Square
Free Square POS tier; Square for Retail/Restaurant paid tiers $0/$60/$165 per location. Hardware ranges from free reader to $600 stand. The 2.6% + $0.15 processing rate is among the cheapest published all-in card-present rates.
What this POS actually costs in Year 1.
*Representative buyer: 1 location · 2 terminals · $40K/mo card volume · ~600 transactions/mo.
Free Square POS tier: $0 software. Hardware $0-$600 (free reader to $600 stand). Processing $40K/mo × 2.6% + $0.15/tx × ~600 tx = $1,080/mo = $12,960/yr. Year-1 TCO: $13,000-$13,600.
Why this POS is priced this way.
Square's structural play is processing-rate consistency. 2.6% + $0.15 is among the cheapest published all-in card-present rates in 2026, and it doesn't change based on tier or commitment. Block (Square's parent) makes most of its revenue on payments, not software — which is why the free Square POS tier exists. The software is genuinely free; the processing is where Block earns. This makes Square the simplest cost story in the cohort and the safest first POS for buyers who don't want to negotiate.
What first-time buyers miss.
Square's trap is not the price — it's the absence of negotiation room. The 2.6% + $0.15 is fixed at the published rate; high-volume merchants who could negotiate down to 2.2-2.4% with Toast or Clover get no benefit on Square. For merchants doing $100K+/mo card volume, Toast or Clover's negotiated processing rate beats Square — but only after the lease and lock-in trade-off.
Who this POS fits.
Mobile vendors (food trucks, market stalls). Single-location SMBs doing under $80K/mo card volume. Buyers who value pricing simplicity over negotiation. First-time POS buyers who haven't decided on long-term volume.