Toastvs
Square
Square: General-purpose POS and payment platform for restaurants and retail with lower pricing and broader appeal.
Toast
Cloud POS platform for restaurants and hospitality
As of 30 August 2026, Toast has a free plan and paid plans start at $69/month. Toast is a cloud-based point of sale platform specifically designed for restaurants, bars, and hospitality businesses. Softwr lists it under E-Commerce. Toast is made by Toast Inc, launched in 2011, available on Web, iOS, Android.
Overview
What Toast does
Toast is a cloud-based point of sale platform specifically designed for restaurants, bars, and hospitality businesses. It provides features for order management, kitchen operations, staff management, and analytics tailored to food service operations.
The honest half
Where it falls short
Concrete and checkable, so you can decide whether any of them matter to you. This is the half of a review a vendor will not write about Toast.
- Starter tier lacks advanced features; most capabilities require paid plans above $69/month
- No free tier for advanced features like employee scheduling, inventory, or loyalty programs
- Setup and training time required for complex multi-location deployments
- Payment processing tied to Toast ecosystem; limited flexibility for alternative payment processors
- Hardware costs can be substantial for full-featured setups with multiple terminals and kitchen displays
Cross-shopped
What people choose instead of Toast
Each pairing was judged by two reviewers asking whether a buyer would genuinely weigh the two against each other. The ones that failed were deleted rather than published.
- ToastvsSquare for Retail
Square for Retail: Square's retail-focused offering competing on ease of use and simplified setup compared to Toast's feature-rich approach.
- ToastvsMagento
Magento: Enterprise ecommerce platform with integrated POS capabilities for omnichannel retail operations.
Pricing
What Toast costs
Taken from the vendor's own pricing page. Prices move, so check before you buy.
Starter Kit
Free
- Cloud-based POS
- Payment processing
- 1-2 terminals
- Real-time reporting
Point of Sale
$69 /mo
- Custom hardware configurations
- Advanced reporting
- Core POS features
Capabilities
Features
Point of sale
Order management
Kitchen display system
Employee scheduling
Customer management
Inventory tracking
Analytics & reporting
Delivery integration
Answered, with sources
Questions people ask
Each answer names the page it came from, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.
What is the cost of Toast POS?
Toast offers a free Starter Kit tier for one or two terminals with POS and payment processing at no upfront cost, though costs are built into payment processing rates. Paid plans start at $69/month for the Point of Sale plan, with Custom tier available via quote for advanced features.
SourceDoes Toast include online ordering?
Yes. Toast offers online ordering capabilities where customers can order via QR code while seated (Order & Pay) or through standalone online ordering integrated with the POS for kitchen automation.
SourceDoes Toast offer drive-through capabilities?
Yes. In April 2026, Toast launched a drive-thru product supporting voice ordering through integrations, allowing restaurants to automate drive-through workflows.
SourceBehind it
Who makes Toast
- Company
- Toast Inc
- Based in
- Boston, MA
Timeline
Toast over time
- Milestone2013-01-01
Toast pivots from consumer app to comprehensive restaurant management software platform
Source - Launch2012-01-01
Consumer-facing app launched at Firebrand Saints in Cambridge focusing on mobile payments and loyalty
Source - Founded2011-01-01
Toast, Inc. founded by Steve Fredette, Aman Narang, and Jonathan Grimm in Boston
Source
Keep looking
Where to go from Toast
- Toast alternativesEvery product people weigh against it
- Toast pricingPlans, floors and what the tiers exclude
- Toast badgesWhich rules it meets, and the figure behind each
- All E-Commerce softwareThe full category
- Best E-Commerce softwareThe shortlist, and how it was cut
Best E-Commerce software for
Compare Toast with
- Square for Retail
- Square
- Magento
- Shopkeep
- Erply
- KORONA POS
- Heartland Retail
- Bluepark
- Inventory Lab
- Oracle Commerce
- Retail Pro
- NCR Voyix
- Etsy
- Gumroad
- Loox
- Memberful
- KORONA POS
- Inventory Lab
Other E-Commerce software
Open core commerce platform, free as Magento Open Source and licensed by revenue as Adobe Commerce
Free plan14 researched notesCloud point of sale and inventory management sold alongside Heartland card processing
From $150/mo13 researched notesA UK-based ecommerce platform to design, sell and manage your online store
From £14.99/mo10 researched notesEnterprise point of sale and commerce software for retail and restaurant chains
Pricing on request11 researched notesHosted storefront for selling digital products, memberships and courses on a per sale fee
14 researched notesMembership platform for creators to sell subscriptions, courses and gated content
From $49/mo9 researched notes
Softwr does not host reviews and shows no star rating for Toast, because a rating we did not collect is not ours to publish. What is here is the pricing and platform detail from the vendor’s own pages, limitations we could state concretely, and alternatives a reviewer confirmed people weigh against it. Tell us if any of it is wrong.
More on Toast
Toast alternatives
What people switch to, and what they give up
Toast pricing
Every tier, and where the cost actually lands
Compare Toast
Put it head to head with anything we hold
Toast badge
Its rating, and an embed for your own site
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