Restaurant POS questions, answered without the sales pitch

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 of those covers processing, and processing is usually the biggest of the four by a wide margin.

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. Old skytab.com pricing links now land on the Shift4 Dine pricing page.

2.3 percent plus 10 cents on a card tapped, swiped or inserted. 3.5 percent plus 10 cents on a card keyed in by hand. Clover publishes both, and both hold across every published restaurant package. Rapid Deposit, which pays out within minutes of a sale, costs a separate 1.75 percent.

Shift4 does not publish one for Shift4 Dine. Its pricing page talks about competitive rates and an Advantage Program built to offset processing fees, and never lands on a figure. We will not print a number we cannot source to the vendor. Get it in writing on your quote, full fee schedule attached, then divide a month of fees by a month of card volume and see what you are really paying.

Every fee on one month's statement, divided by the card volume you ran that month. One number, and the only one that tells you what the month cost you. Advertised rates leave out the per transaction cents, the monthly fees, the compliance fees and the downgrades, so two restaurants quoted the same rate can pay wildly different money.

No. Visa and Mastercard set interchange, it goes to the bank that issued your customer's card, and every processor pays the same interchange on the same swipe. Assessments go to the card brands and are fixed too. Your provider's markup is the only piece anyone can move, and a straight quote prints that markup as a number you can point at.

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 either 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. Get three things in writing before you sign: the term length, the early termination amount, and whether it renews itself if you do nothing before the end date.

A Friday. A Saturday. A holiday week, a festival weekend, a home game day. A cutover piles every unknown into one shift, so pick a shift you can afford to run slow. Monday or Tuesday morning after your quietest service, with an easy week behind it, suits most restaurants.

Not on its own. Export items, prices, categories, modifier groups, time based pricing and tax categories while your old account is still live, because access gets harder the moment a cancellation is in motion. We rebuild the menu properly on our end, and you review every screen of it with us before you run a live ticket on it.

You still owe them, whichever POS you are running. Print the full balance list before cutover, confirm whether balances migrate, and if they do not, hand your staff a written process for honoring old cards by hand. Nothing gets forgotten more often in a switch, and your guests will notice it before your managers do.

In a full service dining room or a bar, usually yes, because what you are deleting is walking. At a counter, usually not. Before you buy any, confirm wireless covers your whole floor and your patio. A handheld only works where signal reaches, and old buildings do not forgive.

No marketplace commission, true. Free, no. Every online card sale still carries processing, and card not present pricing typically runs higher than card present. Clover publishes no fee online ordering at every restaurant tier and Shift4 describes its online ordering as commission free, and processing lands on both of them.

Support terms sit on our quote as a line you can read before you sign. Shift4 publishes 24 hour in house technical support, and Clover publishes 24 hour support for its merchants. What we add on top is local: a real person calls you back within two hours, Monday to Saturday, 8am to 7pm Central.

Depends on the platform and on the agreement you signed. If you are already on Shift4 Dine or Clover, send us your last full statement and your contract. We will tell you straight whether moving the relationship helps you, or whether sitting tight until your term ends is the better move. Sometimes waiting wins and we will say so.

Because a sticker price would be a lie. Your processing cost moves with average ticket, card mix and volume. Your software cost moves with how many terminals and handhelds your floor plan needs. So we publish the vendor figures we can source, walk you through the arithmetic, and quote your restaurant on a written four line breakdown.