A retail point-of-sale system has two prices: the monthly fee for the software and the rate on every card you take. Three of the best-known retail systems tie the two together. Pay more for the software and the card rate drops. At Square the step is a tenth of a percentage point per plan, at Shopify the same, and at Clover three tenths.
That sounds like a volume discount, and for a large store it is. For most small shops it is not. We read the US retail pricing pages of seven systems this site reviews on 24 September 2026 and worked out, for each upgrade, how much a store has to sell on cards before the lower rate covers the higher fee. The answer at Square is $49,000 a month. At Shopify it is $50,000 to $66,000 depending on how you pay for the plan. Below those numbers, the rate cut does not pay for the upgrade, and the upgrade has to be worth buying for its features.
What each system charges in person
All figures are the published US prices for a tapped, dipped or swiped card, for one location, read from each provider's own pricing page on 24 September 2026.
- Square (our grade: A), Square for Retail: Free plan, $0 a month, 2.6% + 15¢. Plus, $49 a month per location, 2.5% + 15¢. Premium, $149 a month per location, 2.4% + 15¢. Keyed-in cards and cards on file are 3.5% + 15¢ on every plan. Square says you can cancel or switch plans at any time.
- Shopify POS (A-), through Shopify Payments: Basic, $39 a month billed monthly or $29 billed yearly, 2.6% + 10¢. Grow, $105 or $79, 2.5% + 10¢. Advanced, $399 or $299, 2.4% + 10¢. Every plan includes POS Lite; POS Pro, the full retail feature set, adds $89 per location a month on monthly billing or $67 on yearly. Using a processor other than Shopify Payments costs an extra 2%, 1% or 0.6% of each sale on Basic, Grow and Advanced.
- Clover (B), buying direct from clover.com: Basic, a compact countertop terminal, $16 a month for 36 months or $349 outright, with no separate software fee shown, 2.6% + 10¢. Standard, a 14-inch station with a customer display, $180 a month for 36 months or $1,899 plus $84.95 a month, 2.3% + 10¢. Advanced, $240 a month for 36 months or $2,648 plus $104.90 a month, 2.3% + 10¢. Typed-in cards are 3.5% + 10¢ on all three. Clover says these prices are only available on clover.com; a bank or other reseller selling Clover can price and contract differently.
- Lightspeed (B+), Lightspeed Retail: Basic $89, Core $149 and Plus $289 a month billed annually, or $109, $179 and $339 billed monthly. The card-present rate through Lightspeed Payments is 2.6% + 10¢ on all three tiers.
- SpotOn (B-), on its small-business retail page: $25 a month for the terminal plan and $90 a month for a plan that adds software (SpotOn names it differently on two of its pages), both at 2.45% + 15¢ card present, 3.19% + 15¢ for American Express and 3.45% + 15¢ keyed. SpotOn's restaurant pricing is a different product, and higher.
Two things stand out. Square, Shopify and Clover lower only the percentage on dearer plans; the fixed cents stay the same, so the saving depends on dollar volume and not on how many sales you make. And Lightspeed and SpotOn do not discount the rate at all: their higher tiers buy software, not cheaper processing.
When the upgrade pays for itself
A rate 0.1 percentage point lower saves $1 for every $1,000 of card sales. So the monthly card volume at which an upgrade covers its own extra fee is the extra fee divided by the rate cut. On published prices, per location:
- Square Free to Plus: $49 for 0.1 point. Pays off at $49,000 a month of in-person card sales.
- Square Plus to Premium: another $100 for another 0.1 point. Pays off at $100,000 a month. Free to Premium in one step: $149 for 0.2 points, $74,500 a month.
- Shopify Basic to Grow: $66 a month more on monthly billing, $50 on yearly, for 0.1 point. Pays off at $66,000 or $50,000 a month.
- Shopify Grow to Advanced: $294 more on monthly billing, $220 on yearly, for 0.1 point. Pays off at $294,000 or $220,000 a month.
- Clover Basic to Standard, on the 36-month payment plan: $164 a month more, which also buys a larger terminal and the retail software, for 0.3 points. Pays off at about $54,700 a month.
- Lightspeed and SpotOn: never, on the rate alone, because it does not change.
Put in annual terms, a Square shop needs about $590,000 a year of in-person card sales before Plus is cheaper on processing alone, and a Shopify shop on monthly billing about $790,000 before Grow is. For a single-location boutique those are large numbers. Square's own FAQ points to a better lever at that size: a business processing more than $250,000 a year can ask Square for custom processing pricing, which is worth doing before paying for a plan to get a lower rate.
That does not make the upgrades bad buys. They are software purchases. Clover's Basic system, for instance, does not include item and category management, itemised returns or detailed sales reports, all of which a retail shop normally needs; its Standard system does. Shopify includes POS Lite in every plan but sells its full retail feature set as POS Pro, which a shop that needs it pays for whatever the rate. The point is to buy the higher plan because you need what it does, and to count the lower rate as a small bonus rather than the reason.
One shop, five systems
Take a single-location clothing shop with $30,000 a month in card sales, 600 transactions at an average of $50, all tapped or dipped in person. Monthly cost on each provider's published price, counting processing plus the software fee, and excluding hardware bought outright and sales tax:
- SpotOn, $25 plan: $735 + $90 in fixed fees + $25 = $850.
- Clover Standard, hardware bought for $1,899: $690 + $60 + $84.95 = about $835. On the 36-month plan instead: $690 + $60 + $180 = $930, hardware included.
- Square Free: $780 + $90 = $870. Square Plus: $750 + $90 + $49 = $889.
- Shopify Basic with POS Lite, yearly billing: $780 + $60 + $29 = $869. With POS Pro added: $936.
- Lightspeed Basic, billed annually: $780 + $60 + $89 = $929.
- Clover Basic, on the 36-month plan: $780 + $60 + $16 = $856, but see the note above on what it leaves out.
The totals sit within about $100 of each other, and on a $30,000 month that is a third of a percentage point. Card rate differences are real but modest here; what separates the systems is the software fee, whether you rent or buy the hardware, and the contract. A shop that needs Shopify's POS Pro and bills monthly pays $968 on our example, $118 more than SpotOn, almost all of it software. Hardware bought outright is left out of every line: Clover's Standard system is $1,899 up front, SpotOn's terminal $200 on its retail page.
There is a second route: pricing that passes interchange through at cost plus a published margin. Helcim (A-) charges interchange plus 0.40% + 8¢ in person on the first $50,000 a month, with no monthly, software or statement fees, and Stax (B) charges interchange with no percentage markup plus 8¢ per in-person transaction, under a subscription of $99 a month up to $150,000 a year, $139 up to $250,000 and "$199+" above that. Both sell their own point-of-sale tools, so check that the software covers what a retail shop needs before comparing the price. On these models the answer turns on your card mix. The site's analysis of Visa's small-merchant interchange works through the same $30,000 month on both and shows where the flat rates lose, which is on debit cards.
The contract is where the systems really differ
- Square: no term. Square's pricing page says you can cancel or switch plans at any time.
- Shopify: Basic and Grow carry no stated term. The pricing page says Advanced is available on a one- or three-year term, and Shopify Plus starts at $2,300 a month on a three-year term.
- Clover: buying the system on its 36-month subscription is, in the words of its FAQ, "non-cancelable and ineligible for refunds", though it can be paid off or upgraded; at the end of the term it rolls on month to month unless you give 30 days' notice. The FAQ says contract terms and termination fees vary with the company that sold you the system, and the $450 statement credit currently advertised on clover.com requires a three-year contract.
- Lightspeed: under its service agreement, last updated on 26 February 2026, the term is set in your order form and renews automatically for an equal term unless you give written notice, 90 days ahead where the term is longer than 90 days. Leaving early costs any unpaid one-off fees, the recurring fees left in the term and the difference between list price and any discount you received (section 13.5).
- SpotOn: the retail page says there is no long-term commitment on its small-business plans. Its restaurant plan is a different product with a two-year minimum term.
Clover's model deserves particular care, because the same terminal is sold by clover.com, by banks such as Citi, PNC and Wells Fargo and, Clover says, by more than 3,000 other financial institutions, each on its own contract. A Clover system bought from a reseller can come with a separate equipment lease, and the site's piece on terminal leases that outlive the processor explains why those leases are so hard to leave. If you buy Clover, know whether you are buying from Clover or from someone reselling it.
How to choose
- Start from the software you need, not the rate. List what the shop cannot run without: inventory by variant, returns, staff logins, an online store, loyalty. Find the cheapest plan on each system that has all of it.
- Only then compare the rate on that plan, and multiply by your real monthly card volume. At $30,000 a month, 0.1 point is $30.
- Count the hardware. Buying outright and renting over 36 months can differ by hundreds of dollars over the term, and only one of them can be walked away from.
- Get the term, the renewal rule and the exit cost in writing before you sign. It is the one number on this page that can cost more than a year of rate differences.
- Check the keyed rate if you take phone orders. It is 3.45% to 3.5% plus cents at every system here, a full point above the tapped rate.
