Small-Bar POS Pricing Compared: Square vs Toast vs Lightspeed (2026)
By the HospitalityStack editors · written from hotel & resort F&B experience
What a small bar needs from a POS
Fast tab handling (preauthorized cards so walkouts don't cost you), quick modifiers for drinks, split checks, tip handling and reports you can read at close. For a general checklist see what to look for in a small-bar POS. This guide covers only what each vendor publishes on price.
Square: three published plans, $0 to $149 a month
Square publishes three plans per location: Square Free $0/mo, Plus $49/mo and Premium $149/mo. In-person card fees drop as you go up a plan: 2.6% + 15¢, 2.5% + 15¢ and 2.4% + 15¢. Preauthorized bar tabs and split checks aren't in the Free plan. The KDS app costs extra per device ($30/mo on Plus, $20/mo on Premium). Plus and Premium have a 30-day free trial, and Square says businesses processing over $250,000 a year can ask for custom rates (checked Oct 2026).
Toast: quote-based, hardware first
Toast's pricing page doesn't give a fixed monthly plan grid we could verify. It says upfront costs are hardware and implementation and that they vary by package, with 0% financing by application. It offers a Pay-as-You-Go option inside its Starter package that cuts upfront hardware cost through an all-in-one platform rate. Toast runs only on Toast-approved hardware and includes 24/7 support with every subscription. Treat it as quote-only (checked Oct 2026).
Lightspeed Restaurant: $69 to $399 a month
Lightspeed Restaurant lists Starter $69, Essential $189 and Premium $399 (USD per month), plus a custom Enterprise tier. Pre-auth bar mode appears in all three listed plans. KDS is $30 per screen per month on Starter, and the page notes that prices may vary by business type (checked Oct 2026).
Which fits a small bar
One terminal, a simple menu and tight margins: Square's $0 or $49 plan is the only option here with a published all-in price and card fee, so you can work out your cost before you call anyone. Plus is the cheapest plan with bar tabs. Bigger menus, a kitchen and table service: get written quotes from Toast and Lightspeed and compare the total monthly cost (software + processing + hardware) at your real card volume. Always check the processing rate in the contract, because on a busy bar it outweighs the software fee.