Toast Review: An Established Restaurant’s Perfect POS?

Toast is one of the best EPOS systems on the market, particularly for established full-service restaurants and other hospitality businesses that want faster service, fewer order errors, and tighter cost control.

This is largely because of its excellent inventory management tools, including low-stock alerts and cost-versus-profit tracking. Its wide array of built-in customer engagement features, such as gift card creation and a points programme, can also help ambitious restaurateurs maintain and grow their customer base.

In this article, we’ll share our full review of Toast, including its key features, hardware range, pricing, and how it compares to other EPOS providers.

What Are Toast’s Key Features?

Beyond processing payments, Toast offers a range of tools covering everything from order management and online ordering to inventory control, staff management and customer loyalty. While some features are included in its core offering, others are available as paid add-ons, allowing restaurants to tailor the system to their needs.

Order processing

Toast supports bill splitting by exact amount or percentage, alongside mobile QR code table ordering and payments. Having these options on hand means both servers and customers can avoid having to do the maths themselves, speeding up the time it takes to pay the bill.

Toast also allows for mobile and QR code ordering, although this feature is a paid add-on. Customers can both order and pay at their table by scanning a QR code. This option reduces the stress on your staff and gives your customers more options when it comes to reading the menu and ordering.

Online ordering

Customers can order online with Toast’s integrated suite of online ordering and delivery features. Businesses can create an online ordering website with Toast, but this feature is a paid add-on.

Additionally, online ordering functionality is integrated with the EPOS system to ensure orders are carried out on time. You can also set windows for accepting orders to prevent your staff from being overwhelmed during busy periods. Toast integrates directly with third-party delivery channels and reservation platforms, including Uber Eats and OpenTable.

Inventory management

Toast offers advanced inventory management tools, making it a great option for large restaurants with complex operations. Businesses can get access to recipe costing and ingredient tracking, low stock alerts, and automatic supplier re-ordering. These tools can help ensure you never run out of your customers’ favourite dishes, avoiding disappointment and keeping sales flowing.

Paired with this are analytics tools that give you an oversight of where your money is going, so you can better spot wastage and improve your margins. These are essential tools for restaurants that use a lot of different ingredients and need to keep a close eye on spending.

Marketing and loyalty programs

Some of Toast’s best features are its marketing and loyalty programs. These are paid add-ons but are available on all plans. With these, you’ll be able to build loyalty programmes with set spending and a points system. You’ll also be able to send targeted promotional emails to customers in your database and offer digital gift cards to customers.

Toast’s loyalty and marketing tools can help you create lasting links with customers and turn occasional visitors into regular diners.

Team management

Toast offers add-on team management modules covering employee shift scheduling, internal team messaging, and time-clock tracking.

Another paid add-on is the Toast tip manager, which allows you to create customised tipping rules, automatically distribute tips to employees and create tip reports for greater transparency.

Lastly, Toast is one of the only POS providers to offer a payroll tool. If purchased alongside POS software, it costs $9 per employee, per month, as highlighted in our pricing section. Toast’s payroll software can remit and file federal, state and local payroll taxes. However, it’s only available for up to 10 employees.

Customer support

Toast offers accessible customer support, with lines open 24/7 and 365 days a year for all customers, no matter what plan they’re on. You can reach out to Toast via email, phone and live chat, and there’s also a knowledge centre and forum for help with DIY fixes.

Toast provides professional onboarding and on-site staff training for a custom fee, supplemented by 24/7/365 phone, live chat, and email support across all software tiers.

How Much Does Toast Cost?

Toast has three software plans, which are the £80 per month Starter plan, the £150 per month Essentials plan and the Custom plan, with custom pricing. Here’s a quick overview of Toast’s software pricing plans:

Toast’s core pricing plans explained

Toast operates a modular pricing structure where upgrading from the £80 Starter plan to the £150 Essentials plan primarily bundles handheld hardware and KDS software.

These can also be added as paid add-ons to the Starter plan, while the Custom plan allows businesses to pick and choose all their features. Add to this the fact that a lot of Toast features are paid add-ons, including most marketing and staff management tools, and it’s hard to see what the point of having three separate pricing plans is.

Toast’s add-ons explained

Toast doesn’t explicitly specify how much each add-on costs per month, which is frustrating since its starting price of £80 per month is already expensive. In comparison, Square’s maximum price (excluding custom plans) is £69 per month, which is cheaper than Toast’s starting price.

Features that are paid add-ons include:

• KDS (paid add-on on Starter plan only, included in Essentials plan)
• Handheld POS device (paid add-on on Starter plan only, included in Essentials plan)
• Self-ordering kiosk
• Online and QR code ordering
• Gift cards
• Email marketing
• Loyalty tools
• Reservation management
• Team scheduling and management

What are Toast’s contract lengths and cancellation terms?

Toast operates on multi-year merchant contracts rather than month-to-month plans, combining software subscriptions, hardware financing, and exclusive payment processing.

Its initial contract term is typically 1-3 years, which automatically renews for successive one-year terms at the end of the initial contract period.

If you don’t want to renew your contract, Toast requires written notice at least 30 days before the end of your current term. If the window closes, the account locks in for another 12 months. However, if you cancel your contract during an active term rather than exiting at a scheduled renewal, Toast enforces strict Early Termination Fees.

What is Toast’s Hardware Range?

Toast’s proprietary hardware suite comprises the Flex countertop terminal, secondary guest-facing displays, the Toast Go 3 handheld terminal, and kitchen display systems (KDS).

Unfortunately, Toast doesn’t specify the cost of its hardware, but it does note that it charges an upfront fee for it. To get exact prices, you need to contact Toast for a quote.

Here’s a quick look at the hardware available with Toast:

• Flex Terminal: A touchscreen countertop terminal with a tap-and-chip-and-PIN card reader (not built-in) and a flexible screen.
• Flex Terminal + Guest Display: The Flex terminal with a built-in customer-facing touchscreen which can be either mounted or flat.
• Toast Tap™: Mounts directly to Flex terminals and supports contactless tap (Apple Pay and Google Pay), EMV chip dip, and traditional magnetic stripe swipe.
• Toast Go 3: A handheld touchscreen POS device with a built-in card reader that can be used for table service.
• KDS: A touchscreen kitchen display that syncs with the main POS system.
• Kiosk Terminal: A customer self-service kiosk with a card reader (not built-in).

Is Toast’s hardware any good?

I liked the design of Toast’s hardware. Its terminals are modern and discreet, and won’t look out of place in most establishments.

The touchscreen design of both the main display and the customer display makes them highly accessible, as does the fact that both screens can be adjusted for better visibility. The fact that not just the main screen but also the customer screen can be adjusted is a rarity, and not a feature present in equivalent hardware sold by rival Square.

When it comes to pricing, it’s hard to compare Toast’s hardware to rivals, since it doesn’t advertise pricing in the UK. Toast terminal hardware requires custom quotes in the UK, but comparable US hardware configurations start at over $700 USD, positioning it above Square hardware entry pricing.

My Experience With Toast

I found Toast quite easy to use and was impressed by how clean and modern its interface was.

Part of what made the system easy to navigate on a first try was the initial tutorial that popped up when we first signed in to the platform. It offered a clear step-by-step guide to using essential features, giving us a solid starting point. The presence of a search bar also helped us quickly locate features both when first exploring the EPOS system and when completing tasks.

Another feature I enjoyed using was Toast’s table planner, which has a drag-and-drop editor, making it easy to customise the layout to match a real-life seating arrangement.

However, I had trouble making amendments to orders, such as assigning an order to a new table when guests moved, applying multiple discounts and splitting a bill.

This was largely due to a lack of clear signposting, with the term “update” being used to describe a variety of possible amendments. This means that training new staff could take a little longer.

Creating and editing menus was also a little confusing because Toast’s main menu tab contains a lot of different editing options with vague descriptions. This made it difficult for us to find the section we needed.

How Does Toast Compare With Its Competitors?

Toast offers a comprehensive EPOS system for restaurants, but how does it compare with other providers on price, features and hardware? Here’s how Toast stacks up against the competition across three key areas.

How Does Toast’s Pricing Compare to Competitors?

Toast is more expensive than most restaurant EPOS competitors, with software starting at £80 per month and requiring paid add-ons for essential tools like online ordering and team management

It’s hard to compare Toast’s card processing fees or hardware costs with competitors, since it doesn’t publish this information publicly in the UK.

If you’d prefer a provider with cheaper and transparent pricing, I recommend Square or SumUp as alternatives. Both offer free EPOS software plans and are very clear about the cost of their products.

How Do Toast’s Features Compare to Rival Systems?

Toast provides an extensive feature set led by recipe-level inventory, automated reordering, and integrated cost-versus-profit analytics, though several key tools remain paid add-ons.

Clover also charges extra for marketing and loyalty tools, but these are included free of charge with a Clover EPOS system. Square also charges extra for marketing tools, but doesn’t even offer cost versus profit management features

While Square includes or transparently prices scheduling tiers, Toast offers advanced team scheduling and tip management only as unlisted custom-quote add-ons.

How Does Toast’s Hardware Compare to Square and Clover?

Toast has one of the most complete hardware ranges, only beaten by Square and Clover. It loses out because it has fewer options for accessories and, unlike Square, it doesn’t offer an iPad-based POS system.

It beats out Lightspeed Restaurant and SumUp, since these providers don’t offer physical terminals; they only offer an Android-or iOS-based system.

Toast’s physical terminals are also high quality, with flexible screens for both the main display and the customer display, a feature missing from Square terminals. That said, Square and Clover’s hardware has a more attractive design that emulates the feel of Apple products, making them a better choice for trendy restaurants.

How We Reviewed Toast POS

The Expert Market team has tested and assessed 11 different EPOS systems to bring you this list, along with the other POS reviews you can find on our site. We’ve spent over 160 hours researching these EPOS platforms and over 20 hours testing them.

During that time, we used our learnings to evaluate how each EPOS system fared in six core areas that are important to businesses. These areas (explained in greater detail below) were broken down into around 12 subcategories each. Scores in each of these subcategories were subsequently amalgamated to arrive at an impartial, overall ranking for each provider.

Here’s what we looked at:

• Software (30%): The breadth of features included in the EPOS software and how valuable they are to the average business, including inventory management, marketing and customer engagement tools, and refund management.
• Usability (20%): User testing task completion scores, workflow speed for placing orders and splitting bills, interface navigation intuitiveness (via card sorting), and task emotion/satisfaction metrics.
• Hardware/equipment (15%): The variety of equipment available to purchase or rent, with special importance given to key items, such as physical terminals, customer displays and accessories.
• Help & support (15%): How effective and reachable the customer support teams are, with bonus points given to EPOS systems with help centres and training modes.
• Pricing (10%): The price of the system, how it compares to competitors and whether it’s good value for money.
• Reputation (10%): Aggregate user sentiment from verified review ecosystems (Reddit, Trustpilot, G2, Capterra), likelihood-to-recommend scores from hands-on testing, and brand search volume/market adoption.