Trying to choose between Toast vs Square as the payment processing and point-of-sale solution for your business?

While there are some notable similarities between Square and Toast, there are also some very big differences. For that reason, it’s important to do your research to pick the best solution for your business.

In our honest comparison, we’re not so much focused on declaring a single “winner”. Instead, we just want to dig into key areas of Square and Toast to help you make the right decision for your specific situation.

Let’s get into it…

Square promotion – free processing

Gravity Forms and Square have teamed up to offer an exclusive promotion for new Square customers — enjoy free processing fees for up to 180 days!

Here’s how it works:

• Free Payment Processing – Get $3,000 in credit card transactions processed for free within your first 180 days. After that, standard Square fees apply.
• $20 Off Square Hardware – Receive a $20 discount on Square hardware once you sign up.

To take advantage of this promotion, simply sign up for a Square account using this link and start processing payments with no extra fees.

What can you do with Square and Toast?

To kick things off, it’s important to understand that there are some pretty big differences in the scope of functionality that you can access with Square and Toast:

In terms of high-level functionality, Square can do everything that Toast can do…plus a lot more. However, whether or not this difference is meaningful really depends on your specific situation and whether you need the extra functionality and flexibility that Square offers.

Let’s get into it – we’ll start with Toast because it’s a bit more limited in its scope…

Toast

Toast is primarily a point-of-sale system for restaurants, cafes, food trucks, bars, etc. though it has recently started making the push into general retail, as well.

With Toast, you can accept in-person payments as well online orders.

There are two main parts to Toast:

1. Hardware – Physical hardware that you can put in your brick-and-mortar store. There are different configurations, but it generally includes at least one screen, along with a module to accept card payments (or NFC payment methods like Apple Pay). Toast also offers kitchen display systems to help you eliminate paper tickets.
2. Software – Manage your menu, inventory, orders, etc. The software can also help you create an online ordering system, as well as handling some other aspects of running a business (such as payroll) and email marketing.

While Toast includes built-in tools to help you accept in-person and online payments, it’s important to note that Toast itself is not a payment processor (whereas Square is).

Here’s how Toast describes it in the Toast FAQ – “Toast is not a payment card processor, but it is a payment facilitator that partners with processors to offer card processing services.”

Basically, Toast offers built-in tools to help you accept payments, but Toast is relying on its behind-the-scenes partner integrations to actually process the payments.

Square

Whereas Toast is mostly focused on restaurants, Square is a full-service payment processor and point-of-sale system that works for all different kinds of in-person and online payments.

It also offers special features and software for restaurant businesses, just like Toast.

However, Square is different from Toast in that Square can also do much more than restaurant payments alone.

Square can help other types of businesses, like retail and appointment-based businesses, and can generally be used by any webmaster to accept online payments, either via their own website builder (like using Square with WordPress) or Square’s own website building tools.

The service offerings of Square include:

• Payment processing – Unlike Toast, Square is its own payment processor. You can use it to accept pretty much any type of payment including online payments, in-person payments, invoices, etc. You can also set up automatic recurring subscriptions in addition to one-time payments, which gives you a lot of flexibility.
• Hardware – Square offers hardware that you can use to accept in-person payments, including full POS systems or smaller handheld scanners. You can also easily integrate Square’s hardware into a more robust stack, such as including a kitchen display system to manage tickets.
• Software – Square also offers tons of software to help various types of businesses, including software for restaurants, retail businesses, appointment-based businesses, etc. In addition, Square offers software for other essential business areas such as payroll, shift management, and more.

Note – Square offers additional hardware beyond what you see in the above screenshot.

Beyond those core features, Square also has lots of other useful products and functionality, including the following:

• Appointment booking – You can use Square Appointments to help you manage any type of appointment-based business, including salons, spas, coaching, etc.
• Payroll and shift management – Square offers tools like Square Payroll and Square Shifts to help you manage essential interactions with your employees.

Because Square is a payment processor and fintech company, it also offers more functionality for accepting payments:

• Subscriptions – You can set up automatic recurring subscriptions. You can integrate these into your own website builder (like WordPress, Squarespace, or Wix), or use the tools Square offers to set up online subscriptions.
• Banking – Square has its own banking services, so you can quickly access your money and other financial products such as loans and more.

Basically, Square offers robust restaurant and retail point-of-sale functionality just like Toast, but it also offers a lot more than that. This gives you an extra level of flexibility that you won’t get with Toast, though you may or may not need these added features for your own business.

Pricing, rates, and notable fees

Next, let’s talk about the pricing, credit card processing rates, and notable fees associated with Toast and Square.

There are two main prices you’ll need to consider:

• Hardware/software fee – This is the price to use the hardware and/or software from Square and Toast.
• Payment processing fee – This is the rate you’ll pay to accept card payments (or other payment methods).

There are also other potential fees you might encounter, such as credit card chargeback fees. However, these are variable and depend on your unique situation.

Let’s go through these main fees, which are correct at the time of this writing…

Hardware/software fees

Let’s start by looking at the hardware and software fees that you might need to pay.

Square

With Square, you may or may not need to pay anything. If you just want to use Square to accept online payments (e.g. via your WordPress website), you don’t need to pay anything and you don’t need any hardware or software.

However, if you’re looking to accept in-person payments and/or access Square’s business tools, there might be a cost.

There are two ways that you can get access to Square’s hardware:

1. Purchase the hardware directly for a one-time fee. Square also lets you spread the one-time fee over 12-24 months.
2. Pay a monthly subscription that gives you access to the payment hardware and additional software to help you run/manage your business.

For a one-time hardware purchase, the exact price will depend on the specific hardware that you want to use:

• Square Reader for magstripe – free
• Square Reader for chip and contactless payments – $59
• Square Stand – $149 (you’ll also need your own iPad)
• Square Kiosk – $149 (you’ll also need your own iPad)
• Square Terminal – $299
• Square Register – $799

Square also offers subscription plans for food and beverage, retail, beauty, and service businesses. These plans offer an all-in-one price that includes necessary hardware along with software to help you run and manage your business.

The price will depend on the type of business that you run. All options include a free plan, though the free plan has slightly higher payment processing fees:

• Restaurants – Free plan to start. Paid plans from $69/month/location.
• Retail – Free plan to start. Paid plans from $89/month/location.
• Appointments – Free plan to start. Paid plans from $29/month/location.

Toast

Unlike Square, Toast does not sell its hardware for a one-time fee. Instead, you can only access it through one of Toast’s subscription plans, which give you access to both the hardware and software.

Like Square, Toast does offer a basic free plan. Also similarly to Square, this free plan will usually have slightly higher payment processing rates, which is one of the ways that Toast is able to monetize it.

Then, Toast also offers monthly subscription plans. These plans start at $69 per month, which is identical to Square’s starting price for its restaurant subscription plans.

However, to get the exact price for your business, you’ll need to chat with Toast’s sales team. A lot of essential features that you might want will cost extra and add to the monthly subscription fee.

For example, if you want to use Toast’s payroll tools, that’s an additional subscription. It starts at $69 per month plus $9 per employee/month.

Payment Processing Rates

In addition to whatever you need to pay to access hardware/software, you’ll also be charged a payment processing fee for any card or contactless payments you accept. This fee is unavoidable if you want to accept card payments.

As we discussed earlier, one of the key differences between Square and Toast is how they process these payments:

• Square is a payment processor, meaning it can process the payments.
• Toast is a payment facilitator, which means it still relies on a third party to actually process the payments.

Square is very transparent about the payment processing fees that you’ll pay, though high-volume businesses may be able to negotiation custom rates. The exact fee depends on the type of payment that you’re accepting – here are the current rates in the USA:

• In-person card payments (card present transactions) – 2.6% + $0.15 per transaction
• Online card payments – 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction
• Manual card entry card payments (you manually keying in a person’s credit card details) – 3.5% + $0.15
• ACH payments – 1%

Toast, on the other hand, does not publish its payment processing fees directly. Instead, you’ll need to negotiate with Toast and your rates will be based on the specifics of your business.

This makes it a bit tricky to do a direct comparison with Square. However, Toast’s payment processing rates are generally in the same realm as what you’d pay with Square.

Still, because Toast is a payment facilitator and not doing its own processing, you might end up paying more with Toast unless you can negotiate a good deal.

Other notable fees

Beyond what you pay for the hardware/software and the payment processing fees, there are also some other fees that you might encounter in certain situations.

One notable fee is the “chargeback fee”, which you’ll be charged whenever a customer initiates a chargeback via their card.

Square is unique in that it does not charge any chargeback fee for disputed payments. In contrast, Toast charges a $15 fee whenever there’s a chargeback, regardless of the outcome (which is pretty standard for the industry).

Supported countries and currencies

The physical location of your business could play another important role in choosing between Square and Toast, as the two support different countries and currencies.

Square

Currently, Square supports businesses and payments in eight different countries, with local currency support for each country:

• USA
• Canada
• UK
• Australia
• Japan
• Ireland
• France
• Spain

Toast

Currently, Toast supports businesses and payments in four different countries:

• USA
• Canada
• UK
• Ireland

Therefore, if your business is in Australia, Japan, France, or Spain, your only option in this comparison would be to use Square as Toast doesn’t currently support those countries.

WordPress and Gravity Forms integration: Square vs Toast

If you’re looking for a payment processing solution to pair with WordPress and Gravity Forms, Square is the only option in this comparison.

With Square, there are multiple ways to integrate Square payments in WordPress. One good options is to use the Gravity Forms plugin and its Square Add-On.

With Gravity Forms and the Gravity Forms Square Add-On, you can access the following features:

• Create payment forms that you can add anywhere on your site. You can have fixed price forms or adjust the price based on how the person fills out the form.
• Accept one-time payments or set up recurring subscriptions, including fully customizing the subscription period.
• Manage payments from your WordPress dashboard, including canceling subscriptions and refunding payments.
• Integrate payment forms with other WordPress functionality, such as charging users to register an account or submit content to your site.

In contrast, there’s no real way to integrate Toast with WordPress, let alone Gravity Forms. You might be able to find some workaround, but there’s no official integration and your options would be quite limited.

If you want to get started with Square on WordPress, you can purchase a Gravity Forms Pro or Elite license to install the Square Add-On.

Gravity Forms and Square also have a special promotion for new Square customers. If you’ve never signed up for Square before and you register for your account using this link, you’ll get free payment processing on up to $3,000 in transactions within the first 180 days, along with $20 off any Square hardware.

Start accepting payments today

Overall, there are some real differences between Toast vs Square.

Square is a full-service payment processor that you can use to process any type of payment, with support for online and in-person payments, one-time payments and subscriptions, and lots more.

At the same time, Square also offers some great hardware and software solutions for small businesses, including robust support for restaurants, retail businesses, appointment-based businesses, etc.

On the other hand, Toast is a more narrowly focused solution that’s focused on in-person payments along with lightweight online ordering systems. While it has started expanding into general retail businesses, it’s still mostly used by restaurants and cafes.

If you want to accept payments on your WordPress site, that is one area where Square is the clear winner. With Gravity Forms and its Square Add-On, you can easily create all kinds of WordPress payment forms, including one-time payments and subscriptions.

If you want to try Gravity Forms for yourself, use our free demo. When you’re ready to get started with WordPress and Square, simply purchase the Gravity Forms Pro or Elite license.