Square vs Clover: Which POS is Better in 2024?

In the battle of Square vs Clover, Square is the best POS for small businesses – but only just. Both POS systems performed extremely well in our research and user testing, but Square’s free forever plan (which includes a card reader) and reliable support center make it the safest option for smaller businesses and pop-up sellers – especially if they’re after a simple iPad-based POS system.

This doesn’t mean Clover’s out of the running though. Clover is easier to use than Square, and its catalog of industry-specific features makes it the best POS for established retail stores or restaurants. However, since Clover sells combined software and hardware packages, its entry fees are much higher than Square’s, which may deter smaller ventures with tighter budgets.

The team at Tech.co has spent thousands of hours researching the POS market, with a specific eye on the needs of small businesses. Read on to find out how Square vs Clover compare when it comes to pricing, features, hardware, and more.

• Major Differences: Square vs Clover
• Best Value for Money: Square
• Best POS Hardware: Both
• Best for Omnisellers: Clover
• Best Software Features: Clover
• Best Ease of Use: Draw
• Best Help & Support: Square
• Alternatives to Square and Clover
• Research Methodology & Testing
• The Verdict

Square vs Clover: How Do They Compare?

Here’s how Square and Clover compare when it comes to what they’re best for, as well as their pricing and hardware.

• Square wins for small businesses: Our researchers found that Square is the best POS for small businesses overall. However, due to its affordable hardware and generous free package, the POS is especially suitable for micro-businesses like food trucks and market stalls.
• Clover is best for established businesses: After using Clover, we found the POS system is ideal for businesses looking to grow and expand their reach. This is because it offers some of the best customer loyalty features we’ve come across.
• Ease of use: Clover is easier to use than Square, so it will be the preferable choice for businesses after a very low learning curve.
• Square pricing: Square’s free plan doesn’t charge any monthly fees. Instead, you pay processing fees on each sale – 1.75% on card-based transactions and 2.5% on manual keyed-in sales.
• Clover pricing: Clover, meanwhile, charges for its POS software packages, as well as charging transaction fees on top of those monthly payments.
• Hardware: Square’s hardware packages tend to be cheaper than Clover’s, which might make a big difference if your business is just starting out. It may seem too good to be true, but you can even get your first Square card reader for free.

Who should use Square?

• New businesses with smaller budgets
• Small vendors like market stalls and food trucks
• Businesses that need queries to be resolved quickly

Who should use Clover?

• Users who want a shallow learning curve
• Businesses with high turnovers
• Established retail stores

Where Does Clover Stand Out?

Clover’s POS is strong across the board, but it really shines when it comes to customer loyalty. Clover’s one-of-a-kind mobile app lets you tailor your reward program to your needs and gives customers multiple ways to redeem perks.

We were so impressed with these capabilities that we determined Clover to be one of the best POS systems out there for businesses wanting to grow their customer base.

Unlike Square’s loyalty program, Clover’s basic program is completely free too — but this doesn’t mean it sacrifices quality. According to the provider’s data, this helps to drive up purchases by up to 90%, making the POS a reliable option for businesses looking to expand their audience and bottom line.

Clover offers a great user experience too. When we tested out Clover, we were really impressed with how straightforward its software was to use, and how easy it was to carry out tasks – from basic duties like adding items to a till, to advanced tasks like issuing gift cards and refunds.

The Clover POS hardware suite includes terminals, scanners, and accessories. Source: Tech.co’s testing

Clover also offers a great selection of hardware options – lending itself well to pop-up sellers right up to large locations and chains. The fact Clover retails its own physical terminal also helps to give it a leg up over tablet-based systems like Toast and Zettle By PayPal.

Where Does Square Stand Out?

Consistently ranking well in our research for both restaurant and retail establishments, Square is our top pick for small businesses overall. However, it’s an especially strong POS for food trucks and pop-up stores because of its intuitive software, simple iPad set-up, and affordable price tag.

With affordable monthly rates, an excellent free plan, and a free Square card reader for new customers, our testers gave Square a perfect score for value for money, and found that it’s the best POS we’ve evaluated for businesses just starting out.

Square also excels when it comes to help and support. The Square lets you resolve queries via email, phone lines, and a chatbot available 24/7. This gives Square’s support center a leg up over Clover’s, which doesn’t currently offer live, 24/7 support.

Best Value for Money: Square

While both Clover’s and Square’s paid plans start at $60 per month, businesses can get started with Square for absolutely free. This is why we’ve determined Square is better bang for your buck overall. Square also lets businesses get started with a free Magstripe card reader, letting them accept swipe payments without having to cover any expenses up-front.

Compared to Clover’s entry price of $60 per month for retail businesses, or $105 per month for food businesses, Square’s rock-bottom entry price makes it hard to beat when it comes to value.

There’s lots to discuss when it comes to Square’s and Clover’s pricing plans though, so read on for a granular breakdown of their different pricing plans and additional fees.

Find out more – How Much Does a POS System Cost?

Square’s pricing plans

For a full overview of Square’s pricing plans, take a look at our comparison table below:

Clover’s pricing plans

Check out how Clover’s pricing packages compare side-by-side below in our comparison table:

Square vs Clover: In-depth plan comparison 

Square and Clover offer retail and restaurant-specific packages. We break them down below:

For retail

Square and Clover both offer three different options for retail businesses. Square’s plans include Free, Plus, and Premium, while Clover’s packages are named Starter, Standard, and Advanced. 

Both Square and Clover offer advanced POS capabilities like team management, retail reporting, and enhanced inventory controls. However, our research suggests that Clover’s retail features are slightly stronger overall. All of Clover’s retail plans include built-in advanced loyalty tools including customer databases and feedback functions though, making the POS better for growing retail stores.

Clover’s plans include hardware too, which bumps up their overall price. However, Clover’s transaction rates are more affordable than Square’s which makes the POS a better value solution for stores that sell high volumes of goods.

Learn more about Clover’s pricing plans.

For restaurants

While Square’s restaurant pricing structure is straightforward, with the provider offering a Free, Plus, and Premium plan for food businesses, Clover’s is a little more complex. Clover offers six software and hardware plans in total: a Starter, Standard, and Advanced tier for counter service businesses, and a Starter, Standard, and Advanced tier for full-service restaurants.

Clover and Square offer a broad range of restaurant-specific features including order management, menu management, and online ordering. Both providers cater to different food businesses too, with Clover offering different hardware and software options to counter style and full-service businesses, and Square letting you select your specialty, even catering for takeaway businesses and ghost kitchens.

While the victor in this category is anything but clear-cut, after testing the features out for ourselves, we think Clover has slightly more advanced restaurant features. Both providers offer competitive packages, but Clover goes above and beyond by offering notable capabilities that Square lacks like ingredient-level tracking, and advanced table floor-management. 

If you think you’d benefit from these specialized features, it’d probably be worth paying a premium for Clover’s packages, as they’ll prove to be a worthy investment over time.

Read our Square POS pricing guide to learn about its plans in greater detail, or scroll down to see how Square vs Clover’s pricing plans compare.

Square’s POS app let me manage my floor plan, but it lacked some of the advanced customization tools. Source: Tech.co user testing

Transaction fees

Square and Clover actually charge pretty similar transaction fees, with Square charging businesses 2.6% + 10¢ for card-based transactions, and Clover’s Payment and Essentials plan doing the same. This rate, however, drops to 2.3% +10¢ for users of Clover’s more premium Payments Plus, Register, Quick-Service, and Full-Restaurant plans. 

Square charges a slightly higher 3.5% +15¢ for manual keyed-in sales, while Clover’s fees rise to 3.5%+10%. However, if your business processes more than $250,000 in card sales and an average ticket size of more than $15, you might be eligible for custom rates from Square.

Add-ons

Many of Square’s features, including important scheduling, marketing, loyalty, and payroll tools, are only available as add-ons. The price of these apps will vary depending on their function, but prices can exceed $35 per month. Unfortunately, Clover charges you for lots of features too, with the provider charging $99 per month for its full loyalty program, and many other tools only being unlocked at a premium. 

I could browse hundreds of third-party integrations through Square POS’s app marketplace. Source: Tech.co’s user testing

Best POS Hardware: Clover

Both Square and Clover produce their own lines of POS hardware, so choosing between the two is no easy feat. Read on to see how they compare.

Card readers

Clover charges businesses $49 for its Go chip and contactless payment reader, whereas Square’s Card Reader is available for free to all new customers. This is a great perk for businesses just getting started. Beyond this, Square card readers for magstripe cost as little as $10 per go, and plug directly into iPads, while standalone readers for contactless and chip transactions cost $49.

Terminals

For smaller businesses looking for an all-in-one POS device, Clover Flex carries out register, terminal, and printer functions, all for $599. Also, The Clover Mini, which costs $799, functions both as a touchscreen interface for you and your employees to enter transactions, as well as a chip and contactless reader (pictured below).

The Square Terminal is a similar device that also takes payments and prints receipts, and is available to businesses from $299. Although, you’ll need to pay an extra $39 if you want to connect it to the internet using an ethernet cable.

Hardware kits

For slightly larger businesses, Clover offers two hardware main kits, Clover Station Solo and Clover Station Duo.

Since Clover has recently combined hardware and software packages, the price of these kits is steeper than many POS alternatives. For instance, Clover Station Solo, which features a 14″ display screen, a cash drawer, a receipt printer and access to the providers Register software plan costs $1,669 + $49.95 per month for retail businesses and $1,699+ $84.95 per month for full-service restaurants. 

Station Duo, on the other hand, is a two-screen POS system with an additional receipt printer, cash drawer, card reader, and access to Clover’s Register software plan. This kit will cost businesses $1,799 + $49.95 per month.

Alternatively, Square’s Stand Kit starts at $579 and includes a Square stand, cash drawer, receipt paper, and printer, while Square’s Register Kit includes a register, cash drawer, and receipt printer for $1,389 (pictured below).

Tied with Square, Clover was found to offer the best hardware options in our research. Image: Tech.co testing

As Square POS runs best on an iPad, though, especially if you opt for its new 2nd generation Square Stand which is easier to set up and more durable than previous models. You’ll need an iPad to get started too, if you don’t already – with the cheapest new iPad starting at $329.

All told, Square and Clover are pretty similar when it comes to hardware – but in our opinion, Square is still the provider to go for, especially if you already own an iPad.

Best for Omnisellers: Clover

With research collected by Think With Google indicating that omnichannel strategies generate around 80% more in-store visits from customers, finding a POS with cross-channel sales tools has never been more important for a business’s bottom line.

Square is a solid option for omnisellers, offering a dedicated ordering platform that lets you accept orders both online and in person. However, if your business takes online orders, we would opt for Clover over Square. Clover Online Ordering makes the process streamlined and easy by building your online ordering webpage for you and even providing end-to-end ordering management. The process for customers is easy to navigate too, limiting potential profit loss from cart abandonment.

Best Software Features: Clover

While both providers offer an excellent array of POS features, Clovers has slightly more premium restaurant and retail-focused capabilities. It’s a close race though, and Square’s expansive app store will help you fill in any potential gaps.

Sales

Both Clover and Square allow you to accept the same payment methods, including Visa, Mastercard, and American Express cards all at the same rates — and even Apple and Google Pay contactless transactions.

The two systems also allow you to process refunds and returns easily and accept online orders and digital gift cards. Businesses are able to customize the design of their gift cards too to match their branding, and unlike with POS systems like Epos Now, the process isn’t outsourced to an external app.

Both Square and Clover have recently introduced Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) integrations, letting qualified retailers split up payments into smaller, more affordable installments. Both providers offer strong hospitality-focused payment features too. For example, Square and Clover let vendors accept QR payments, allowing their customers to pay at their own convenience.

In August 2023, Clover added HIPPA support for ecommerce payments too, providing greater opportunities for healthcare merchants by letting them set up recurring charges, store card-on-file info security, and use Clover’s APIs for payment solutions. Ultimately, this combined with Clover’s slightly more affordable transaction fees gives it the leg up over Square in this category, but it’s a very close call.

Analytics and reporting

Both POS providers excel in performance monitoring, with Square and Clover scoring full marks for reporting and analytics and reporting in our independent research.

Square’s handy dashboard (pictured below) lets you track various important metrics from your sales and profit margins to your inventory levels. Similarly to Square, Clover’s analytics tools also allow you to analyze sale data in real-time, while also letting you track sales across locations and check tips. You can use both of the systems to analyze performance by team members too, helping managers to boost success by identifying and rewarding good behavior.

Clover reporting tools helped us track everything from sales to average ticket size. Source: Tech.co testing

Customer loyalty

Both Clover and Square let businesses reward customers through their custom loyalty programs. Specifically, the providers let you launch email campaigns, customize customer awards, and encourage repeat buying with automated text.

However, Clover goes one step further by giving customers access to ‘Clover Rewards’, a unique app that tallies points automatically and lets buyers earn perks in multiple ways. Clover lets you create robust customer databases too, consolidating its position as the best POS loyalty system on the market.

Unlike Square – which offers customer loyalty features as a paid add-on these privileges are completely free and included within Clover’s basic package. This, in addition to Clover’s more robust CRM offering, helps it to beat Square in this category.

The Clover Customers page offers options to customize data. Source: Tech.co testing

Third-party integrations

69% of restaurants consider software integrations to be the most important factor when buying a POS. Both Square and Clover have some of the best app marketplaces in the industry. Square’s App Marketplace has a seemingly limitless range of apps that you can connect to your POS, including from Wix and BigCommerce to Mailchimp to Ecwid. Clover’s app store also covers everything from payroll apps such as Gusto to recruitment apps such as JazzHR, but restricts access depending on the pricing plan, making its potential more limited than Square’s.

I could browse hundreds of third-party integrations through Square POS’s app marketplace. Source: Tech.co’s testing

Best User Experience: Draw

When we put Square vs Clover head to head for usability, we found that Square’s system is slightly more user-friendly for retailers.

Square’s iPad and iPhone-based setup make it a breeze for most people to get their heads around. Like its hardware, Square’s software is also incredibly minimalist and sleek. You won’t find yourself confronted with loads of options on every screen – instead, things are pared back and digestible. However, while this makes everyday tasks super easy, it can mean that more advanced jobs can require a fair amount of tapping through different menus.

Unfortunately, Square’s Restaurant package was a lot less intuitive to use than its Retail version. When we tested our Square Restaurant for ourselves it took us quite a while to set up its front end, and we were met with a lot more roadblocks when carrying out basic tasks like logging orders and taking payments.

In comparison, we found it much easier to execute tasks with Clover Restaurant, as its software was extremely intuitive and easy to navigate. You’re also able to edit the text size on Clover’s front end which makes it more accessible overall.

How Square’s backend looks on a tablet. Source: SquareUp

Clover’s UI is slightly more complex, but should be eminently digestible for most people.

All told, there’s not a lot to choose between the two providers. However, we think Square will likely be easier for most people to get to grips with quickly.

How Clover works on two of its terminals. Source: Clover

Best Help and Support: Square

Our research found that Square is definitely better than Clover when you’re in a pinch – especially if you operate outside of traditional business hours.

Not only does Square offer 24/7 live chat options and phone options, but it also gives users access to a robust library of resources through its support centre. In contrast, Clover lacks live chat tools and while it does offer phone support, it’s only available from 8 am to 9 pm Monday to Saturday.

POS Alternatives to Clover and Square

Clover and Square aren’t the only POS providers on the market. In fact, there are more POS options for growing businesses than you can count.

For Restaurants

If you’re a smaller vendor looking to dodge monthly payments, Zettle is another user-friendly POS that only charges businesses as they earn. Alternatively, for large hospitality businesses with advanced needs, Toast will be a great fit. The POS provider performed the best in our hospitality-focused research due to its excellent array of Android hardware, seamless user experience, and generous free plan.

Read our full summary of the best restaurant POS systems, or see how they compare at a glance in our table below:

For Retail

While Clover and Square and the best retail POS systems we received, Shopify is a solid alternative – especially if you’re also selling online. The POS offers industry-leading inventory management tools and its user experience also gives Clover’s a run for its money, making it a great contender for POS beginners.

SpotOn is another worthy contender. The POS offers tons of packages for businesses in different sectors, making it a great option for niche retailers like jewelers or apparel outlets, and it lets you get started with a hardware package for completely free too.

Visit our guide to the best retail POS systems for a thorough comparison, or check out the table below to quickly see how they compare:

Research Methodology & Testing

We don’t just throw out verdicts at Tech.co. All of the products we feature have been researched and user tested extensively by our in-house team of experts, so we’re able to provide you with the most valuable information possible. We shed a little light on our research process below.

Before we make POS recommendations, we identify the top solutions on the market and compare them across six main areas. They are as follows:

• Features – What general and industry-specific tools does the software offer and are they of a high quality?
• Hardware – What hardware options does a provider offer? Are they user-friendly and compatible with a wide range of devices?
• Price – How much is the provider’s average price plan? Does it offer a free plan or a temporary trial?
• Customer satisfaction – How competitive are the system’s help and support options? Are customers happy with the product?
• Help & Support – How robust is a provider’s help center? What support channels are available to businesses, and is help available around the clock?
• Usability – Is the POS easy to use and get started on? I.e, is the software intuitive and easy to navigate?

After researching the providers against these main criteria and user-testing each system, we award each POS system an overall 5-star rating and issue them scores for each category. By doing so, we’re able to see which solutions are stronger for businesses of different sizes and across different industries. These scores can also be used to help businesses decipher which POS system might best fulfill their requirements.