Toast charges £69/month and locks you into 24. Square charges £0/month and changes its rate when it likes. Lightspeed charges £79 plus a year and quotes its processing rate in the small print. We tested all five on a £20,000/month card volume — the cheapest 12-month all-in was £4,249 (Square), the most expensive £8,603 (Toast). The £960/year processing-rate spread between them is bigger than the software subscription. That's what this site is about.
£1,776/yr
processing rate gap (Square vs Toast at £20K/mo)
£828/yr
Toast's software fee (the number vendors lead with)
2.15×
processing gap vs software gap — processing wins
Score = product quality weighted against contract risk and processing rate at £20K/mo card volume.
Best for
Single-location food or retail operators who want zero contract risk and a free software tier to start
£0–£89/mo software + 1.75% processing. At £20K/mo card volume: ~£4,200/yr processing alone.
Best for
Retailers already on Shopify who want unified online and in-store inventory with no duplicate data entry
£29–£79/mo per location POS add-on (requires Shopify plan at £29–£259/mo). Processing 1.5%–2.5%. At £20K/mo card volume: £360–£948/yr software + £3,600–£6,000 processing.
Best for
Multi-location retailers with complex inventory (matrix, serial-number, lot tracking) who want to bring their own payment processor
£79–£239/mo software + 2.6% + 10p processing (or bring your own). At £20K/mo card volume: £948–£2,868 software + £3,744–£6,240 processing + £349–£999 hardware.
Best for
Single or multi-location restaurant committed to 2+ years, doing £25K+/mo card volume, wanting the best kitchen workflow in the market
£69–£165/mo software + 2.49% + 15p processing + proprietary hardware. At £20K/mo card volume: £3,988–£7,740 year one.
Best for
Established businesses that already have a processor relationship with a Clover reseller (bank or ISO) and want a polished hardware ecosystem
£60–£165/mo software + 2.3%–2.6% + 10p processing (varies by reseller). At £20K/mo card volume: £720–£1,980 software + £5,520–£6,240 processing + £499–£1,649 hardware.
5 questions about your vertical, location count, card volume, and must-have features. Output: 3 vendor cards with 12-month cost estimates at your stated volume.
No email required. No account. Close when done.
Question 1 of 5
"The POS software fee is not the line item to optimise. Processing rate is. A 0.4 percentage-point processing-rate spread on £20,000/mo card volume costs £960/yr. Toast's entire software fee (Essentials) is £828/yr. The processing gap between Square and Toast is bigger than Toast's software subscription — and almost every POS comparison site leads with the software price."
— pointofsalesystem.net analysis, 2026. See the full model →