Restaurant POS questions, answered without the sales pitch

It has four parts: software per terminal per month, hardware bought or subscribed, payment processing, and install and support. Clover publishes restaurant packages from 135 to 354 dollars a month over 36 months. Shift4 publishes no monthly figure for Shift4 Dine. Neither includes processing, which is usually the biggest cost of the four.

Yes. Shift4 announced on 5 May 2026 that SkyTab POS would be rebranded Shift4 Dine on 12 May, with the same products, the same interface and no changes to day to day operations, account setup, integrations, reporting or support channels. Requests to the old skytab.com pricing page now land on the Shift4 Dine pricing page.

Clover publishes 2.3 percent plus 10 cents for a card that is tapped, swiped or inserted, and 3.5 percent plus 10 cents for a card keyed in by hand. Those rates are the same across every published restaurant package. Rapid Deposit, which pays out within minutes of a sale, carries a separate 1.75 percent fee.

Shift4 does not publish one for Shift4 Dine. Its pricing page describes competitive rates and an Advantage Program built to offset processing fees, without a figure. We will not print a number we cannot source to the vendor. Get it in writing on your quote, with the full fee schedule attached, then calculate the effective rate.

Every fee on one month's statement divided by the card volume you ran that month. It is the only number that describes what you actually paid. Advertised rates leave out per transaction cents, monthly fees, compliance fees and downgrades, so two businesses on the same advertised rate can pay very different effective rates.

No. Interchange is set by Visa and Mastercard and goes to the bank that issued your customer's card, and every processor pays the same interchange on the same transaction. Assessments go to the card brands and are also fixed. Only your provider's markup is negotiable, and an honest quote states that markup as a visible number.

Read your paperwork, because often you do not. Clover states its subscriptions are non cancelable and ineligible for refunds, and that at the end of the term you purchase or return the equipment, with the term extending automatically if you do neither. Clover also states its devices cannot be used with other payment processors.

Clover publishes 36 month subscription terms on its restaurant packages, and states that termination fees vary depending on which of its thousands of partners sold you the system. Ask three things in writing: the term length, the early termination amount and whether it auto renews if you take no action before the end date.

A Friday, a Saturday, a holiday week, a festival weekend or a home game day. A cutover concentrates every unknown into one shift, so pick one you can afford to run slowly. Monday or Tuesday morning after your slowest service is the best slot for most restaurants, with a quiet week ahead.

Not automatically. Export items, prices, categories, modifier groups, time based pricing and tax categories while your old account is still active, because access tends to get harder once a cancellation is in motion. We rebuild the menu properly before hardware ships and you review it before anything is boxed up.

The liability stays with you regardless of which POS you run. Print the full balance list before cutover, confirm whether balances migrate, and if they do not, give staff a written process for honouring old cards manually. This is the most commonly forgotten item in a switch and guests notice it before management does.

In a full service dining room or a bar, usually yes, because the cost you are removing is walking. In counter service, usually not. Before you buy any, confirm wireless actually covers your whole floor and patio, because a handheld only works where signal reaches and older buildings are unforgiving.

No marketplace commission, yes. Free, no. Every online card sale still carries processing, and card not present pricing is typically higher than card present. Clover publishes no fee online ordering at every restaurant tier and Shift4 describes its online ordering as commission free, but processing applies to both.

Support terms are a line on our quote rather than something we hide. Shift4 publishes 24 hour in house technical support, and Clover publishes 24 hour support for its merchants. What we add locally is the callback promise: a real person within two hours, Monday to Saturday, 8am to 7pm Central.

It depends on the platform and on your existing agreement. If you are on Shift4 Dine or Clover, start by sending us your last full statement and your agreement, and we will tell you honestly whether moving the relationship helps you or whether waiting for your term to end is the better answer.

Because a sticker price would be dishonest. Your processing cost depends on average ticket, card mix and volume, and your software cost depends on how many terminals and handhelds your floor plan actually needs. We publish vendor figures we can source, explain the arithmetic, and quote per restaurant on a written four line breakdown.