Toast POS Pricing 2026: Plans, Card Rates and Hardware

Toast POS costs $0/mo on the Starter Kit, where you pay 3.09% + 15¢ per card instead of a subscription, or from $69/mo on the restaurant Point of Sale plan, which pairs a monthly software fee with a 2.49% card rate and hardware you buy upfront. Toast's retail plan starts at $90/mo. Build Your Own setups and most add-ons are quoted by sales.

Our view: the monthly fee is the smaller decision. The real choice is whether you pay for Toast through a higher card rate or through a subscription plus hardware, and the answer flips at one card volume you can work out from Toast's own rates before you call sales.

Prices below were read on 19 October 2026 on Toast's pricing page, its Countertop Starter Kit configurator and its Starter Kit plans page. They are Toast's published US prices, which apply to new customers and single locations, so a multi-location group should not budget on them.

Toolradar data: the restaurant POS ranking on Toolradar, the software directory we run, evaluated 35 tools as of 18 October 2026 and places Toast POS third. Among the 10 tools it ranks, 7 publish a paid price, and their median cheapest paid plan is $50/mo, so Toast's subscription plan starts above the middle of the category.

For the product itself, from kitchen screens to offline mode, read our Toast POS review. This page is only about the bill.

How much does Toast POS cost per month?

Toast sells two ways to pay and splits its plans between restaurants and retail. The table lists every plan with a public price, plus the quoted ones so nothing is missing.

Plan	Who it is for	Monthly software	Card rate	What you get
Starter Kit, Basic	Single-location restaurants on 1 or 2 terminals	None	3.09% + 15¢	Hardware kit at no upfront cost, payments, reporting, 24/7 support
Starter Kit, Core	Counters that sell online too	None	3.39% + 15¢	Basic plus online ordering, delivery, and DoorDash, Uber Eats and Grubhub integrations
Starter Kit, Growth	Venues that want repeat guests	None	3.69% + 15¢	Core plus gift cards, loyalty, SMS and email marketing, websites, catering and events
Point of Sale (restaurant)	Restaurants that buy their own hardware	From $69	2.49% + 15¢ on Traditional pricing	Software subscription with the first terminal included, flat-rate processing
New restaurant payroll bundle	New restaurants that need payroll on day one	Point of Sale price + $9 per employee	Not listed with the bundle	Point of Sale plus payroll essentials and basic scheduling
Point of Sale (retail)	Convenience, grocery and liquor stores	From $90	Not listed on the retail card	Retail software subscription, hardware of your choice from Toast's range
Build Your Own	Operators who want the wider Toast platform	Custom	Quoted	Payroll, inventory, scheduling, marketing and loyalty chosen à la carte

Every subscription includes Toast Care, the 24/7 phone and chat support, according to the pricing page's FAQ. The configurator adds that the software subscription runs on a 2-year agreement, and recurring charges start the day you go live, not the day you sign.

Pay-as-you-Go or Traditional: which Toast pricing option is cheaper?

Pay-as-you-Go trades a higher card rate for no upfront spend. On the Starter Kit you pay nothing for the basic hardware and nothing a month for basic software; Toast recovers it through 3.09% plus 15¢ on every card, rising to 3.39% or 3.69% once online ordering or loyalty is in the package. You own the hardware from day one, Toast says, and it is not a lease.

Traditional pricing reverses the trade. You pay for hardware at purchase, pay a monthly software fee, and process at 2.49% + 15¢ per in-person card (3.5% + 15¢ keyed in), the rate Toast prints in its own card reader guide, read on 19 October 2026. The gap between the two basic rates is 0.6 points, so the subscription pays for itself once that 0.6% of your monthly card sales is larger than the fee.

By our arithmetic on the published figures, that happens at $11,500 a month in card sales for the restaurant subscription. Above that line Traditional costs less each month; below it, Pay-as-you-Go does. Both options carry the same 15¢ per card, so it cancels out of the break-even. One caveat keeps the math honest: the Traditional side also carries the hardware you paid for upfront, which the break-even above does not spread.

The feature packages pull that line lower. A café that wants loyalty and email marketing on Pay-as-you-Go pays the Growth rate, 1.2 points above Traditional, so on the percentage alone the subscription catches up at roughly half the volume. The comparison is only complete once you have a quote, though, because on Traditional those same tools are add-ons Toast prices privately.

What a $20,000-a-month restaurant pays

To compare like with like, the scenario below uses one counter-service restaurant with $20,000 in monthly card sales across 1,000 transactions (a $20 average ticket). Each total adds the plan's monthly fee, its in-person percentage and a 15¢ per-card fee on all 1,000 cards, as printed by each vendor. Hardware is left out because the two Toast options pay for it differently.

Setup	Monthly fee	Percentage fees	Monthly total with per-card fees
Toast Starter Kit, Basic	None	$618	$768
Toast Starter Kit, Core	None	$678	$828
Toast Starter Kit, Growth	None	$738	$888
Toast Point of Sale, Traditional	$69	$498	$717
Square Free	None	$520	$670
Square Plus	$49	$500	$699
Square Premium	$149	$480	$779

Square's figures come from Square's restaurant pricing page, read the same day: $0, $49 and $149 per location a month, with in-person rates of 2.6%, 2.5% and 2.4% plus 15¢.

The result is plain. At this volume, Toast's Pay-as-you-Go packages are the most expensive way to run the register, between $98 and $218 a month above Square Free. Traditional Toast, at $717, has the lowest percentage fees but lands $47 above Square Free and $18 above Square Plus once its $69 fee and 15¢ per card are added; it undercuts only Square Premium, by $62.

Our Square POS pricing page breaks down Square's own bill, and Square vs Clover covers the closest retail alternative. Retailers weighing a third option can read the Clover pricing breakdown.

What Toast hardware and setup cost

The Starter Kit is $0 to own, but extra devices are not. The Countertop kit includes a Toast Flex terminal, a Toast Tap payment device, a router and self-service installation. Anything beyond that is priced in the configurator, and several devices carry their own monthly fee on top of the purchase price.

Item	Price in the Starter Kit configurator
14-inch Toast Flex with counter stand	$749 + $50/mo
14-inch Toast Flex for kitchen, wall mount	$749 + $35/mo
Toast Go 3 handheld (Wi-Fi only)	$599 + $50/mo
8-inch Toast Flex guest-facing screen	$299
Toast Kitchen Printer	$339
Toast Receipt Printer	$329
Flex 3 cash drawer with insert	$99
Toast Tap (on counter)	$99
Menu built by Toast	$250
Virtual-led installation	$250
First-day phone support	$225

Those monthly device fees are the line to watch. A restaurant that adds two Go 3 handhelds for the patio adds $100 a month for as long as it runs them, which is more than the restaurant software fee itself. The pricing page's footnote says the same thing in other words: the plan price includes the first terminal subscription, and later devices are charged extra.

Two offers soften the upfront bill. New US customers who sign their first Toast order by 31 December 2026 get 60% off the hardware in that order, under Toast's hardware promo terms. And Toast Easy Pay lets you pay for hardware, installation, shipping and taxes as a daily share of sales over 180 days, with no interest, fees or credit check.

Toast also limits what you can plug in: its services run only on devices Toast approves, so an iPad or a used terminal from another system will not cut the hardware bill.

Does Toast publish its add-on prices?

No. Toast lists its add-ons on the pricing page but publishes no price for them. The comparison chart covers Digital Storefront (online ordering, websites), the Marketing Suite (email, loyalty, gift cards), Team Management, Payroll Essentials and Pro, xtraCHEF invoice and recipe costing, and the multi-location tools, with a legend that marks each one per plan as included or "available with add-on; additional fees may apply".

That matters most to a restaurant that wants loyalty. On the Starter Kit, loyalty and marketing arrive through the Growth package and its 3.69% rate, so their price is visible in every card you run. On the subscription plan the same tools are a quote, and you only learn the number in a sales call. The single add-on figure Toast does print is payroll inside the new restaurant bundle, at $9 per employee a month.

A store that wants rewards without a sales call can compare standalone tools in our cheapest loyalty program software guide.

What does Toast cost for a retail store?

Toast's retail Point of Sale starts at $90/mo, $21 more than the restaurant plan, and is aimed at convenience, grocery and liquor stores. The retail chart lists basic inventory with barcode printing and scanning, EBT acceptance and surcharging, and puts purchasing, PAR levels and cycle counts on a Pro operations tier.

The retail card prints no processing rate and there is no retail Starter Kit, so a store gets its card rate in the quote. That makes Toast harder to budget for a shop than a system with a printed retail rate. Liquor and convenience stores comparing systems on price can start with our best POS for liquor stores and best POS for small retail stores rankings.

Which Toast plan should you choose?

Choose the Starter Kit on Basic if you are opening a single counter, expect under about $11,500 a month in card sales, and want to spend nothing upfront. It is also the only Toast option with every price on the page.

Choose the restaurant Point of Sale plan on Traditional pricing once card volume is clearly above that line, and get the rate and add-on prices in writing before you sign the 2-year agreement. A café is the typical case; our best POS for coffee shops list shows how Toast stacks up there.

Choose Build Your Own only if payroll, inventory and scheduling all need to live in one system, because every piece of it is quoted. And if the restaurant is brand new and hiring, the payroll bundle, at the Point of Sale price plus $9 per employee, is the cheapest published way to get payroll inside Toast.

For the wider field, the best POS systems ranking compares Toast with Square, Clover, Lightspeed and Shopify POS, and the Square POS review covers Toast's most common rival. Directory profiles are on Toolradar for Square and Clover.

How we checked these prices

We read Toast's pricing page, the Countertop Starter Kit configurator, the Starter Kit plans page, the payment options page, Toast's card reader guide (for the Traditional rate) and the hardware promo terms on 19 October 2026, along with Square's restaurant pricing page. The category figures come from Toolradar's restaurant POS ranking.

The break-even and the $20,000 scenario are our arithmetic on those published rates, not quotes, and they leave out anything Toast does not print. We did not open a Toast account or process a transaction. Louis Corneloup, founder of Toolradar and Dupple, edited this page.

FAQ

How much does Toast POS cost per month in 2026?

Toast costs $0 a month on the Starter Kit, where each card costs 3.09% + 15¢ on the Basic package, 3.39% on Core and 3.69% on Growth. The restaurant Point of Sale plan starts at $69 a month with a 2.49% card rate and hardware bought upfront. Retail starts at $90 a month, and Build Your Own is quoted.

What are Toast's credit card processing fees?

On Pay-as-you-Go, Toast charges 3.09% + 15¢ per card on Basic, 3.39% + 15¢ on Core and 3.69% + 15¢ on Growth. On Traditional pricing the rate is 2.49% + 15¢ in person and 3.5% + 15¢ keyed in, as Toast prints in its card reader guide.

Is Toast POS free?

The Starter Kit has no monthly software fee and no upfront cost for its basic hardware, so a single-location restaurant can start without paying anything before its first sale. You pay instead through a higher card rate on every transaction, and extra devices such as a second terminal or a handheld carry their own price and monthly fee.

Does Toast require a contract?

Yes. The Starter Kit configurator states that the Toast software subscription comes with a 2-year agreement, and that recurring charges begin on the day you go live. Ask about early termination terms in the quote, because the published pages do not list them.

How much does Toast hardware cost?

The Countertop Starter Kit is $0 to own on Pay-as-you-Go. Extra devices are priced in the configurator: a 14-inch Flex with stand is $749 plus $50 a month, a Toast Go 3 handheld $599 plus $50 a month, a receipt printer $329 and a Toast Tap $99. New US customers who sign by 31 December 2026 get 60% off the hardware in their first order.

Is Toast cheaper than Square?

Not on Pay-as-you-Go. At $20,000 a month in card sales across 1,000 transactions, the Toast Starter Kit on Basic costs $768 a month against $670 on Square Free. Toast's Traditional pricing comes to $717, still $47 above Square Free and $18 above Square Plus, and $62 below Square Premium.

Does Toast charge for add-ons?

Yes, and it does not publish the prices. Online ordering, marketing, loyalty, payroll, scheduling and xtraCHEF are listed as add-ons with additional fees on the subscription plans. On the Starter Kit, online ordering and loyalty come through the Core and Growth packages, priced through their higher card rates.

Cite this: Retailpresso, "Toast POS Pricing 2026: Plans, Card Rates and Hardware", November 2026.

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