Toast Review: Best for Big Restaurants, Overkill for Others
Toast is a powerhouse for complex restaurants. But its cost and long-term contracts make less sense for smaller cafes and quick-service eateries.
The bottom line:
Toast packs most of the capabilities bustling restaurants need into a single platform. It has a variety of add-on features, plus 24/7 support. But it charges more fees than competitors. For example, you’ll pay extra for onboarding, online ordering and accounting integrations. This can be a fair trade-off for multi-location restaurants. Smaller operators will likely find the extra costs harder to swallow, though.
Software details
Payment processing fees
2.49% + $0.15
if you buy hardware upfront; 3.09% + $0.15 and up for pay-as-you-go option.
Monthly fee
$0
Starter Kit; $69 Point of Sale plan; custom Build Your Own plan.
Pros & Cons
Pros
Free software and no upfront hardware costs available for restaurants with one to two terminals (if you agree to a higher processing rate).
24/7 chat support and everyday phone support.
Offers in-house payroll and team management software.
Has industry-specific features, like a built-in reservations platform.
Cons
Locks you into a contract for two to three years.
Charges onboarding fee.
Online ordering and accounting integrations cost extra.
Compare to other products
Payment processing fees
2.49% + $0.15
if you buy hardware upfront; 3.09% + $0.15 and up for pay-as-you-go option.
Payment processing fees
In-person: 2.6% + $0.15
Online: 3.3% + $0.30
Payment processing fees
N/A
Quote-based.
Payment processing fees
In-person: 2.3% + $0.10
Online: 3.5% + $0.10
Need more options? Check our picks for best payment processing systems
Square: Better for cafes and coffee shops. Cafes, coffee shops and other quick-service businesses should consider Square over Toast. It’s less expensive and can meet basic needs. Square’s free plan, for example, includes menu and item management, low-stock alerts, online ordering and reports. Read our full Square for Restaurants review.
Lavu: Better cash discount features. When you opt into Lavu’s cash discount program, you see two prices for each item. The cheaper one applies if the customer pays with cash. The other is for customers who pay with cards. This encourages customers to pay with cash. And that helps you avoid processing fees. With Toast, you have to manually add the cash discount. Read our full Lavu review.
Clover: Better payment processing flexibility. If you use Toast’s POS system, you also need to use its payment processing services. That’s not the case with Clover. You can buy its POS systems from multiple third-party processing companies. That gives you the opportunity to consider local processors and other pricing structures outside of flat-rate ones. Read our full Clover review.
Full review
Toast is a big name in the restaurant POS system industry. The company was in about 180,000 locations as of August 2026. That's an increase of 22% year over year
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I'm not surprised Toast keeps gaining popularity. Even with its expansion into retail POS systems in 2025, the company still focuses on food. And that specialization shows up. Toast's hardware resists spills and holds up in high temperatures. Its software supports services like drive-thru, delivery, reservations and catering. There's even a partnership with Uber Eats.
These capabilities let you create your own restaurant management platform under one roof. That’s often a more cohesive experience than syncing multiple software programs together.
Any food business could benefit from Toast. But it just won't make sense for some — especially in an industry known for thin margins.
Toast is expensive and locks you into long-term contracts. Sure, it has a free software plan with no upfront hardware costs. That comes with higher processing rates, though. And if you want extra services (e.g., online and mobile ordering, marketing, payroll), expect to pay a lot in add-on fees.
All that makes Toast a bigger investment than its competitors. I think it's a worthwhile one for established restaurants. Those with more than one location can benefit too. But new businesses and simpler ones — spots like cafes, breweries and quick-service restaurants? My advice would be to start with cheaper options.
Toast is best for:
✔️ Full-service restaurants.
✔️ Managing multiple locations.
✔️ Variety of add-on services.
» MORE: Best Toast competitors
💬 From our Nerds: Comparing experiences with Toast and Square
"My husband’s brewery shares a space with a cafe and a commercial kitchen. Both operations opted for Toast. I ultimately recommended Square for the brewery.
"It sounds like the cafe’s and kitchen’s setup experiences were more intuitive than ours was. I’ll admit that Square makes it tricky to enter item variations. But we didn’t have to pay any setup fees. Toast, on the other hand, charges for installation.
"Overall, employees also seem to like Toast’s layout. That said, price has definitely come up as a pain point.
"I stand by my decision to go with Square. The brewery itself doesn’t serve food, and drink orders are relatively straightforward. I think Toast would be overkill."
— Hillary Crawford, lead writer covering small business
Toast overview
| Payment processing model | Flat-rate |
| Payment processing fees |
|
| Monthly fee |
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| Hardware cost |
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| Contract length | Two to three years. |
| Customer support | 24/7 chat support, plus phone support every day from 7 a.m. to 12 a.m. EST. |
Where Toast stands out
Supports businesses with multiple locations
Toast makes it easy for businesses to manage multiple restaurants and stay on top of sales trends. You can use it to set location-specific pricing, for example. Or maybe you want each location to have its own special menu items. Toast makes this possible and then lets you compare how each item sells across locations. A single dashboard consolidates all of the data.
Toast advertises these capabilities for franchises, restaurant groups and enterprise operations. They’re part of the company’s restaurant management suite add-on. Pricing is quote-based.
24/7 support in all plans
Most restaurants operate outside of typical 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. business hours. Breakfast spots open earlier, and most other operations stay open later. Toast’s 24/7 customer support helps ensure you can address issues at any hour of the day.
It offers around-the-clock chat support and phone support from 7 a.m. to 12 a.m. EST each day. You get that level of help even on Toast’s free plan. Square, on the other hand, only offers 24/7 support in its top-tier Premium plan. That costs $149 per month.
Where Toast falls short
Hidden fees
Toast charges more fees than its competitors do. And it doesn’t list all of them on its main pricing page.
For example, it charges $1,000 per day for on-site setup and $800 per day for remote installation. You also need to pay an additional monthly fee for Toast’s xtraCHEF add-on just to integrate with accounting software. This costs well over $100 per month.
Alternatives, like Square, don’t charge extra to integrate with accounting software. There are no setup fees either.
If you’d like to accept online orders (I’d imagine most restaurants do), you’ll pay Toast extra for that as well. Subscriptions to its online ordering platform are quote-based. Square and Clover skip this add-on. Instead, all of their restaurant plans include online ordering capabilities.
Quote-based pricing makes it hard to compare
Toast isn’t transparent about how much most of its add-on features cost. And from what I can tell from online comments (more on those below), it’s not an extra $20 here and there. Some features, like xtraCHEF, add more than $100 per month to your bill. This is an important factor for any business to consider, let alone ones on a tight budget.
Additionally, Toast’s Point of Sale plan starts at $69. There’s a good chance your business will have to pay more if you have multiple hardware devices, but it’s unclear how much.
What small-business owners think of Toast
I checked online forums like Reddit and reviews from sites like TrustPilot, G2, the App Store and Google Play to gauge how users feel about Toast. I used an AI tool to help analyze this feedback. Here are the major trends I spotted.
👍 Intuitive user interface
Multiple online users say Toast is easy to get the hang of. They appreciate that its user interface is intuitive. That’s important for you and your staff, especially in fast-paced environments. Users mention that when they have had an issue, Toast representatives help them solve it pretty quickly.
👎 Steep pricing
It’s no surprise that commenters have things to say about Toast’s pricing. Among restaurant POS systems, it’s one of the most expensive options. Users say to watch out for upselling and only get what’s necessary. Otherwise, your monthly subscription price can increase dramatically.
One commenter also felt like the salesperson misrepresented the product and its pricing. So if a representative offers you any promotions, make sure to get them in writing. Also ask how long they’ll last. Ideally, they’ll be valid for the lifetime of your account and not just for the first year.
How we evaluated Toast
NerdWallet’s writers and editors independently review POS systems, like Toast, by analyzing more than 30 data points. To evaluate Toast, I collected data from its public-facing website, help articles and company representatives.
I also looked through individual reviews and feedback on sites like Trustpilot, the App Store, Google Play and Reddit. Then, I used AI tools to help spot larger trends within those comments.
Since our team cannot verify each user’s individual experience, we don’t incorporate user reviews in our star ratings. For more information on how we score payment processors, see our full methodology.