Toast POS vs Square for Retail Comparison

I was happy to have one software to for scheduling, POS, and payroll together. We should have stayed with having 3 separate products that integrated with each other.

Very poor customer service. Each person I reached out to for help just wanted to pass me to someone else or open a Ticket that has yet to be solved. I do receive emails from them stating my cases have been solved, but my issues have not been solved. The reports are hard to use and I usually have to cobble multiple reports together to get any meaningful information. This software was written without...

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Good feed back on sales, usages, charges what I need all the time ,some of the time, once in a while!

Rather calling Toast help all the time maybe a trouble shooting guide to get to where I need to solve a problem first the toast help especially if we are open and operating easier place to start!

I love how robust it is! The search bar feature at the top makes it easy to find what you are looking for in a platform that is really encompassing of any of our retail and restaurant POS needs. I also love Quick Edit and that people on the floor can make quick changes without relying on management to go into the back office.

I wish there were a mobile app that would allow me to quickly check sales instead of having to login through a browser.

nothing but a big headache from day 1. Salespeople gave me the wrong info regarding pre installation steps. Financing was easy through a third party leasing company but that way toast got paid up front for their product probably knowing full well they were not sticking around that long.

This company has been very shady. The claims to match credit card processing by the sale person has yet to be fulfilled. The hardware is poor quality and ipad would have been much better. The software is ok but is not as seamless as micros or square it seems as if it was not designed for a restaurant. There is no follow up and account managers are non existent problems go unsolved for months....

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The software is great when it works. But it isn’t dependable.

The customer service is terrible. Our POS stopped working and the tech support is terrible. Our restaurant was done, and so the customer service escalated it. It took a while to get a call back, and overall, it took a week to get it fixed. For some reason, they needed us to buy a whole new POS computer. This company is terrible to work with and we’ll be switching to Square in the future.

User Interface is absolutely gorgeous So much more intuitive than other systems (seems like it was designed by me) Very fast transaction and screen speed easy to add things to menu/change prices Works very well so any sized restaurant makes splitting checks way easier that most POS systems

Receipt printer that we got from Toast could have been a little nicer. Was very light and moves around a lot.

Hi there, Jasmine from Toast here. I'm thrilled to hear you are in love with our UI - I love how you said "it seems like it was designed by me". That is exactly the user experience we hope for everyone to have. We appreciate the feedback on the hardware!

Easy to use and very simple and clear layout for each screen. And it is very easy to modify new changes. And the website is reliable to give most current updates in sale and labor and other statistics.

I wish that an apple app will be available soon to make it easier for management staffs to check on immediate statistic. Also the customer service takes forever to reach every time we call. And the customer service representatives respond in emails , most of the time they don't really know what the real answers they are providing but some generic email templates. And they will ask you to call them if you have any questions. So yes, you are back to square one.

I loved a lot of the features of this software but my favorite was the user interface. It was so sleek and modern and very straightforward to use. Lots of great features to make transactions go smooth.

I was frustrated that it is more suited for just restaurant use as I really wanted it to work for my business.

Ease of use to order food when you don’t want to cook

Little pricey for delivery but great choices

Easy to learn and use. Table-side ordering function is great.

Gift cards can't be used for online ordering.

It’s cheap. Other than that I’m just writing words to reach the 100 character minimum. This seems like a tech start up run by 25 people who saw a market opportunity...

Nothing about this product is streamlined for high volume bar use, I.e: extra prompts, two extra steps for every drink upcharge, sliding tablet screens left and right, no simple repeat buttons and so on. Tech support for the west coast is questionable at best.

the ability to change the menu items offsite

their need for us to order EVERYTHING from them

Hi Laurie, Jasmine from Toast here. I'm sorry to hear you are not continuing with Toast. At this time, I believe our team has worked with you to come to a conclusion.

I love that Toast supports their product. You can call and get someone on the line that will help you answer your questions. They also provide the hardware necessary to run their software. They are constantly updating their software to meet the needs of their users and are staying current with the technology. One option that is particularly useful to us is printing individual labels for each shake. In other words, we could have a bus of individuals come to our restaurant, and we need to print individual labels on each shake to identify what is in the shake so that it gets to the right person. In the past, we had to individually write on each cup.

The most difficult part to swallow is the fact that you have a monthly payment for the software--even if you are a seasonal business and only open for less than half the year. Toast will make some concessions for that, but it still seems costly since our other solution we used was free and pretty much did everything we needed short of printing individual labels for the shakes.

How detailed it is, there isn't something they didn't think about when building this product

Cost, Its pretty pricey but you get what you pay for.

Hi Adi - Thank you! It's great to hear you're getting value from Toast. We've really enjoyed working with you and your team.

Hand-helds very easy to use and speed up ordering

Starting tabs as a bartender is a disaster. Other POS systems allow you to swipe a Credit card once, and it logs the #'s for payment and manes the tab using the card holders' info. Please fix this!

It works in the basic ways we need it to work as others have.

The promises for a large integrated system have not come together.

nothing much to brag about a system that is very expensive but doesn't work as it should

Customer service, on hold for over 90 min how can you operate a restaurant when your system doesn't work and have to hold for over an hour? this system is very questionable

hand helds and their ease of use. Service staff can take care of more guests more efficiently and spend more time with the guest rather than running back and forth to the terminals to input orders.

can't think of anything at this time, it works well for us

Reports and analysis is so good and it's so user-friendly and so easy to learn and train for employees.

They are so busy when it comes to customer service but if you wait for them they definitely fix your issue but the problem is they're super busy for calls. But honestly for the past w years I had to call them like 2 times and the system worked so good all the time.

Easy, hand-held, KDS. The back end office use is easy and great also. Being able to change buttons at the POS is awesome

Have not found yet. Only had the system for a few months

Toast is so easy to use, even for a non-tech savy person like myself. Its so much better than our previous POS system. The cloud interface is really convenient especially when updating inventory and prices!

I wish i could make the font bigger on the receipts for customers.

Running batch reports is made easy and quick, looking up tickets and pulling receipts

Support requests for payment adjustment don’t frequently get handled in a timely manner

It’s so easy to use and make in the fly changes

Making a menu for 1/2 and 1/2 pizzas was a chore

TOAST is a solid point of sale system available for a very reasonable price. Adding, editing and removing menu items can be done quickly and remotely. Printer routing and other back of house set up is a breeze. Customer service staff is well trained and very reliable.

Not really designed for large scale/ high volume operations. KDS screens have some issues.

Free tablet for use of their ordering platform.

Very expensive cost for taking orders, with few few users actually using the software.

It is probably the most user-friendly software on the market for both the retailer and the customer.

With the simplicity comes the downfall of not always having the best uses to connect with accounting software or inventory options.

The Customer profiles and how all square users are linked and the paperless option of email or text recepit. The clean look of the stand itself and the use of an ipad. And the ease of uploading products to Square through the website.

The Tons of features that are hard to figure out. When ringing someone up its hard to deduct money for a sale item, it has to be per-programmed or you have to make the discount on the spot.

I love how convenient it is to have this POS system for our business. We're able to set it up on the go and really able to make our customers feel comfortable giving us their credit/debit cards for processing payments. It's fast and great for our business

You need an internet connection for this POS system and it's not super cheap. However, the pros definitely out way any cons about this POS system.

Square is incredibly easy to use, and has a wonderful built in inventory tracking system! It is wonderful to have while traveling and doing pop-up booths, since it can keep the inventory of what was brought on the trip, and what has sold. It also has a very clear invoicing system for post processing of data, and is very reliable even with spotty data. It also is convenient for when phone or internet goes out, and customers are in the main store, since it supplies a simple backup for payment processing. There is also no monthly fee, so having it a drawer and only using a few times once a year is no problem either!

It sometimes needs to be disconnected and reconnected. However, this is only a minor problem.

I like the fact that it is lightweight. I can attach it to my ipad and iphone for pos. This product eliminates the need all the pos machines major retail stores use.

I do not have any issues with this software.

As a small business that travels from sale shows to sale shows, we cannot rely on a POS system that is wired in as we never know what type of venue we are in. Having the ability to charge customers via my phone has made business much easier. The incorporation of cash/check customers check out ability allows me to maintain inventory without the need to separately or manually change stock after the fact.

Not much, Square charges a small fee for each transaction but they need to make money so I totally understand. It is also a small amount.

Its easy to use and you can get a POS for on hand sales.

Their fees are insane, and they will close accounts without warning.

I love how easy it is to use w the POS hardware they give you.

The program is a little difficult to get at first.

i really like that i can have a POS from wherever I am, I am able to use it in my retail storefront and I'm able to provide my services and products in a whole new way taking my POS mobile.

Fees are always not desireable, and sometimes they can hurt a little, but if you look at it as more of a service and the automation they give you then it seems like a pretty fair tradeoff