Clover Review 2026: Pricing, Pros, Cons and Alternatives

Clover is worth the retail counter only if you already know you will stay. The company sells the register and the card processing as one bundle, then shows a different bill once you pick retail instead of a full-service restaurant. A shop that prices the restaurant sheet will budget the wrong hardware and the wrong monthly fee.

Toolradar data: Toast POS is listed as an alternative to 46 other tools, the most cross-shopped name among the 35 restaurant POS tools Toolradar tracks, as of October 17, 2026, on the restaurant POS ranking. Clover sits in that restaurant set, which tells you who cross-shops it, and a retail buyer still has to price the retail bundles on their own.

This page is for a single-location shop that rings sales at a counter and may also take orders on a website. It prices the bundles Clover prints for retail, runs one month of card sales through those rates, and says when Square, Shopify POS or Lightspeed costs less.

Clover is a point-of-sale system from Clover Network, a Fiserv company. The product is a card reader, a software plan and a processing agreement sold as one bundle. On the retail sheet, Basic is the payments bundle, and Standard and Advanced add the stock tools. A card-only counter can stop at Basic, while a shop that discounts, exchanges or tracks items pays for a higher bundle from day one.

Basic uses a Compact terminal with a 3.6 inch screen and a built-in receipt printer. Standard steps up to a Station Duo, a 14 inch merchant screen with an 8 inch customer display, plus a cash drawer and a receipt printer. Advanced keeps that Station Duo and adds a Flex handheld for sales away from the drawer. Full-service restaurants use a Station Solo on a separate pricing page, so a cafe should not price itself from the retail hardware list.

You start on Clover's site, choose retail, and pick Basic, Standard or Advanced. Each bundle is an installment across the full term or a purchase price paid at once. Card processing sits outside both numbers, so the rate is a second bill on every sale.

Clover's pricing FAQ says the installment gets you the system with no money down, warranty included, and processing priced separately. The equipment protection in that warranty is not available in New York or Oregon, where an extended warranty applies instead and can change which path is cheaper.

Day to day, staff take tap, dip and swipe on the device, or type a card into the device or the Clover app. A typed-in card costs more than one the reader sees, so phone orders should not be budgeted at the counter rate.

The dashboard holds sales, tax and customer records, while Retail Growth, on Standard and Advanced, adds item management, discounts, exchanges and a branded site. Basic's Starter plan leaves those marked as not included, so the low bundle does not run stock.

The same FAQ makes leaving a payoff rather than a cancellation. There is no refund, though the balance can be paid off or the device upgraded.

At the end of the term you can buy or return the equipment. If you do neither, the term extends at the same monthly charge, and you must choose at least 30 days before it ends, or silence buys another term. A Clover device cannot be used with another processor, so it will not work as a reader for Square or anyone else.

Prices checked on Clover's retail pricing page and the pricing FAQ on October 17, 2026. The three retail bundles are in the table below, and Clover labels the prices as available online. Basic is an installment or an upfront hardware price, and Standard and Advanced are an installment or a hardware price plus a monthly software fee.

Here is one counter doing $20,000 of in-person card sales in a month, at a $40 average ticket, which is 500 sales. Basic's in-person percentage of those sales is $520, plus 500 times the per-sale fee, $50, and with the installment the month is $586.

Square's free plan, at the same percentage plus a higher fee on each sale, is $520 plus $75, or $595. The gap is $9, and it comes entirely from the 5¢ per sale, minus the installment. Clover Basic wins this month by that small gap only if you were already going to pay the installment.

That nickel covers the Basic installment once you pass 320 in-person sales a month, and at a $40 ticket that is $12,800. Below that, Square's free plan is the cheaper month. Buying Basic upfront, instead of the installment, takes 6,980 in-person sales to earn back against Square at that same gap.

Standard's purchase path on that month is the lower in-person percentage ($460) plus $50 plus the software fee, $594.95, and you still pay $1,899 for the hardware. The monthly total buys Retail Growth and a Station Duo, not a saving against Square. The installment path is $460 plus $50 plus $180, or $690, the expensive way to get the lower rate at this volume. Advanced's purchase path is $460 plus $50 plus $104.90, or $614.90, before hardware of $2,648.

The lower rate does not pay for Retail Growth until card sales are large. Against Basic bought upfront, which has no separate software fee, $84.95 divided by 0.3 percentage points is $28,317 a month. The Standard installment is $164 a month more than the Basic installment, and that gap needs about $54,667 a month in card sales before the rate covers it, so a single counter is buying features, not a cheaper rate.

Over the full term the Standard installment totals $6,480. Buying the hardware and paying the software fee for those same months is $4,957. The difference is $1,523, and only the installment includes the warranty Clover describes. If you can spare the hardware cash, buying upfront is cheaper, and you give up that warranty.

Shopify's pricing page, read the same day, lists Basic at $39/mo, or $29/mo on yearly billing, with in-person cards at the same rate as Clover retail Basic. On that $20,000 month, processing matches Basic at $570, plus $39, or $609, before POS Pro. Adding the POS Pro fee in the table brings the month to $698, higher than Clover Basic unless the shared catalog is worth the gap. A new store also sees 3 days free and then $1/mo for 3 months, after which the standard plan price applies.

Lightspeed's retail pricing page lists three paid plans in the table, each with one register, and prints a card-present rate with no per-sale fee. The POS page prints an in-person rate that matches retail Basic, and a higher rate when the card is not present. At the matching rate, Lightspeed Basic on this month is $659. At the retail page's 1.5% rate with no per-sale fee, processing on that volume is $300 and the total is $389. Get the rate in writing before you compare those totals.

Full-service dining is a different sheet, on Clover's restaurant pricing page. Starter there sits far above retail Basic, and every full-service bundle uses Restaurant Growth with the lower in-person rate. A cafe that prices itself off the retail Basic figure will underbudget the hardware, so use the full-service rows in the table, and restaurant buyers cross-shop Toast on Toolradar.

Rapid Deposit, which pays a card sale within minutes, is a 1.75% fee on every retail bundle, so instant funding costs that percentage of the whole card total. Clover Capital is repaid from card sales, and the page does not print a rate, so the advance is a quote rather than a budget line. Building a new online store is an optional add-on with no price on the retail table, separate from the branded site on the higher bundles.

A $450 statement credit, for new merchants who buy Station, Mini or Flex, requires a 3-year contract and approval by January 31, 2027. It also needs a $25 batch within 30 days and $10,000 of card sales in the first four billing cycles. Basic's Compact terminal is not on that device list.

Methodology: Plan prices, rates and contract terms come from Clover's retail page, restaurant page and pricing FAQ, read on October 17, 2026. Square, Shopify, Lightspeed and Toast figures come from their own pages, read the same day. The monthly totals are our arithmetic on those printed rates at one stated volume, and we did not run the software. Clover's FAQ gives two different counts of bank partners on the same page, so a partner quote should be read as its own contract.

Clover retail Basic fits a single counter that mostly takes cards in person and will stay for the full term. The per-sale fee is a nickel under Square's free plan, and that saving shows up only after the installment is covered. A boutique that will not switch processors can take that trade. A shop that might leave inside the term should not.

It is a weak fit when you may outgrow the counter, or when you need stock tools on day one. Starter omits item management, discounts and exchanges, so a variant-heavy shop is on the wrong bundle immediately. Retail Growth pays for its lower rate only after monthly card sales clear the level in the pricing section, and you still buy a Station Duo.

A shop that already sells on Shopify should price Shopify with POS Pro before signing a term that has to be paid off to exit. Our Square POS review covers the no-monthly-fee path, and Square on Toolradar lists the product.

Multi-location retailers, and stores that reorder from wholesale brands, should read the Lightspeed Retail review and Lightspeed on Toolradar. The wider field is in our best POS systems guide. If the online catalog is the real business, start with Shopify pricing and the ecommerce platform guide, and treat the counter as an add-on.