Fees: what you can see and what you have to ask for
Square lists three restaurant plans in Canadian dollars. Free is $0 a month with unlimited countertop devices and locations, and support on weekdays from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Pacific. Plus is $60 a month per location and adds course management, live sales reporting and 24/7 support; it includes one countertop POS device per location and charges $40 a month for each added one. Premium is custom pricing for restaurants processing more than $250,000 a year in credit card sales. All of this was read on Square's Canadian pricing page on October 30, 2026.
Toast doesn't give you a figure to read. Its Canadian site and pricing page returned HTTP 403 to our automated check on October 30, 2026, just as they did on September 19, 2026. Search listings sometimes show monthly prices for Toast plans, but we could not confirm any of them on Toast's own pages, so we don't repeat them. Treat Toast as quote-based: you book a call, describe your restaurant and get a number back. Our Toast pricing guide lists what to ask for.
Card processing
Square prints its rates. In person it charges 2.5% on all major credit cards and 0.75% + 7¢ on Interac debit by chip and PIN or tap. Online orders are 2.8% + 30¢. On $40,000 a month in credit card sales, 2.5% comes to $1,000 a month; a $30 debit ticket costs about 30¢. Restaurants processing more than $250,000 a year in credit card sales can ask Square about custom rates on Premium.
Toast runs its own payment processing, and the rate is part of the quote, so a software figure on its own wouldn't tell you what Toast costs. When you compare, ask Toast for the in-person credit rate, the Interac debit rate, any per-transaction fee and any monthly minimum, all in writing. Then take a recent month of your own card sales and work out the effective rate each one would charge: total fees divided by total card volume. That single number makes a quoted platform and a published one comparable.
Hardware
Square sells its hardware outright at prices printed on its Canadian page: Square Stand for an iPad at $249 (iPad not included), Square Terminal at $399, Square Handheld at $449, Square Register at $999 and a 21.5-inch kitchen display screen at $899. There's no rental line. On Free, each kitchen display adds $20 a month; Plus covers unlimited KDS devices.
Toast supplies its own hardware and quotes it together with the software and payments. We could not read hardware prices or financing terms on Toast's pages, so ask whether the hardware is bought, financed or bundled into the monthly figure, and what happens to it if you leave.
Contracts, support and currency
Square's restaurant pricing page says there are no hidden fees and no long-term contract, and that you can upgrade or downgrade at any time. Plus comes with a 30-day free trial. Funds transfer as soon as the next day, or instantly for a small fee.
For Toast, three questions matter before you sign. How long is the term, and does it renew on its own? What does it cost to leave early? Is the quote in Canadian or US dollars? A US-dollar invoice moves with the exchange rate every month, which makes a Canadian budget harder to hold.
Restaurant features and Quebec
Every Square for Restaurants plan includes table management, open bills, auto-gratuity, multi-location management and offline payments. Plus adds course management, seat management and splitting a bill by item or by seat. Square's Canadian page also says Square is not currently compatible with Quebec's mandatory online sales-recording module, and it points Quebec restaurants to a partner integration.
Toast's pitch is one restaurant platform: point of sale, payments and hardware from one company, with add-ons priced in the same quote. When Toast launched in Canada it said availability may vary by province. We could not read Toast's current Canadian feature or language pages, so ask for a demo in the language your team works in, and for a written answer on Quebec if you operate there.
Who each one suits
Square suits an owner who wants to start on a $0 plan, see every rate before talking to anyone, and grow into table service, coursing or a second location without changing systems. It works best outside Quebec.
Toast suits a restaurant that wants one vendor for its point of sale, payments and hardware, is happy to negotiate a bundled quote, and has the volume to make that negotiation worth having. It is strongest with full-service and multi-unit operators.
Where Waitery fits
Toast came to Canada from the US, and Square is a payments company that grew a restaurant product. Waitery was built in Canada, only for restaurants. It is a QR-first restaurant POS from Mississauga, Ontario: guests scan a table QR code and order with no app, servers take orders and payments on handhelds, and tickets go to a kitchen display with station routing and no per-screen fee. It runs table service and the counter, and the guest menu, kitchen and receipts work in English and French.
Like Square, Waitery publishes its price: one plan at $14 CAD per location per month, on our pricing page, with free setup. Like Toast, it supplies its own hardware and integrated payments, so one company answers for the whole setup. Hardware can be bought or leased over 48 months, and processing is quoted per restaurant during the demo. For the detail, read Waitery vs Toast and Waitery vs Square, take the restaurant POS tour, or see every POS comparison. Square's plans are broken down further in our Square for Restaurants pricing guide.
This comparison uses the vendors' own public pages on the dates shown. Toast's Canadian launch details come from its April 4, 2023 newsroom release. Toast prices, contract terms and hardware costs were not readable on its pages, which is why none appear here. Prices and plans change, so confirm them with Toast and Square before you decide. Toast and Square are trademarks of their owners; Waitery is not affiliated with or endorsed by either company.