Ask a restaurant owner what their website costs and the answer is usually a monthly figure that includes the till, the card processing, the online ordering and "the website". It is one bill, so it feels like one product. It is not: it is a contract for the operating system of the restaurant, plus a page with prices on it, sold together because the page is the cheapest thing in the bundle.
That matters when something changes — a new owner, a bad season, a move, or simply a decision that the $89 a month is not buying enough. The page can be replaced in an afternoon. The contract is the part with a term.
What the contracts actually say
Not brochures. The documents each vendor publishes, read on 14 November 2026. Where a number is quoted, it is quoted from the vendor's own text.
| Vendor | The term | Leaving early |
|---|---|---|
| Toast Merchant Agreement §8.1, §8.4 (updated 10 September 2025) | The initial term is whatever the order form sets; after that the agreement renews for successive one-year periods, and either side can stop it with 30 days' written notice before the term ends. | An early termination fee equal to the remaining software subscription fees for the rest of the term — or, on a pay-as-you-go subscription, $150 for each month remaining — plus any processing fee tied to software financing. |
| Toast support.toasttab.com — POS contract and renewal terms (updated 26 October 2026) | In the vendor's own words: "Toast does not offer a month-to-month option after the initial term." | |
| Clover clover.com/pricing FAQ | The subscription term, then at the end of it you either purchase or return the equipment. | "Subscriptions are non-cancelable and ineligible for refunds." And at the end of the term you must tell Clover at least 30 days before if you are not continuing, or the term extends at the same monthly charge. |
| Square squareup.com/us/en/pricing | Published plans are monthly: Free $0, Plus $49, Premium $149 per location, with in-person rates from 2.6% + 15¢. | "No hidden fees or locked-in contracts. Cancel or switch anytime." |
| MapToSite this site | None: the Card page is $0, the kit is one payment. | Nothing to terminate. The page stays up; the edit link keeps working. |
Three things follow from that table, and none of them is "POS companies are bad".
- Lock-in is not a rumour; it is a clause. It is in §8.4, in a FAQ, or not there at all — and it differs by vendor and by the order form you signed. The pricing page will not tell you; the document will.
- The clause is about the software, not the food. What is being financed is hardware and a subscription. A menu page is not part of that bargain in any technical sense, even when it arrives on the same invoice.
- The exit fee is proportional to time, not to use. "$150 for each month remaining" is a number you can compute before signing: two years left on a pay-as-you-go plan is $3,600, printed in the agreement, payable whether or not the restaurant opens on Mondays.
Read your own order form first. The initial term is set there — the agreement only says it exists. If you are being sold a POS this week, the two questions to ask in writing are: how many months is the initial term, and what is the early termination fee in dollars. A salesperson who will not put both in an email is telling you something.
What the menu page actually has to do
Strip it back and a restaurant's page has five jobs, none of which involve a till:
2. Say when you are open — including the closed day that the internet always gets wrong.
3. Say where you are — with a Directions button that opens the customer's own maps app.
4. Let them call — a phone number that dials when tapped, because half of them will.
5. Be the thing a QR code and a Google listing can point at — one address that never changes.
Every one of those is static text. Static text is the cheapest thing to serve on the internet, which is why it is strange that it is sold by the month.
Google's rules make the page matter more than the POS
Google's Business Profile has a menu editor — for food and drink businesses — where you add sections, dishes and prices; the Help page says changes can take 24–48 hours to appear on Maps and Search. It also says something worth reading twice: Google may transcribe menu data from your business website so that it appears on your profile, with an opt-out if you do not want that.
Read that as a shop owner and the priority becomes obvious. If Google can take the menu from your website, then your website is the version of the truth; the POS is a copy of it that also takes orders. Two more lines from the same guidelines apply to the fields around the menu: the business description must not contain links, and the name must match what is on the sign.
The chain that results is short and does not touch a till: your page → the menu link on your Business Profile → a QR code on a table or a door. Break it anywhere and the customer lands on something that is not a menu; keep it and every printed piece in the shop sells from one price list.
The independent route, in order
- Paste the Google Maps link into the builder. The name and a working Directions button come from the link; the rest you type.
- Type the price list — one item per line, price at the end. Twelve lines is the useful ceiling for a page read on a phone, and the printed sheet takes the rest.
- Type the hours the way you say them out loud. The page turns that into "open now · until 9 pm", which is the single most-checked line on any restaurant page.
- Publish, keep the edit key, and put the address in three places: the website field on your Business Profile, the Instagram bio, and a QR code on the door.
- Keep the POS for the till. Nothing above asks it to change. Orders still come in where they came in; the difference is that the prices the internet sees are yours to edit — at 6pm, from a phone, without a support ticket.
That last point is the practical one. A price change inside a POS-and-website bundle usually means either a ticket to the vendor or a menu editor that lives behind the same login as the till, with the same release cycle. A page you hold an edit link to changes in a minute, and a static QR code keeps working through the change because it encodes the address, not the price.
The arithmetic, with the published numbers
Three years of the software line only — not processing, not hardware, not the food cost.
| What you pay for | Per month | 3 years | What stops when you stop paying |
|---|---|---|---|
| Square Plus (published) | $49 | $1,764 | The POS features, not the page you also put prices on |
| Square Premium (published) | $149 | $5,364 | Same, with lower card rates and more support |
| Toast or Clover software tier | quoted | per your order | Under the clauses above, the term runs whether you use it or not |
| MapToSite Card — menu page only | $0 | $0 | Nothing; there is one credit line in the footer |
| MapToSite turnkey kit — page plus print | — | $49 once | Nothing; the files are yours and the page stays up |
None of this says a POS is overpriced. A till that runs cards, prints to the kitchen, tracks stock and reports on covers is doing real work, and $49–$149 a month for that work can be cheap. The point is narrower: the menu page is not that work, and buying it inside a contract that has a term and an exit fee is how a shop ends up paying for a page it could have owned.
If you want the same arithmetic with your own numbers — your monthly figure, your remaining term, your table count — the three-year calculator does it on one screen and stores nothing you type.
Two minutes, no email: your monthly fee over three years, next to a one-off.
When the POS is the right answer
Worth saying plainly, because a page that oversold itself would deserve the refund: buy the POS when you need table ordering with payment, modifiers and kitchen tickets, stock that decrements, staff tips and per-cover reporting. That is a different product from a menu page, and no PDF replaces it.
What the POS does not need to own is the thing your customer reads before they arrive. Keep that separate and the contract question becomes smaller: you are paying for the till's features, not for the right to say what a bowl of noodles costs.
Questions we get asked
Do I need a POS to have a menu page?
No. Five static things — prices, hours, address, a phone number and one address that a QR code and a Google listing can point at — do not require a till.
Can I cancel a restaurant POS contract early?
Per your order form and the vendor's termination section. Toast: remaining software subscription fees for the term, or $150 × months remaining on pay-as-you-go. Clover: subscriptions are non-cancelable and ineligible for refunds. Square: no locked-in contract. Read your own order form — it sets the term.
Does Google need my POS to show my menu?
No. The menu editor is part of the Business Profile, changes take 24–48 hours to appear, and Google may transcribe menu data from your website — which is an argument for the website being accurate and yours.
Can the page take orders and payments?
Not this one: no cart, no table map, no card form. The POS keeps that job. The page answers how much, when, where and how to call.
What happens to my page if I stop paying?
The Card page is $0 and has nothing to cancel. Board ($6.99) and Sign ($13.99) are monthly and cancel any time; the page at /s/yourshop keeps answering either way. The kit is a one-off — nothing to stop.
Is the $49 kit a subscription?
No. One payment, delivered within 24 hours: the live page, the print files and an edit link you keep. The page stays on free hosting afterwards.
Related reading: QR menu print sizes in millimetres, the website and menu link on your Business Profile, what a café's menu page should cost in 2026, and the three-year calculator.
The page, without a contract
Send a Maps link, your price list and your phone number. Within 24 hours: the live mobile page, the A4 QR poster, the print menu, the table cards, the tents and the rest of the fifteen pieces — $49 once, no subscription, nothing auto-renewing. A shop with no tables gets the eight-file version at the same price.
Try the page before you decide — thirty seconds, free, and it stays free:
Create a page — free Restaurant pages See the samples
Sources, all read on 14 November 2026. Toast: pos.toasttab.com/merchant-agreement (last updated 10 September 2025) §8.1 — initial term as set in the Order, automatic one-year renewals, 30 days' written notice not to renew; §8.4 — early termination fee equal to the remaining software subscription fees for the term, or $150 multiplied by the number of months remaining on a pay-as-you-go subscription, plus any processing fee related to software financing; §6.1 — fees are non-cancelable and non-refundable except as provided. Toast support article "Toast End User License Agreement & Guest Terms of Service" (updated 26 October 2026) — "Toast does not offer a month-to-month option after the initial term." Clover: clover.com/pricing FAQ — "Subscriptions are non-cancelable and ineligible for refunds"; at the end of the subscription term the merchant must inform Clover at least 30 days before the end to return or purchase equipment, otherwise the term is extended at the same monthly charge. Square: squareup.com/us/en/pricing — "No hidden fees or locked-in contracts. Cancel or switch anytime."; plans Square Free $0, Square Plus $49, Square Premium $149 per location per month, in-person tap/dip/swipe 2.6% + 15¢, 2.5% + 15¢ and 2.4% + 15¢ respectively. Google: support.google.com/business/answer/9455840 (menu editor — food and drink businesses, 24–48 hours for changes to display, menu from a photo or PDF is an experimental feature under the Generative AI Additional Terms, and Google may transcribe menu data from your business website with an opt-out) and answer/3038177 (guidelines — no links in the business description, the name must match real-world signage). Three-year totals are 36 months at the stated monthly rate, before tax, and exclude card processing, hardware and third-party apps. Toast and Clover are trademarks of their owners; MapToSite is not affiliated with any of the vendors named. This page is not legal advice: your order form and the agreement it references are the documents that bind you.