, high processing fees, and hidden costs that accumulate over time. Reviewers indicate that refunds for incorrect charges are difficult to obtain and often require repeated follow-ups. They say monthly costs can be much higher than anticipated, especially with additional fees for modules, equipment, and chargebacks. Some reviewers feel the pricing structure lacks transparency, leading to dissatisfaction and financial strain for their businesses.

Toast POS vs Square for Restaurants Comparison (2026)

Toast POS

Square for Restaurants

Overview

Video & Screenshots

Pricing

User reviews

Key features

Integrations

Alternatives