Toast Capital vs Square Capital vs Clover Capital — the merchant decision guide.

The 60-second answer

POS-integrated capital is the single most under-analyzed funding category in 2026. Your POS provider already sees every dollar that crosses the counter, so the underwriting is near-instant and the offer looks frictionless. That convenience comes at three different prices.

• Square Capital — cheapest on average (1.10–1.16 on A-tier merchants), holdback typically 9–13% of card sales, terms 6–18 months. Best for established sellers, weakest for thin-history merchants.
• Toast Capital — restaurant-specific, factor 1.12–1.20 on strong merchants, holdback 8–18% of card sales. Underwrites on Toast POS data only. Best for single-location independents with 9+ months of Toast history.
• Clover Capital — usually the most expensive (1.18–1.30 typical), because most "Clover" offers are actually resold by ISO partners or routed through Lendio. Best when you have no alternative or need cash in 24 hours and already process $50K+/month through Clover.

How POS capital actually works

All three use the same basic mechanic: they advance you a lump sum and recover it as a fixed percentage of the card revenue that flows through their terminal. They are not traditional MCAs in the classic ACH-debit sense — the holdback is automated at the processor level, so you never see the daily withdrawal hit your operating account.

That changes the merchant experience materially:

• Cash never "leaves" your account. Net deposits arrive smaller. For owners who don't read the daily settlement reports, this can feel painless. It also means you're effectively prepaying the fee from working capital you'd otherwise have spent on food cost or payroll.
• The holdback flexes with revenue. Slow week = lower repayment, busy week = higher repayment. This is structurally better than the daily-ACH MCA model when revenue dips, and structurally worse when it surges (you finish faster, which sounds good but raises APR-equivalent).
• The renewal flywheel is the business model. All three want to renew you the moment you hit 50% paid off — that's where the lifetime margin lives. Each renewal typically reprices slightly lower for the merchant but extends the total fee exposure.

Square Capital — the volume-machine

Square has the largest dataset of any small-business processor in North America, and it uses that data ruthlessly. The Capital program is fully automated — no broker, no underwriter call, no document upload. If you qualify, the offer appears in your dashboard with a checkbox and a slider.

Typical 2026 economics

• Factor: 1.10–1.24 (A-tier as low as 1.09 on $5K–$15K trial offers)
• Holdback: 9–13% of daily card revenue
• Term: 6–18 months (auto-calculated)
• Funding speed: 1 business day (often same-day on small offers)
• Time in business minimum: 12 months Square processing history
• Monthly volume minimum: ~$10K Square card volume

Square's underwriting strength is also its weakness. It scores almost entirely on Square data — your QuickBooks, your tax returns, your other bank deposits are irrelevant. A restaurant that does $40K/month total but only $12K through Square will get a Square Capital offer sized to the $12K — which is often a tiny advance relative to actual need.

When Square Capital wins

• You do >70% of revenue through Square card processing
• You need fast, friction-free capital under $50K
• You can tolerate the holdback rate without renegotiating
• Your business is single-location, simple structure

Toast Capital — the restaurant specialist

Toast Capital is built specifically for restaurants and underwrites against the rich data Toast POS captures — table turn time, ticket size, labor cost, comp/void rates, time-of-day sales mix. That underwriting depth lets Toast quote competitive rates to restaurants that would be C-tier paper on the open MCA market.

Typical 2026 economics

• Factor: 1.12–1.28 (A-tier independents at 1.12–1.16)
• Holdback: 8–18% of daily card revenue
• Term: 9–18 months
• Funding speed: 1–3 business days
• Time in business minimum: 6 months Toast history (most flexible of the three)
• Monthly Toast volume minimum: ~$15K

Where Toast pulls ahead

Toast is the only one of the three that will routinely fund a restaurant in months 7–12 of operation. Square typically waits to 12 months. Clover wants 12+ months and a clean Fiserv record. For a new independent restaurant that is performing well on Toast but doesn't have the time-in-business for traditional MCAs, Toast Capital is often the only sub-1.20 option in the market.

Toast also has the cleanest reconciliation mechanic. If your weekly card revenue drops by more than 30% versus the trailing 8-week average, Toast will automatically reduce the holdback dollars without requiring you to file a hardship request.

Clover Capital — the messy resale market

"Clover Capital" is a misleading product name. Clover is a brand owned by Fiserv, and Fiserv resells the merchant relationship to a constellation of ISOs, banks, and direct funders. When a Clover merchant clicks "see capital offers," the offers that surface are usually written by third parties (Lendio, Kapitus, Credibly, Mulligan, others) who pay Fiserv a referral fee.

The merchant experience is similar to Square or Toast on the surface, but the economics underneath are open-market MCA economics with an extra layer of commission baked in.

Typical 2026 economics

• Factor: 1.18–1.35 (most offers fall in the 1.22–1.30 range)
• Holdback: 10–22% of daily card revenue (varies by reseller)
• Term: 6–15 months
• Funding speed: 24–72 hours
• Time in business minimum: typically 12 months
• Monthly Clover volume minimum: ~$10K

When Clover Capital actually wins

• You need money inside 24 hours and have no other open offers
• You already process >$50K/month through Clover and value the integration
• You're declined by Toast and Square (Clover's underwriting is the most lenient)

Head-to-head: $50,000 advance, 12-month term

For a single-location restaurant doing $45K/month total revenue:

• Square Capital — factor ~1.14, total payback $57,000, holdback 11% of card sales, APR-equivalent ~32%. Eligible if >$30K/month flows through Square.
• Toast Capital — factor ~1.16, total payback $58,000, holdback 13% of card sales, APR-equivalent ~38%. Eligible on Toast restaurants with 6+ months history.
• Clover Capital — factor ~1.26, total payback $63,000, holdback 16% of card sales, APR-equivalent ~58%. Eligible on most Fiserv accounts.

The Square and Toast offers price 5–8 percentage points cheaper than what the same merchant would see from an open-market MCA at the same risk tier. Clover prices roughly on par with open-market MCAs, sometimes worse, because the offer is essentially an open-market MCA wrapped in a POS dashboard.

Renewal mechanics — where the real money lives

The first advance is the customer acquisition cost. The renewal cycle is where each of these programs makes their lifetime margin. The renewal mechanic differs:

• Square — pings you the moment you hit 50% paid. Offer is usually larger and at a marginally lower factor than the original. The merchant feels like they're "graduating." Net economic effect: you owe more total dollars to Square than if you had just waited until the original advance closed.
• Toast — same 50% renewal trigger but with a more transparent calculator showing total cost. Toast also offers "top-off" mid-term advances that stack on top of the existing balance.
• Clover — renewal pricing varies wildly because it depends on which reseller offered the original. Some price down on renewal, many price up. Read the renewal email carefully.

Decision framework — pick by merchant profile

If you're choosing between the three, these are the questions that actually matter:

1. What % of your revenue runs through the POS in question? Below 50%, the offer will be sized too small and you should look at open-market MCAs that underwrite on full bank statements.
2. How urgent is the capital? 24-hour need → POS capital wins. 5–7 day timeline → open market is almost always cheaper.
3. How fragile is your operating cash buffer? POS capital holdbacks feel invisible — that's the danger. If you have less than 30 days of operating expenses in reserve, the holdback can quietly starve payroll.
4. Are you planning to switch POS providers in the next 12 months? If yes, do not take POS capital. The acceleration clauses are real.

The watch-outs all three share

• Automatic renewal solicitations — every POS lender pings on day 1 of being 50% repaid. Decline by default; only renew when you have a documented use of funds.
• Holdback compounding when you also have an open MCA — POS capital + open MCA = stack. The combined daily drain compounds the way the contracts predict, not the way the merchant feels.
• Renewals reset the term — and the early-payoff math you ran on the original advance no longer applies.
• Switching processors mid-payback — anti-switching clauses can accelerate the entire unpaid balance. Read every line of the agreement before you sign.