Custom Restaurant POS vs Square, Toast and Lightspeed: Real Costs for Canadian Restaurants

Most restaurants should start with an off-the-shelf POS

We build custom POS software, so it might be surprising to hear us say this: for most new restaurants, an off-the-shelf POS like Square, Toast, Lightspeed or Clover is the right first choice. You can be taking orders the same week, the hardware is standardized, and support is built in.

A custom POS starts to make sense when the off-the-shelf model stops fitting the way your restaurant actually works. This guide is about telling those two situations apart.

What off-the-shelf POS systems cost

Published restaurant plans in Canada start low and scale with features and locations. At the time of writing, review sites list Square for Restaurants from free to about CA$149 per month per location, Lightspeed Restaurant from about CA$69 to CA$399 or more per month, and Toast and Clover from free plans upwards. Pricing changes often, so always confirm on the vendor's own site.

The subscription is only part of the cost. On top of it you pay card processing fees on every transaction, hardware, and add-ons for things like online ordering, loyalty or advanced reporting. For a busy restaurant, processing fees usually outweigh the subscription many times over, every month, for as long as you use the system.

What a custom POS costs

A custom restaurant POS with a web admin panel typically costs US$2,500 to US$6,000 (about CA$3,400 to CA$8,200) as a one-time build, depending on order types, integrations and the number of stations. After that, support and maintenance usually runs US$120 to US$250 per month.

The key difference is ownership. You own the software, there is no per-terminal licence, and adding another cashier station does not add another subscription. You still pay your payment processor, but you can choose and negotiate that provider rather than being tied to the POS vendor's.

When a custom POS is worth it

These are the situations where we see restaurants outgrow an off-the-shelf POS.

• Your ordering workflow does not fit the standard model, for example custom combos, multi-step pizza or donair builds, or in-house delivery with your own drivers
• You run several stations or locations and the per-terminal and per-location fees keep adding up
• Internet reliability is a problem and you need the till to keep taking orders offline
• You want menus, prices, tax and staff managed centrally from one web dashboard
• You need integrations the vendor does not support, or you want to own your sales data outright

What a custom POS should include

If you go custom, these are the features we consider non-negotiable for a restaurant, and the ones our own POS is built around.

• Offline-first order taking that queues locally and syncs automatically
• Pickup, delivery and walk-in orders in one ticket flow
• Kitchen display routing so tickets reach the back of house instantly
• Delivery driver assignment
• Roles for admin, cashier and driver
• A web admin panel for menus, tax, staff and real-time sales reporting

A real example in Burlington, Ontario

Our restaurant POS and its admin panel have been running at Bocconcino Pizza & Donairs in Burlington, Ontario since June 2026. It handles pickup, delivery and walk-in orders, routes tickets to the kitchen, assigns delivery drivers and keeps working through internet drops. We built it, and we still maintain it. If you are weighing up the same decision, we are happy to walk you through it honestly, including telling you if an off-the-shelf system would serve you better.