Toast POS System Review

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Toast POS is best suited for hospitality businesses because it has been created exclusively for this industry. Its restaurant-grade hardware protects your system, and its software has open integrations, allowing you to integrate apps with ease.

Our research team extensively compared 12 POS providers, focusing on several different areas that include: hardware, price, usability, and help and support.

Overall, Toast POS scores a 3.7/5 in our research, with the highest scores in business management, stock management, usability, and price.

It offers some great features for the hospitality industry and ranks highly on our list of best restaurant POS systems. However, it doesn’t perform strongly all around. It scores very low in the help and support area with a 1/5, and in the business development area, with a 2.5/5.

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4.8
Price
  • Starter Kit: $0/month
  • Point of Sale: $69/month
  • Build Your Own: custom
Key Features
  • Caters to quick & full service
  • Contactless ordering
  • Marketing
  • Payroll & team management
  • Available internationally (US, UK & CA)

How Much Does Toast Cost?

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Package
Package
Package
Cost

$0/month

Cost

$69/month

Cost

Custom

Key features
  • Up to 2 terminals
  • Order, table and menu management
  • Basic reporting
  • Payment processing
  • Time keeping
  • Select add-ons (marketing, online ordering)
Key features

Everything in the Starter Kit, plus:

  • Custom POS hardware options
  • Any add-ons you want (mobile ordering, tip management, payroll, accounting etc.)
Key features
  • Custom hardware options
  • Custom monthly pricing based on the add-ons you choose

Toast’s free plan is a good option for start-ups and small businesses. Other POS providers, such as Square, also have a free POS app, but Toast offers restaurant-specific features and lets you choose add-ons. If your business is not in the hospitality industry, Square may be a better option. Zettle by PayPal also offers a free POS app designed for hospitality, however Zettle offers less features and is a more suitable for POS for food trucks and small cafes.

The Point of Sale package offers a fairly affordable plan for businesses looking for restaurant features and payroll software, since Toast lets you bundle its payroll software with its POS software at no added cost, for $69 per month. Splitting the two can often be costly and, with it all on one system, you get the advantage of your POS system speaking to your payroll software, ensuring it’s accurate and up to date.

The Point of Sale package also gives you access to a wider range of add-ons than the Starter Kit, like accounting and team management.

The Pros and Cons of Toast

Pros

  • Designed for the hospitality industry
  • Solid stock management tools
  • Easy to use

Cons

  • CRM functionalities only available via a third party app
  • Poor customer support

Pro: Designed for the hospitality industry

As Toast has been designed for the hospitality industry, it has numerous specialized features. The software offers tableside service, menu engineering, detailed reports, as well as online ordering and delivery.

Toast hardware has been built to withstand heat, grease, and spills. As well as being durable, the hardware is sleek and modern, an aesthetically pleasing addition to your business.

Toast Go is a handheld POS system that allows you to take orders and process payments anywhere in your restaurant.

You can also opt for a customer-facing screen for your till system for greater transparency. Other hardware options include self-ordering kiosks, and a kitchen display. Toast Flex for Kitchen has been built to withstand the heat and grease of kitchens to avoid your hardware being destroyed.

The kitchen display has one screen to ensure orders are accurate and on time, plus, you can set up the system to suit your kitchen’s workflow.

Pro: Solid stock management tools

Stock management scores a perfect five in our research because it has numerous tools for managing your inventory. This comes in the form of xtraCHEF by Toast, an integrated solution for automating accounting and inventory management.

Count lists can be carried out on a phone or mobile device, even without a connection to Wi-Fi. Inventory counts can be assigned to specific staff members, so it can’t be skipped or forgotten.

This platform centralizes all your orders, vendors, and product catalog. Once you’ve taken an initial inventory, it creates an order guide for you so that you can stay on top of what needs to be reordered and when. You can then choose to schedule recurring orders for your most popular items.

Pro: Easy to use

Toast scored a 5/5 in this area as its interface is sleek and designed to be a modern addition to your eatery. The system is intuitive and easy to use, with users reporting that they had little trouble figuring out how the system works.

It’s important for POS systems in the hospitality industry to be easy to use, as a slow system can reduce service speed and can cause major issues. Toast’s handheld system, Toast Go, has a 24 hour battery and the Toast Go 2 is said to have up to 3x faster processing speed than Toast Go.

Con: CRM functionalities only available via a third-party app

Toast doesn’t have an in-built CRM (customer relationship management) system, so you’ll need to use a third-party provider to access one.

The issue with this is that using a third party means there’s more of a chance that things will go wrong as it hasn’t necessarily been built to work with Toast. Plus, when things do go wrong, you’ll need to contact the third party to deal with it, and if there’s an issue on both sides, fixing it could be a struggle.

Con: Poor customer support

The customer support area has been scored a 1/5 in our research. While Toast offers customer support through call, email, and live chat, many users have reported that its customer support is not very quick or reliable. It can often take customers a while to receive a response to their issue or query, or to get a call back from customer service.

Toast does offer in-person training, so you can customize the system to suit your business. On the day you go live, it offers support so you can overcome any immediate hurdles.

For further support as you use the system, you can access ‘Toast University’ online, which includes training videos and tutorials.

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Toast’s Key Features Explained

Let’s explore some of Toast’s top features:

✓ Multi-Location Management

With Toast, you can manage multiple locations at once, and standardize your operations to provide a consistent experience for your customers and staff.

You can opt for one menu across all locations, or set different prices across each location.

Not only that, but Toast is available internationally: in the USA, United Kingdom and Canada.

✓ Payroll and Team Management

Toast offers payroll solutions suitable for all 50 states. Toast can remit and file federal, state, and local payroll taxes.

Team management tools include timesheet integration that directly syncs to payroll, employee scheduling, and an integrated tip pool.

Some users have found that the payroll integration does not work well and is not easy to use. For businesses with more complex payroll needs, Toast’s payroll solution may not be a good fit. You can still choose to use Toast, but opt for different payroll software.

The payroll software does not come with the free plan, and if you want to use it, prices start from $110 per month for the Restaurants Basics package.

✓ Free Plan

Toast offers a free plan, suitable for single-location businesses with one or two terminals. This version does not include a loyalty program, gift cards, or email marketing. It does not include the payroll and team management solutions. However, it does include core features necessary to run a hospitality business.

For businesses on a tight budget, this is a great option, although you will need to fork out for Toast hardware.  You can use your own hardware, but it will need to be Android-operated. If you go for this option, Toast is unable to provide complete support.

✓ Online Ordering and Delivery

Your customers can order online with online ordering that’s integrated with Toast Marketing and Toast Loyalty. The online ordering functionality is integrated with the POS 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.

✓ Integrations

Toast offers integrations with a range of third-party providers. These include OpenTable, Craver, and Uber Eats. These integrations help expand the system and give your business the ability to scale and grow at a steady pace.

Users have reported that the integrations work fairly well. However, with almost all third-party integrations, there’s always a chance that functionalities may not work as smoothly compared to integrated features. Plus, if something goes wrong, you’ll need to deal directly with the third party, which can be frustrating.

✓ Order and Pay at Table

Customers can both order and pay at their table by scanning a QR code. They can even choose to pay via Apple Pay, for a quick and convenient process. This option reduces the stress on your staff, and gives your customers more options when it comes to reading the menu and ordering.

What kind of business is Toast best for?

Toast is best for businesses in the hospitality industry, specifically, restaurants and bars.

Restaurants

Toast is one of the best POS systems for restaurants as it has been designed with this industry in mind. It features specific tools and solutions such as menu engineering, tableside service, and online ordering and delivery.

For hospitality businesses that start out small, the free plan is a good option and, as your business expands and grows, you can opt for the paid plans.

With restaurant-grade hardware and simple kitchen display systems, Toast offers a functional and sleek POS system.

We recommend Toast for restaurants of all types and sizes as it has the functionality and tools to deal with a variety of hospitality businesses.

Bars

Toast’s durable POS hardware, and hospitality features such as menu engineering, stock management, and marketing tools make it a great choice for bars. Toast can automatically generate profiles based on credit card payments and it can also collect email addresses for digital receipts. You can use this customer data to send out marketing emails from the Toast dashboard. This feature is helpful if you host events or want to announce special offers.

Cover Image: Expert Market Food and Beverage Report 2024 - sponsored by Toast
Working in the Food & Beverage Industry? Don’t miss Expert Market’s exclusive industry report – sponsored by Toast – exploring today’s challenges and future predictions.

Please note: All Expert Market Reviews, including this one, are editorially impartial, and Toast’s sponsorship of our 2024 Food & Beverage report, shown above, in no way affects their rating or the content on this page.

How does Toast compare to its competitors?

Price

Square also offers a free POS software, with free software for both retail and hospitality. However, Square doesn’t include the price of hardware in its free plan, unlike Toast, so you’ll still have to pay for that upfront.

For the paid plans, Toast’s Point of Sale plan is a middle of the road option, at $69 per month. Other providers generally offer similar, if not more expensive plans, although Toast might end up costing the same in the end, since you’re likely to need to pay for add-ons. Toast also only runs on an Android operating system, so you’ll need to ensure you have this, or purchase Toasts hardware.

Bear in mind, that if you choose not to go with Toast’s own hardware, if something goes wrong, they won’t be able to help you fix it. But we do know that providers such as Square also offer very affordable hardware, with costs starting at $59 for a card reader.

Features

As a whole, Square offers some of the highest-rated features. Although Toast wins by some brownie points in the hardware area, scoring a 4.1/5 over Square’s 4/5. Toast’s toughest competitor might be Lightspeed, as it offers a restaurant-specific system. Lightspeed scores higher than, or the same as, Toast in all areas except price, as Toast offers a free plan whereas Lightspeed doesn’t.

Business Development

Toast scored a low 2.5/5 in this area, which includes features such as a CRM system, loyalty programs, ecommerce platform, and brand awareness. Toast scores low in this area, especially as CRM functionalities are only available through a third-party integration.

It does, however, include a loyalty program. This is linked to a customer’s credit card, so they don’t even need to bring their loyalty card with them. You also get reports on your loyalty program, so you can keep an eye on your regulars, and see how well your program is working out.

None of the other providers score a 5/5, with the highest being a 4/5, so it seems no provider is doing especially well in this area.

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Vend

Talech

Lightspeed

TouchBistro

Clover

4.8
4.8
4.4
4.3
4.5
4.5
4.0
4.7
Price
  • Starter Kit: $0/month
  • Point of Sale: $69/month
  • Build Your Own: custom
Price

Free: $0/month
Restaurant Plus: $69/month
Retail Plus: $89/month
Restaurant Premium: $165/month
Restaurant Premium: Custom

Price
  • Lean – $69
  • Standard – $119
  • Advanced – $199
Price

$0 – $99/month

Price

$89/month (basic)
$149/month (core)
$289/month (plus)

Price

$89/month/location + Shopify online store ($39-$399/month)

Price

From $69/month

Price

From $165/month (software and hardware package)

Best For

Established restaurants with complex operations

Best For

Best for scaling and growing your business

Best For

Scalability

Best For

Mobile Businesses

Best For

Driving repeat business and loyalty

Best For

Best for managing in-store and online sales

Best For

Easiest hospitality POS system to operate

Best For

Best for professional hardware

Pros
  • Designed for the hospitality industry
  • Stock and profit management tools
  • Ingredient usage tracking
Pros
  • Free POS software
  • Affordable paid plans
  • Cheap hardware
Pros
  • Intuitive and easy to use
  • Affordable
Pros
  • Free mobile app
  • Scalable
  • Wide range of features
Pros
  • Advanced inventory management
  • Gift cards and loyalty programs
  • SMS & email marketing
Pros
  • Powerful platform ideal for any-sized retail store
  • Affordable hardware options
Pros
  • Designed for hospitality
  • Integrated CRM system
  • Add-on features
Pros
  • Handheld POS system
  • Easy to use
  • Offline mode
Cons
  • Best features comes as paid add-ons
Cons
  • No advanced cost vs profit management tools
Cons
  • Shopify integration does not always work well
Cons
  • Can be glitchy
Cons
  • Only available through iPad or Android app
Cons
  • Requires you to sell through and pay monthly fees for your own Shopify store
Cons
  • Difficult to get out of contract
Cons
  • Hardware is expensive

Does Toast have good reviews?

Overall, customers like the features and hardware Toast offers, such as payroll integration, self-service kiosk, and extensive reporting. Users also liked how easy it was to use and set up.

Many users reported having a bad experience with customer service, finding it hard to get in contact with a customer service agent and have their queries answered quickly. Some users reported that they felt like they were misled as they needed to purchase add-ons to access features they were initially shown.

Customer Review

Pros

The handhelds were a game-changer. Instead of running to the nearest station and waiting for other co-workers to finish, I was able to take the order at tableside.

They also reduced errors significantly. When inputting orders, all of the prompts for temperature, sides, and modifications came up automatically. This reduced the number of times that orders were inaccurate.

By doing all this in real-time while taking the guest’s order, it made it possible to take a higher volume of tables, consequently raising sales and revenue. It also made it impossible to forget to ring in the order.

Cons

I’m not sure if it was software or connectivity issues, but we ended up offline a bit. The program was supposed to still send orders to stations offline, but it printed multiple copies. Although I have been around long enough to know how to take orders by hand and deliver them appropriately to support staff, the majority of our employees were much younger and did not. This caused chaos.
The handhelds needed frequent rebooting.

Melissa,
getapp.co.uk - 09/03/2022
Customer Review

Pros 

The reporting. It updates quickly; it’s easy to segment and organize, and it helps me manage the business. I like that I can download so many of the reports into excel so that I can analyze the data easily.

Cons 

The higher charge for manually entering credit cards. We run many events for which we collect the credit cards in writing and have to manually enter them for transactions of 1k or more which kills us in charges.

Monica M,
g2.com - 03/02/2022
Customer Review

Pros 

Relatively easy to use if set up properly. Easy to adjust menu on the fly. Offline CC processing. Payroll is responsive.

Cons 

They do not give you the time of day unless they are trying to sell you something. Waste of money paying them to set it up. We can’t even get good support using a free trial of their new service modules. They will just tell you how much this will increase your sales.

Chris,
getapp.co.uk - 21/01/2022

How We Reviewed Toast POS

The Expert Market team rigorously assessed and tested 15 different POS systems to bring you this list. In total, we spent around 160 hours researching POS platforms, and over 20 hours testing them.

During that time, we used our learnings to evaluate how each POS system fared in six categories that are important to hospitality businesses, broken down into up to 12 subcategories, in order to award an impartial ranking. Here’s what we looked at:

  • POS software: The breadth of features included in the POS software, and how valuable they are to the average business, including inventory management, menu/product creation, customer engagement tools, and table management.
  • Hardware/equipment: The variety of equipment available to purchase or rent, with special importance given to key items, such as physical terminals, customer displays, and accessories.
  • Ease-of-use: How easy each system is to use, based on feedback from several average users who were assigned basic tasks to complete on each system, such as menu/item creation, accessing reports, or applying a discount.
  • Help and support: How effective and reachable the customer support teams are, with bonus points given to POS systems with help centers and training modes.
  • Costs: The price of the system, how it compares to competitors, and whether it's good value for money.
  • User experience: Whether everyday users know and like the system, whether they’d recommend it, and what they say about it in online reviews.

We gave each POS system a score in each of the above testing and research categories and combined them to produce an overall score, which was used to rank them.

Verdict

Toast is best suited to businesses in the hospitality industry. Designed for the hospitality industry, Toast scores 5/5 in the business management, stock management and usability areas of our research. It also scores a 4.8/5 in the price, thanks to its free plan that gives small businesses access to free POS software.

Whilst its customer score is low at 3/5, it does provide an all-around solid POS system for businesses looking for hospitality-focused features, such as online ordering, delivery, and menu management. It scores a 4.1/5 for hardware, as it offers restaurant-grade, durable hardware, built to withstand the spills and heat of a busy restaurant.

Toast software only operates on Android, so if you don’t want to purchase its hardware you’ll need to ensure you’re using an Android device. However, if you don’t purchase its hardware, Toast won’t be able to offer you assistance if something goes wrong with the device.

Before making an investment into a POS system, it’s a good idea to compare a range of providers. You can use our free quote tool to do this, just give us a few brief details. and we’ll do the rest! Trusted POS providers will then contact you with no-obligation quotes.

FAQs

Why is Toast POS so popular?
Toast POS offers restaurant-grade hardware, and restaurant-specific features. It also has a free plan, making it a popular choice for start-ups or small businesses in the hospitality industry.
Does Toast charge a fee?
Yes, although it does offer a free software plan. Its paid software plans starts at $69 per month, and there’s also custom pricing for tailored packages.

Toast hardware is not free, although you can use your own hardware if it’s compatible with Toast.

Is Toast POS expensive?
Toast’s paid plan is average when it comes its POS software monthly fee, but the free plan does help to offset this cost.
Written by:
Zara Chechi
Zara is a Payments Expert, specialising in writing about Point of Sale systems. With a Law Degree from City University of London, she has used her legally-honed research and analytical skills to develop expertise in the Business Services world. Featured in FinTech Magazine, she quickly became an expert in payroll, POS systems, and merchant accounts.
Reviewed by:
Ruairi uses his 3+ years of research experience to uncover insights which can help Expert Market provide the best business solutions for their users. He has done this by meeting with business owners to find out what is important to them and what challenges they face on a daily basis. Ruairi specialises in tools that can be used to grow your business and has done research for a wide range of categories on Expert Market, such as EPOS, Website Builders, and Merchant Accounts.