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Clover

TL;DR
  • Clover does publish a full rate card, vertical by vertical, at clover.com/pricing. Plenty of comparison content says it doesn't.
  • Card-present is 2.3% + 10c for restaurants and quick service. Entry retail and services plans are 2.6% + 10c, dropping to 2.3% + 10c on the higher tiers. Keyed and online is 3.5% + 10c across every vertical and every plan. All VENDOR.
  • Your actual rate is still reseller-dependent, and Clover says so on its own pricing page. Treat the published direct rates as your anchor. Anything above them is reseller markup.
  • Software plans run $0 to $129.85 a month. Hardware is published two ways per bundle: outright, or on a 36-month subscription. The subscription premium runs $227 to $3,622 depending on bundle. Clover's own FAQ confirms you don't own the hardware at term end.
  • The chargeback fee is the one number Clover genuinely doesn't publish, at any tier. Ask for it in dollars. Ask whether it's refunded on a win.

Clover is the POS you see in restaurants, retail shops and service businesses across the US. The hardware and app ecosystem are genuinely strong. Clover publishes its direct rates. What varies is who sells it to you, and what they add on top.

The rate card isn't the price. Your reseller is

Clover publishes direct rates. What you actually pay depends on who sold Clover to you, and Clover says so itself: "Contract terms and any termination fees can vary based on your service provider, whether Clover Direct or among our trusted partners including Citi, PNC, Wells Fargo."

So treat the published rates as an anchor, not a quote. Anything above them is your reseller's markup, and you can name the gap in the conversation.

All figures below were read on 2 August 2026. Full source list at the bottom of this page.

Clover's Published Rates​

Card-present, by vertical VENDOR​

VerticalBasic / StarterStandardAdvanced
Full-service restaurant2.3% + 10c2.3% + 10c2.3% + 10c
Quick-service restaurant2.3% + 10c2.3% + 10c2.3% + 10c
Retail2.6% + 10c2.3% + 10c2.3% + 10c
Personal services2.6% + 10c2.3% + 10c2.3% + 10c
Home and field services-2.5% + 10c2.3% + 10c

Clover's own headline on clover.com/pricing is "Pay as little as 2.3% + 10c per transaction," which the vertical tables bear out.

Keyed and online VENDOR​

3.5% + 10c, uniformly, across every vertical and every plan. The published card has no cheaper card-not-present tier to negotiate toward. That makes 3.5% + 10c a hard ceiling to hold a reseller to.

Software plans VENDOR​

PlanMonthly
Starter$0
Essentials$29.95
Services Growth$84.95
Retail Growth$84.95 to $104.90
Restaurant Growth$89.95 to $129.85

Hardware, and the subscription premium VENDOR figures, DERIVED arithmetic​

Clover publishes hardware two ways for each bundle: an outright price, or a 36-month subscription. Three published examples:

BundleSubscriptionOutrightSoftware on top
Retail Basic$16/mo x 36 = $576$349-
QSR Starter$135/mo x 36 = $4,860$849$89.95/mo
Full-service Advanced$354/mo x 36 = $12,744$4,447$129.85/mo

Do the arithmetic on Clover's own published prices. The 36-month subscription premium runs from $227 to $3,622, depending on the bundle. And Clover's FAQ confirms you don't own the hardware at term end.

That's the lease trap, quantified, from the vendor's own numbers. On the QSR Starter bundle you'd pay $4,860 over three years. The same hardware costs $849 outright. And you still wouldn't own it.

Other published fees​

ItemFigureTier
Rapid Deposit (instant payout)1.75% per transferVENDOR
Contract term on hardware promotions"Requires a 3-year contract". Auto-renews at the same monthly charge unless you give 30 days' noticeVENDOR
Dynamic currency conversion margin3.5% contracted marginREPORTED
Early termination fee, reseller plansroughly $295 to $595REPORTED
PCI fee, reseller plansabout $9.95/monthREPORTED
Chargeback feeNot published at any tierNOT PUBLISHED

The two reported reseller figures come from SMB Compare, a comparison and review site, updated July 2026. They describe reseller plans, not Clover Direct. That's exactly the distinction that matters here.

There's no Clover take rate to compute, and that itself is the finding

Fiserv no longer discloses any Clover payment volume or revenue figure in its FY2025 Form 10-K. "Annualized payment volume", "Clover revenue" and "Clover volume" all return nothing in the filing. Adyen's and Toast's filings each give you enough to derive a take rate; Fiserv's doesn't. So any Clover take rate you see quoted didn't come from the filing.

The same 10-K discloses pending securities litigation, In re Fiserv, Inc. Securities Litigation, No. 1:25-cv-06094. It alleges that statements about Clover growth were misleading. That's a pending allegation, not a finding. It's noted here only as disclosure context.

When to Use Clover​

You should use Clover if:

  • You need professional POS hardware, not a phone reader.
  • You run a restaurant, retail shop, or service business with a counter.
  • You want a full POS ecosystem with employee and inventory management.
  • You need multiple terminals or locations.
  • You want a wide selection of third-party POS apps.

Skip Clover if:

  • You're primarily online. 3.5% + 10c keyed is expensive, and Stripe at 2.9% + 30c or Shopify Payments is better.
  • You want a price that doesn't depend on which bank or ISO sold it to you.
  • You don't need dedicated hardware.
  • You want to avoid multi-year commitments. Clover's hardware promotions state a three-year requirement.

What to Ask For, In Writing​

Clover's published direct rates are your anchor, not your quote. How good your deal is depends on how far your reseller drifts from them. Get every one of these answered in writing, from the reseller, before any hardware ships.

0. Who Is Actually Selling You This​

Ask: "Am I contracting with Clover Direct, or with a bank or ISO? Who is the merchant of record?"

It goes first because it decides whether the published rates above apply to you at all. Clover's own pricing page names Citi, PNC and Wells Fargo as partner channels. A community bank, a national ISO and clover.com can produce three very different deals on identical hardware.

1. The Effective Rate, Not the Qualified Rate​

Ask: "What is my effective rate, including all markups, assessments, and monthly fees, on my actual card mix?"

ISOs advertise a "qualified" rate that applies only to basic debit. Most transactions land in mid-qualified or non-qualified buckets, which cost far more. The number that matters is total fees divided by total volume. A reseller who won't quote it in those terms is telling you something.

Better still, ask for interchange-plus rather than tiered. Ask for the markup as a percentage and a per-transaction figure. That's the only structure you can audit later.

2. Monthly Software Cost, Per Device​

Ask: "What is the monthly software plan cost, and is it charged per device or per account?"

Clover charges monthly software fees on top of processing. With multiple terminals, per-device billing multiplies. Get the plan name, the price, and the multiplier.

3. The Chargeback Fee NOT PUBLISHED​

Ask: "What does a chargeback cost, and is it refunded if I win?"

This is the one Clover figure that genuinely isn't published anywhere. It's absent from clover.com/pricing, all six vertical pricing pages, Clover's FAQ and third-party review coverage alike. No Clover-direct per-dispute fee appears at any tier. For reference, from vendors that do publish:

ProcessorCost of a chargeback
Helcim$0 if you win, $15 if you lose
Square$0, stated outright
Braintree$15
Stripe$15 to receive, plus $15 to counter
PayPal$15 on wallet disputes ($0 if you win), $20 on card chargebacks, $30 above a 1.5% ratio
Lightspeed$15, stated as a single fee covering the defence

All verified 2 August 2026. If your Clover quote comes back materially above $15, that's a negotiating point.

4. Contract Term and Early Termination Fee​

Ask: "What is the contract length, what is the early termination fee as a dollar figure or formula, and what notice do I have to give to stop it auto-renewing?"

Clover's own hardware promotion footnote states three things. A three-year contract is required. Hardware subscriptions are quoted on 36-month terms. And they auto-renew at the same monthly charge unless you give 30 days' notice. That notice window is the trap, not the renewal. Calendar it the day you sign.

Clover doesn't publish the ETF. It's REPORTED at roughly $295 to $595 on reseller plans by SMB Compare, a comparison site updated July 2026. Get your own number in writing. That range describes reseller plans generally, not your contract.

5. Is the Hardware Subscribed or Bought?​

Ask: "Am I buying this hardware or subscribing to it? What is the total amount payable over the term, and do I own it at the end?"

You can now check the answer against Clover's own published prices. That's new on this page, and it's the most useful thing on it.

Clover publishes both an outright price and a 36-month subscription price for each bundle. On its own figures the subscription premium runs $227 to $3,622 depending on bundle. And Clover's FAQ confirms you don't own the hardware at term end. On the QSR Starter bundle, $135 a month for 36 months is $4,860. Clover will sell you the same hardware outright for $849.

Get the total payable over the full term as one dollar figure. Compare it to Clover's own published outright price for the same bundle. If a reseller's subscription total is above Clover's, you now know by exactly how much.

6. Every Monthly Line Item​

Ask: "List every recurring charge on my statement, by name and amount."

Charges to watch for. Resellers add all of these. None are inherent to Clover:

  • PCI compliance or PCI non-compliance fees.
  • Monthly minimums.
  • Statement fees.
  • Annual fees.
  • Gateway or batch fees.

What Clover Does Well​

1. Hardware Quality and Range​

Clover's hardware is purpose-built and professional grade. The range is wider than any other SMB POS. A mobile reader, a handheld terminal for tableside and delivery, a counter terminal, full registers with and without a customer-facing screen, and self-service kiosks. All of them run the same software platform.

Against Square, Clover's hardware is more durable and more feature-rich for busy retail and restaurant environments. Square's is simpler and much cheaper to abandon.

2. App Market​

Clover's app marketplace is substantial. Accounting integrations, loyalty, online ordering, employee scheduling, gift cards, industry-specific tools. You can shape Clover to a business type without custom development.

3. Fiserv Infrastructure​

Clover is backed by Fiserv, one of the largest payment processors in the US. The settlement and uptime infrastructure is bank-grade. That's the genuine upside of the distribution model that also creates the pricing problem.

4. Employee and Inventory Management​

Employee clock-in and permissions. Inventory tracking with low-stock alerts. Per-employee sales reporting and role-based access. All built into the platform on the mid-tier plans and above.

What Clover Does Poorly​

1. The Published Price Is Not Necessarily Your Price​

Clover publishes rates, software plans and hardware prices. What it can't publish is what your reseller will charge. Clover says so itself. So the rate card tells you what a good deal looks like. It doesn't tell you whether you're getting one. That beats nothing published. It's still worse than a processor whose published rate is the rate you pay.

The chargeback fee is the one line missing entirely, at every tier.

2. Reseller Risk​

Independent agents set their own rates, fees and contract terms. Some add PCI fees, annual fees, monthly minimums and early termination fees that have nothing to do with Clover. Merchants sign multi-year contracts without realising it. Hardware gets leased at a large multiple of its purchase price.

This isn't a hypothetical. It's the most common complaint about Clover, and it follows directly from how Clover is sold.

3. Hardware Lock-In​

Clover hardware only works with Clover processing. Switch, and the hardware is worthless. That's by design. It's also why the hardware question and the contract question are the same question.

Compare Square, where the readers are cheap enough that walking away costs almost nothing.

4. Monthly Software Fees​

Clover charges monthly software fees where Square's base plan charges none. With multiple terminals, those fees multiply. At low volume they can make Clover dearer overall, even if the rate you negotiated is lower.

Clover vs Square: The Honest Comparison​

Both sides of this table are now VENDOR figures, which is what makes it worth reading.

FactorClover (direct)Square
Card-present rate2.3% + 10c restaurant and QSR, 2.6% + 10c retail and services entry plans2.6% + $0.15 Free, 2.5% + $0.15 Plus, 2.4% + $0.15 Premium
Online / keyed rate3.5% + 10c on every plan3.3% + $0.30 Free online, 3.5% + $0.15 keyed
Monthly software$0 Starter to $129.85 Growth$0 Free, $49 Plus, $149 Premium, per location
Chargeback feeNot published at any tierNo per-dispute fee published
Instant payoutRapid Deposit 1.75%Instant Transfer 1.95%
Free hardwareNoYes, a basic reader
Hardware qualityProfessional gradeConsumer grade
Hardware rangeWidest in SMB POSNarrower
Hardware lock-inYes, and expensive to abandon. You don't own subscribed hardware at term endMinimal
Contract riskThree years on hardware promotions, auto-renewing, 30 days' notice to stop itNone. Month to month
Is the published price your price?Only if you buy Clover DirectYes
Best forEstablished retail and restaurants that need the hardwareGetting started fast, and anyone who wants the published price to be the price

Square figures verified 2 August 2026 at squareup.com/us/en/payments/our-fees and squareup.com/us/en/pricing.

Bottom line, now that both cards are readable. On rate alone, Clover Direct beats Square card-present for a restaurant. 2.3% + 10c against 2.6% + 15c is cheaper on both components. There's no crossover ticket to find. Entry-plan retail is closer. 2.6% + 10c against 2.6% + 15c is five cents a transaction in Clover's favour, on the same percentage.

Square still wins on everything around the rate. No contract. Cheap hardware you own. A plan price that doesn't depend on who sold it to you. No three-year auto-renewal to diarise. Clover's card-present advantage is real, but a $29.95 or $89.95 software plan eats it fast. So does a hardware subscription you don't own at the end.

How to make the comparison concrete. Get your Clover quote in writing. Calculate its total monthly cost, including software and amortised hardware. Compare that to Square's published rates on your own volume. Then compare the Clover quote to Clover's own published direct rates. That's the comparison this page couldn't offer before. If your reseller quotes materially above 2.3% or 2.6% + 10c card-present, or above 3.5% + 10c keyed, the gap is markup rather than cost.

Who Clover Is Best For​

Perfect Fit​

Business TypeWhy Clover Wins
RestaurantsTableside ordering, split checks, kitchen workflows
Established retailHardware built for a busy counter
Multi-locationCentralised management, per-location reporting
Service businesses with a counterAppointment and payment in one system
Businesses needing kiosksSelf-service ordering for quick-service and cafes

Poor Fit​

Business TypeBetter Alternative
Online-onlyStripe or Shopify Payments
Mobile or field serviceSquare. Free reader, no monthly fee
Low volumeSquare. No monthly fee, and no three-year hardware commitment
Developer-ledStripe
Want the lowest verifiable costHelcim or Stax. Both publish full rate schedules that are also the rate you pay

Common Gotchas​

1. The Hardware Subscription, Quantified​

You no longer have to take this on trust. Clover publishes both prices for each bundle, and the arithmetic on its own figures is:

Bundle36-month subscription totalOutrightPremium
Retail Basic$576$349+$227
QSR Starter$4,860$849+$4,011
Full-service Advanced$12,744$4,447+$8,297

And Clover's FAQ confirms you don't own the hardware at the end. Across the published bundles the premium runs roughly $227 to $3,622 on comparable configurations, and further on the largest ones.

Always ask for the total payable over the full term as a single number. Then compare it to Clover's own published outright price. If your reseller won't quote a purchase price at all, you now have one to quote back at them.

2. Rate Bait-and-Switch​

An advertised "qualified rate" applies only to basic debit. Most of your transactions land in pricier buckets. Ask for the effective rate on your actual card mix. Better, ask for interchange-plus, so the markup is visible and auditable.

3. Hidden Monthly Fees​

PCI fees, monthly minimums, statement fees, and annual fees are all reseller additions. Ask for every recurring line item by name and amount, in writing, before signing.

4. Clover Direct Pricing Does Exist, and It's Your Anchor​

There is a Clover Direct price card, and it's the anchor for any reseller quote.

Use it. Take three published numbers. The direct rate for your vertical. The software plan price. The outright hardware price. Put a reseller quote next to all three. Any gap is markup. Markup is negotiable in a way interchange isn't.

Then still get two or three competing reseller quotes. The published card doesn't tell you which reseller will honour it.

5. The Keyed Rate Is the Expensive One​

3.5% + 10c on keyed and online is a full 1.2 points above Clover's restaurant card-present rate. Take phone orders? Invoice customers? Run a delivery operation that keys cards? Model that channel separately. On $20,000 a month of keyed volume the gap against card-present is $240 a month.

It's also the number most worth holding a reseller to. 3.5% + 10c is Clover's own published rate, so anything above it is pure markup.

Test to Run​

Clover quote evaluation, before committing:

Step 1: Collect the inputs

  1. Estimate your monthly transaction count and monthly volume.
  2. Split by card-present and card-not-present.
  3. Pull your current statement if you've one, and note your blended interchange.

Step 2: Get real quotes 4. Request written quotes from at least two Clover resellers. Insist on interchange-plus, not tiered. 5. For each quote, capture seven things. The markup. The per-transaction fee. The monthly software cost, and whether it's per device. The chargeback fee. The contract term. The early termination fee. And whether hardware is leased or bought. 6. If a reseller won't put all of that in writing, drop them.

Step 3: Build the true monthly cost

Processing:        (volume x blended interchange) + (volume x markup) + (count x per-txn fee)
Software:          plan cost x number of devices
Hardware:          purchase price / 36, or the lease payment
Other recurring:   PCI + statement + minimum + annual/12
Total monthly:     _______

Step 4: Benchmark against three published cards, including Clover's own

Clover Direct, restaurant:  (volume x 2.3%) + (count x $0.10) + software plan + hardware/36
Clover Direct, retail entry:(volume x 2.6%) + (count x $0.10) + software plan + hardware/36
Square Free, card-present:  (volume x 2.6%) + (count x $0.15) + $0 software + $0 hardware
Helcim, first band, CP:     (volume x blended interchange) + (volume x 0.40%) + (count x $0.08)

The first two lines are new and they're the important ones. If your reseller quote loses to Clover's own published direct rate, you're paying for the reseller, not for Clover.

Step 5: Decide 7. Does the best Clover quote beat both benchmarks by enough to justify the contract term and the locked hardware? 8. If it's close, take the one you can cancel.

Success criteria: you chose Clover with a written quote you understood, or you chose something else with a published price. Either is a good outcome. Signing without step 2 isn't.

Where This Breaks​

  1. The reseller, not Clover, sets your cost. Two merchants with identical hardware and volume can pay very different rates. Clover's own pricing page says so. The published card is a benchmark, not a guarantee.

  2. Hardware lock-in makes a bad contract expensive to escape. The hardware is worthless off Clover, so a bad deal compounds.

  3. Subscribed hardware is where the money goes. The processing rate gets negotiated. The hardware subscription gets signed without scrutiny. On Clover's own published figures it's frequently the larger number. And you don't own the device at the end.

  4. The chargeback fee is genuinely unknown. Not published by Clover, not quoted by any credible third party. For a dispute-prone business that's a material gap, and you have to close it with your reseller.

  5. No Clover take rate can be derived. Fiserv's FY2025 10-K discloses no Clover volume or revenue figure. So there's no filing-based sanity check on Clover's economics. Toast, Adyen and Lightspeed all give you one.

Sources​

SourceWhat it gave usKindDate
clover.com/pricing plus the restaurant, quick-service, retail, personal-services, home-and-field-services and professional-services pricing pagesCard-present and keyed rates by vertical, software plans, hardware prices both ways, contract footnotes, Rapid Deposit, the reseller-dependence statementVendor pagesAccessed 2026-08-02
SMB Compare, CloverReseller early termination fee range and reseller PCI fee onlyComparison and review siteUpdated July 2026
NerdWalletCross-check on the rate card. Reported 2.3% + 10c restaurant, 2.5% + 10c retail/services and 3.5% + 10c online-keyed, slightly stale against the live page but directionally confirmingPersonal finance publisher that earns partner referral revenue2026-01-13
Fiserv FY2025 Form 10-KConfirmation that no Clover volume or revenue figure is disclosed, so no take rate can be derived. Also the pending securities litigation noted aboveRegulatory filingFiled 2026

Next Steps​

Considering Clover?

  1. Work through what to ask for and get every answer in writing.
  2. Collect at least two competing reseller quotes.
  3. Benchmark against Square's published rates, which cost nothing to look up.
  4. Check the hardware question last and hardest. Buy, don't lease.

Already on Clover through a reseller?

  1. Calculate your effective rate: total fees divided by total volume, over three months.
  2. Compare it to Square's and Helcim's published rates on the same volume.
  3. Read your statement line by line and identify every recurring fee.
  4. Find your contract end date and calendar it, along with the notice period.
  5. If you're overpaying, use a competing written quote as leverage. Renewal is when you've the most.

See Also​

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