Clover Review (2025): Our Top-Rated POS Hardware

We found Clover offers high-quality hardware through our hands-on testing, alongside a card processing rate that undercuts many top US POS system competitors, such as Square. However, its per‑device fees and paid data export upgrade can mean that those after the most advanced tools out of the box might find costs creeping upwards.

Read on for the full breakdown of Clover’s strongest features, notable quirks and any hidden costs to consider, compared with the competition.

How Much Does Clover Cost? Plans, Hardware, Processing and the Extras To Watch

Clover’s software pricing starts at $29.95 per month (Essentials plan) for basic retail or service businesses and $89.95 per month (Restaurant Growth plan) for hospitality.

You can run those plans on any Clover device you already own or finance new hardware from $16 to $95 per month for 36 months, or buy it outright from $349 (Go and countertop Mini) up to $1,899 (dual‑screen Station Duo). Each extra device adds $11.95 to $19.95/month unless it’s a Go reader.

Below are the four plans and their prices compared in a table for legibility, including the transaction fees you’ll have with each option.

Clover POS software plans

Each additional Clover device adds $11.95 to $19.95 per month (Go readers exempt).

Clover hardware and bundle pricing

Besides those base software plans, Clover also offers the chance to purchase hardware independently or as part of an overall software-hardware bundle price. Here’s an outline of the costs you can expect for each device and bundle option:

Financing lets you start with $0 down; an outright purchase avoids the 36‑month commitment.

Extra costs to note

There are a few extra add-ons that could be purchased, although Clover is tight-lipped on the exact costings for some of them. Here’s what we know:

• Additional devices: +$11.95 or $19.95 per month each (Go readers exempt)
• Reporting Plus export pack: Required for scheduled or raw‑data exports
• Rapid Deposit: Optional instant funding at 1.75 % of the payout
• Accessories: Scales, kitchen printers, barcode scanners, etc. can be financed from $20 to $23 per month for 36 months or bought outright.

Does Clover offer good value for money?

For initial entry costs, Clover can look pretty appealing. You can pick up a Mini countertop for $45 per month over 36 months (or $849 outright) and layer the Essentials software at $29.95 per month, so your fixed cost to open is roughly $75 per month (plus 2.3% to 2.6% + $0.10 on each transaction).

That startup cost is lower than Toast (hardware bundles begin at $105+ per month) and Lightspeed (hardware purchase costs plus $69 per month software).

On processing alone, Clover’s 2.3% rate on restaurant bundles undercuts Square’s 2.6% + $0.10 swipe fee by 0.3%. In real terms, that would amount to a saving of $300 a year per $100,000 in card sales.

However, that equation flips somewhat once you scale. Each extra Clover device adds $11.95 to  $19.95 per month. Restaurant Growth software is $89.95 per month before any add‑ons, and users who need scheduled exports must buy the Reporting Plus upgrade.

For instance, if you were to stack three registers, two Flex handhelds and a Station Duo, then you’re looking at north of $200 per month in device fees alone, a cost that free‑software rivals like Square or Zettle simply don’t have. Add the lock‑in to processing (switch acquirer, swap hardware) fees, and Clover’s long‑run total cost of ownership starts to rival Toast or SpotOn.

Ultimately, Clover offers the best value for merchants who want premium hardware, plan to run just one or two devices per location and will benefit from the lower card rate. Large fleets or ultra‑lean pop‑ups may pay less over time by sticking with Square or Zettle and their zero‑software‑fee model (depending on the exact features you require).

What Are Clover’s Key Features?

Clover’s strengths cluster around day-to-day control and scalability, with some robust stock and margin tracking, automatic offline payments, fast kitchen screens and flexible floor/table tools for hospitality. That’s not all, either, with plenty of other key features on offer: let’s analyse them one by one.

Top‑tier hardware ecosystem, including own‑brand stations, handhelds and customer displays

Clover stands out for its hardware more than any other POS we tested: every core component (station, handheld, printer, kitchen display system (KDS)) is Clover‑built, sold as a bundle and plug‑and‑play.

That tight integration earned it the highest hardware marks in both our US retail and hospitality rankings, beating Square, Toast and Lightspeed on accessory breadth and quality.

Merchants can mix a 15″ Station Duo with a fingerprint‑login register for speed, add Clover Flex handhelds for table‑side or queue‑busting sales and slot in own‑brand USB/Ethernet/Bluetooth printers. No third‑party workarounds are needed.

Unlike most rivals, Clover lets you load branded promos or custom screensavers, so any upselling opportunities and loyalty callouts are front and center while the guest taps to pay.

Plus, every system (frontend, backend; on devices or on the web) is synced near-instantaneously. Add a product once, and it appears in real time on every register, the cloud dashboard and your branded web shop. The likes of Square and Lightspeed also sync inventory, but only Clover pre‑configures the online storefront at no extra software cost.

In short, if premium, cohesive hardware (and the polished look and functionality that comes with it) is a must, Clover is in a league of its own.

Real‑time inventory and profit tracking (built in, top‑scoring)

Clover is one of the few platforms that maxed out our inventory tests in both US retail and hospitality rankings, matching Lightspeed, Toast and Shopify, and edging ahead of Square, which lacks a native profit tool.

Every inventory control is baked in rather than bolted on as add-ons or via third parties. You can bulk‑upload SKUs, set low/no‑stock alerts, build modifier groups and even see cost‑and‑margin per item live on the dashboard.

Multi‑store owners get instant stock sync and automated re‑order points across locations, so you’re far less likely to oversell or sit on dead stock.

Competitors can match some of these functions, but often through paid add‑ons (Square) or third‑party apps (Epos Now). Clover offers them out of the box, which keeps workflows simpler and ongoing costs clearer.

However, we’d argue its ingredient‑level tracking is rather basic. Retail bundle/kit items and hospitality recipes are handled as separate SKUs rather than built-in “bills of material” type components, so changing one part doesn’t automatically write up costs.

Bulk updates feel clunky at scale, too. The spreadsheet import works, but testers flagged the template as “picky” (exact column order with no variant matrix upload), meaning large catalogues take longer to clean and re‑import than they do on Square or Lightspeed.

Always‑on sales via automatic offline mode with safeguards

Clover keeps taking payments even when the internet drops. Offline mode kicks in by itself, queues card transactions, then re‑processes them automatically once you’re back online.

Better still, it’s one of the few POS platforms in both our US retail and hospitality rankings to score full marks for offline reliability, due to two extra safeguards: the mode is automatic (no staff toggle required) and managers can set transaction‑size limits to reduce risk.

Square, by contrast, needs a manual switch and offers no built‑in limits, which is why it scored lower. Zettle scored zero for lacking an offline mode altogether.

Table plans and kitchen screens in sync with drag‑and‑drop floor editors

Front‑of‑house teams can build or tweak Clover’s floor plan right on the terminal: drag tables into place, change their shape, size, or label, then seat guests with a tap. These are all functions that helped Clover hit the upper tier for table management in our scoring criteria (with only color‑coding missing from its suite).

Once tickets are fired, they pop up on Clover’s built‑in KDS (should you have purchased one), which also earned a perfect score for offering native routing, layout editing and real‑time ticket‑time reports (without any paid add-ons or third‑party tablets).

Deep reporting and analytics out of the box (but custom exports cost extra)

Clover delivers the full reporting slate we were looking for, including sales summaries, item / category breakdowns, staff shift data, discount/void tracking, and refund logs, all live in the core dashboard.

As a result, Clover earned top marks for analytics in both our US retail and hospitality scorecards. Multi‑store owners can filter every report by location, register or employee without an add‑on, matching Lightspeed and outpacing Square’s pay‑extra Advanced pack.

Where you may feel a pinch is in custom data work. Exporting raw data to spreadsheets or scheduling emailed reports requires the paid Clover Reporting Plus upgrade. That’s something Lightspeed and Shopify include free, so users who live in Excel will need to budget for that bolt‑on.

Huge app marketplace with plug-in payroll, accounting, delivery and ecommerce covered

Clover and Square are the only two systems on both our US retail and hospitality lists that hit the top score for integrations. The former has a marketplace of 200+ apps covering everything from payroll (Gusto), sales‑tax automation (DAVO) and QuickBooks sync, to DoorDash delivery and WooCommerce/Shopify ecommerce integration.

That breadth lets you tailor Clover to your workflows. For instance, automatic sales‑tax payments or bespoke CRM can be integrated without waiting for Clover to create similar in-house tools.

The trade‑off could be budget creep. Many marketplace apps carry their own monthly fees, so while Clover’s base software is feature‑rich, stacking integrations can push total cost above what Square’s free or Shopify’s baked‑in tools might deliver.

Still, for merchants who value having a plentiful supply of potential add-ons for their point-of-sale system, Clover’s marketplace is second to none.

Robust staff management with fingerprint login (but tip pooling is manual)

Clover lets you build granular staff roles, toggle permissions in a few taps and clock employees in with the built‑in fingerprint scanner on the Station and Flex devices. It’s a perk our testers singled out for speed and security. That overall depth earned Clover high marks for employee management, sitting just behind Square’s perfect score.

However, while Clover supports on‑screen tip prompts and detailed gratuity reports, it won’t redistribute tips automatically across staff. Instead, you’ll need to pull the report and pool tips manually, unlike Square or Toast, which automate the split and payout.

Built‑in loyalty, gift cards and email/SMS marketing

Clover gives merchants most engagement tools out of the box: you can launch a points‑based loyalty program without extra fees, sell and redeem digital or physical gift cards, and run email or SMS campaigns straight from the dashboard.

That breadth put Clover in the top tier for customer‑engagement features across both our US retail and hospitality rankings, ahead of Epos Now’s pay‑extra setup and Zettle’s bare‑bones toolkit (lacks built-in email/SMS marketing or integrations for them either).

The slight downside is usability. In our hands‑on tests, reviewers liked the slick front‑end but said loyalty, discounts, and promotions “felt disjointed”, with key actions hiding in different corners of the back office. Some expected to apply discounts at the payment rather than the order level.

So, while Clover packs more engagement punch than most rivals, staff may need a jot of extra training to make those features run smoothly day to day.

How Is Clover’s Customer Support?

Clover offers six of the eight support channels we looked for, earning it a “good” coverage score in both our retail and hospitality rankings. Namely, those were:

• Round‑the‑clock phone support
• Email
• Live chat
• In‑platform quick help
• Video tutorials
• Searchable knowledge center

It also provides a full training mode so new staff can practise on a testing system without risking real data, something Square still lacks.

The two areas it is missing for support coverage are a public community forum and dedicated social media support (e.g. via X/Twitter or Facebook DMs). Still, that’s a solid array of coverage in our view, and the 24/7 availability of its phone line should hopefully mean any community support isn’t required.

How does Clover’s customer support perform?

Quality, not availability, is where Clover trails the leaders. In our live chat test (asking questions such as “How can I view my sales and revenue reports?”), a human agent replied after 30 seconds and supplied a mostly accurate answer.

That’s not a terrible return, though we did find Square’s AI bot answered the same question almost instantly and Lightspeed’s human chat hit the same accuracy in under 10 seconds.

Meanwhile, the knowledge center usually surfaces relevant articles on the first page, but still requires more clicks than Shopify’s or Lightspeed’s by comparison.

Overall, you can reach Clover 24/7 and train staff safely, but expect a brief wait for live‑chat help and be ready to dig a little deeper in the help docs compared with the fastest‑responding rivals.

How Does Clover Compare With Its Competitors?

How does Clover’s pricing compare with other POS systems?

Clover sits between “free‑to‑start” platforms and higher‑ticket restaurant suites. Its pay-monthly hardware finance means you can open with no upfront spend and the 2.3% + $0.10 in‑person rate on most bundles beats Square’s 2.6% and Lightspeed’s 2.6% to 2.9% ranges.

Where costs creep up is the software, since even Clover’s entry Essentials plan is a paid tier and each extra device adds a monthly fee. These are charges you don’t see with Square or Zettle. Similarly, restaurant owners also face a mandatory $89.95 per month software tier, which edges close to Toast and SpotOn pricing once you add employee licences.

As such, Clover is cheaper to process cards than most rivals and painless to start. But you’ll find its recurring software and per‑device fees mean total monthly spend can overtake the “forever‑free” options for larger setups.

How does Clover compare with other POS systems on features?

Operationally, Clover keeps pace with (or surpasses) the systems we tested. Its own‑brand hardware line‑up, built‑in inventory with live margin tracking, automatic offline mode and a vast app marketplace place it in the top tier, alongside Lightspeed and Square for retail, and Toast and Lightspeed in hospitality.

Where we found Clover falls short is just in its final finesse. For instance, tip pooling is still manual (Square and Toast automate it), exporting raw data requires a paid reporting upgrade (free on Lightspeed and Shopify) and some loyalty/discount workflows feel more scattered than Square’s streamlined flows.

If you need seamless tip automation, on‑the‑house exports or the very slickest front‑end for promotions, Square or Toast may edge ahead. But for merchants who value cohesive hardware, deep stock tools and “there’s‑an‑app‑for‑that” flexibility, Clover remains one of the most capable all‑rounders on the US market.

Our Methodology: How We Reviewed Clover POS