The short version
For a single food truck, Square: $0 a month, 2.6% + 15¢ on every in-person card, a $59 reader on your phone, offline payments on by default, nothing to sign. For a truck tied to a restaurant kitchen, or one busting lines on cellular handhelds, Toast: the Toast Go 3 has 4G built in and the kitchen tooling behind it, at the price of a two-year agreement and either a higher rate on the $0 kit (3.09% + 15¢) or an unpublished per-transaction fee on the $69 plan. Clover sits between them on hardware (a $749 Flex with LTE) and below both on fees (2.6% + 10¢), with a three-year contract.
Every figure on this page was read on October 13, 2026 on the vendor's own pricing, hardware or help pages (Toast's and Clover's sites block automated readers, so their pages were read through a rendering proxy of the same vendor URLs; nothing here comes from a review site). Where a number is not on a vendor page, we say so. Prices change; confirm the current figure on the linked page before you sign. The single-vendor pages have the detail: Toast POS for food trucks and Square for food trucks. The one-page verdict for all three is best POS for food trucks.
Side by side
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| Toast | Square | Clover (Clover.com pricing) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| $0 software plan | Starter Kit: $0 a month, one location, up to two terminals, new customers | Square Free: $0 a month per location | Starter: no software fee shown; hardware line only |
| Paid plans | Point of Sale from $69 a month; Build Your Own quoted | Plus $49; Premium $149 a month per location | Essentials $29.95; Services Growth $84.95; Restaurant Growth $89.95 a month |
| In-person card rate on the $0 plan | 3.09% + 15¢ (Core 3.39%, Growth 3.69%) | 2.6% + 15¢ | 2.6% + 10¢ |
| In-person rate on paid plans | 2.49%, per-transaction cents not published | 2.5% + 15¢ (Plus); 2.4% + 15¢ (Premium) | 2.5% + 10¢ (Essentials); 2.3% + 10¢ (Growth) |
| Keyed-in rate | Not published ("custom built rates") | 3.5% + 15¢ | 3.5% + 10¢ |
| Handheld | Toast Go 3: Wi-Fi, or Wi-Fi + 4G ($20 a month plan); $0 to own in a kit | Square Handheld $399, Wi-Fi only | Clover Flex $749 or $40 a month for 36 months, Wi-Fi and LTE |
| Phone reader | Toast Tap $99 (counter reader) | Square Reader $59 (rides on the phone's data) | Clover Go $199 (Bluetooth to phone) |
| Offline payments | On by default; optional per-transaction limit; authorizations can expire from 24 hours | On by default; cap $1 to $50,000; upload within 24 hours (expire at 72) | Always on; Mini and Flex up to 7 days by default |
| Contract | 2-year software agreement, auto-renews yearly, early termination fee | None | 3-year contract on financed pricing; subscriptions non-cancelable |
| Hardware ownership | Bought; title passes at shipment | Bought, or financed at 15% APR | Bought, or financed over 36 months |
What a year costs
$150,000 of in-person card sales, $18 average ticket, 8,333 transactions. Only vendor-published rates; software shown separately; hardware, cellular plans and online sales excluded.
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| Plan | Published rate | Processing a year | Software a year | Total | Effective rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Toast Starter Kit Basic | 3.09% + 15¢ | $5,885 | $0 (+$240 with the cellular plan) | $5,885 to $6,125 | 3.92% |
| Toast Starter Kit Core | 3.39% + 15¢ | $6,335 | $0 | $6,335 | 4.22% |
| Toast Starter Kit Growth | 3.69% + 15¢ | $6,785 | $0 | $6,785 | 4.52% |
| Toast Point of Sale | 2.49% + unpublished cents | $3,735 plus the unpublished fee | $828 | Not computable | — |
| Square Free | 2.6% + 15¢ | $5,150 | $0 | $5,150 | 3.43% |
| Square Plus | 2.5% + 15¢ | $5,000 | $588 | $5,588 | 3.73% |
| Square Premium | 2.4% + 15¢ | $4,850 | $1,788 | $6,638 | 4.43% |
| Clover Starter | 2.6% + 10¢ | $4,733 | $0 shown | $4,733 | 3.16% |
| Clover Essentials | 2.5% + 10¢ | $4,583 | $359 | $4,943 | 3.30% |
| Clover Services Growth | 2.3% + 10¢ | $4,283 | $1,019 | $5,303 | 3.54% |
| Clover Restaurant Growth | 2.3% + 10¢ | $4,283 | $1,079 | $5,363 | 3.58% |
Three readings. The 10¢ versus 15¢ per transaction is worth $417 a year at an $18 ticket, which is why Clover's rates come out ahead. Square's paid plans cost more than Free at this volume; buy them for features. Toast's $0 kit costs about $735 a year more than Square Free in processing, before the $240 cellular plan, and its paid plan cannot be priced from Toast's pages.
Offline mode: the food truck question
All three keep taking cards when the signal drops, all three do it by default, and all three put the risk of a declined card on you. The differences are in the limits:
- Square lets you cap each offline transaction "between $1 and $50,000," runs 24-hour offline sessions on the Reader and Stand, and wants the payments uploaded within 24 hours: pending payments "will expire after 72 hours," the help center says, while the product pages say they "will be declined if you do not reconnect to the internet within 24 hours." Work to 24. "Expired offline payments cannot be retrieved or reprocessed."
- Toast starts Offline Mode about 40 seconds after losing connectivity, offers an optional per-transaction limit that "managers must override," publishes no default cap and no fixed deadline, and warns that authorizations can expire "as early as 24 hours" and that "If a payment declines once you're back online, it can't be re-run." Toast's own advice is a cellular backup.
- Clover says its offline mode "is always on" and that queued payments "will be processed automatically as soon as your device reconnects"; its developer documentation says Mini and Flex "are set to take offline payments for up to 7 days" by default, and that an offline device "can't verify the payment gateway or check if the card is valid and has sufficient funds." Clover.com publishes no default dollar cap.
The better answer to a dead signal is not offline mode; it is a handheld with its own cellular radio. Toast and Clover sell one, Square does not.
Hardware and connectivity
- Toast Go 3: 6.52 in screen, 24+ hour battery, IP65, 5 ft drop rating; Wi-Fi only or Wi-Fi + 4G with the carrier picked by signal strength; $0 to own inside a Starter Kit; $20 a month for the cellular plan in the Cellular Starter Kit. No standalone list price is published.
- Square: Reader $59 (phone's data or hotspot), Terminal $299 (Wi-Fi or Ethernet via a separate hub), Stand $149 (your iPad's connection), Handheld $399 (Wi-Fi only, Wi-Fi 6E), Register $899 (Wi-Fi or Ethernet, must stay plugged in). No cellular anywhere in the line.
- Clover: Flex $749 (Wi-Fi and LTE, at least 8 hours of battery, built-in printer), Compact $349 (Wi-Fi, Ethernet and LTE, built-in printer), Go $199 (Bluetooth to a phone), Mini $849+, Station Solo $1,799+, Station Duo $1,899+. Clover.com shows no data-plan price for the LTE models.
Contracts
- Square: "No hidden fees or locked-in contracts." "Cancel or switch anytime." Hardware financing is 15% APR over 3 to 24 months.
- Toast: "Subscription to Toast software with a 2 year agreement" on every kit; the Merchant Agreement renews "for successive one (1) year periods" without 30 days' notice; early termination owes the remaining subscription fees, or $150 per remaining month on Pay-as-you-Go; Toast's annual report puts contract terms at 12 to 36 months.
- Clover: "Requires a 3-year contract" on Clover.com's financed pricing; "Subscriptions are non-cancelable and ineligible for refunds"; at the end of the term you buy or return the equipment, or the subscription extends at the same monthly charge unless Clover is told 30 days before; "Contract terms and any termination fees can vary based on your service provider," of which Clover lists more than 3,000 banks and partners.
How to choose in five minutes
For the rest of the start-up budget around the POS, see food truck startup costs and the operating costs guide; the profit calculator takes the card rate as an input.