The 10 best restaurant POS systems in the US (2026)

Of the 10 systems ranked here, 6 publish a plan price on their own website. SpotOn, Square and Toast have a plan with no monthly fee. The cheapest paid plan is Shopify POS, from $39/mo; the highest starting price is HungerRush, from $149/mo. Clover, Lightspeed Restaurant, Oracle Simphony and Revel Systems give a price only on request. Card fees are charged on top of the plan price; the next answer covers them.

Published in-person card rates run from 2.3% + 10¢ (Clover) to 2.6% + 15¢ (Square and Shopify POS). TouchBistro, Toast, HungerRush, Lightspeed Restaurant, Oracle Simphony and Revel Systems do not publish a card rate, so you only learn it from a quote.

SpotOn, Square and Shopify POS let you leave at any time or month to month. TouchBistro (term set in your quote, renews automatically), Toast (30 days notice, renews automatically), Clover (30 days notice) and Lightspeed Restaurant (90 days notice, renews automatically) ask for notice or set the term in your quote. HungerRush (48 months, renews automatically) ties you in for a fixed term. Oracle Simphony and Revel Systems do not publish its contract terms.

On our score, SpotOn ranks first with 9.0 out of 10: no monthly fee, all plan prices published, card rate 2.45% + 15¢, month to month. Level on score with Square; ranked first on the tie-break: a lower card rate. The score covers published price, fees and contract terms, not features or support, so check the features you need on the vendor's own site.

SpotOn, Square and Toast have a plan with no monthly fee. You pay a fee on each card payment instead.

Clover, at 2.3% + 10¢ for an in-person card payment. A lower rate matters more as takings grow: on the same sales, every tenth of a percent is money kept.

Published online card rates: SpotOn 3.45% + 15¢; Square 3.3% + 30¢; Shopify POS 2.9% + 30¢. TouchBistro, Toast, Clover, HungerRush, Lightspeed Restaurant, Oracle Simphony and Revel Systems do not publish a separate rate for online payments.

SpotOn, Square, Shopify POS and TouchBistro publish all their plan prices. Toast, Clover, HungerRush and Lightspeed Restaurant publish some prices and quote the rest. Oracle Simphony and Revel Systems give prices only on request.

Published hardware prices: Square from $59. SpotOn: hardware may be purchased, leased or rented; leased or rented hardware stays SpotOn property and must be returned within fifteen business days of termination. Shopify POS: POS Equipment is purchased outright, not leased. Toast: hardware is purchased under an Order and may be financed through a third-party lender, whose credit agreement Toast can purchase on default. HungerRush: vendor-owned, provided to the merchant on subscription. Lightspeed Restaurant: purchased by the merchant at the Order Form or website price; discounted or free hardware carries a minimum-use condition set out elsewhere in the Terms. The others do not publish a hardware price.

Square and Shopify POS have no fixed term, so there is no early exit fee to pay. SpotOn: all Fees due for monthly subscription months for all unpaid months remaining during the Term, plus return or purchase of hardware; no fixed amount stated. Toast: remaining Software Subscription Fees for the rest of the current Term, or for a Pay-as-you-go subscription 150 dollars multiplied by the months remaining; plus any Software financing processing fee. Lightspeed Restaurant: unpaid one-off fees + all recurring fees for the rest of the Current Term + the difference between list price and any discounted software or hardware price. TouchBistro, Clover, HungerRush, Oracle Simphony and Revel Systems do not publish an early exit fee.

Square, Shopify POS, TouchBistro, Toast, HungerRush and Lightspeed Restaurant renew automatically at the end of the term unless you give notice. We did not find a renewal term for Clover, Oracle Simphony and Revel Systems.

SpotOn: spotOn claims the exclusive right to use and share data available to it from performing the Services; Client may not use such data except as permitted by the Contract. Square: seller retains all rights in its Content, subject to a broad licence granted to Square. Shopify POS: shopify does not take ownership of the Materials the merchant provides, but requires a licence to them. Toast: merchant owns all Merchant Data, licensed to Toast. HungerRush: merchant owns data generated by the products; vendor holds an irrevocable licence to use it (anonymised only when disclosed to third parties). Lightspeed Restaurant: merchant retains ownership of Customer Content; Lightspeed holds a broad licence to use it. We did not find a data ownership term for TouchBistro, Clover, Oracle Simphony and Revel Systems.

SpotOn lists 2 delivery apps. HungerRush lists 1 payment provider and 4 delivery apps. Oracle Simphony lists 2 payment providers and 4 delivery apps. The others do not publish an integration list on the pages we read.

Every system gets a score out of 10 from four lines: prices published (2 points), entry price (3), fees (2, here the in-person card rate) and contract (3). The figures come only from each vendor's own website, read and dated, and the weights were fixed before any system was scored. Ties go to the system that publishes more of its prices.

The figures on this page were read from the vendors' own websites between 9 Oct 2026 and 12 Oct 2026. Each one shows its date when you hover it, and the sources at the foot of the page list every page and date.