Toast Review: An Established Restaurant’s Perfect EPOS System?

We tested Toast to see if it really is one of the best restaurant EPOS systems on the market. Based on the results, we think Toast is a great option for established full-service restaurants and other hospitality businesses that want faster service, fewer order errors, and tighter cost control.

However, small establishments on a budget can get more features for less money with competitors such as Square or SumUp.

Part of what makes Toast suitable for large, established restaurants is its excellent inventory management tools, which include low stock alerts and cost versus profit management 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.

However, a lot of the features we’ve just described come as paid add-ons. This means that Toast’s base price of £80 per month can quickly jump to over £200 per month with marketing add-ons – it’s hard to know an exact figure since Toast doesn’t advertise its add-on pricing.

Our Experience With Toast: Summary

We found Toast quite easy to use and were 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 we 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, no |EPOS system is perfect. We had trouble making amends 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. 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 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 pricing is a little unusual. Upgrading from the £80 per month Starter plan to the £150 per month Essentials plan doesn’t give you access to that many extra features, besides Toast’s table service equipment (its Toast Go handheld device), and Toast’s 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. For context, Square’s maximum price (excluding custom plans) is £69 per month, 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

Toast’s Hardware Range

Toast offers a wide range of proprietary EPOS hardware, which includes a countertop terminal, customer display screens and a handheld EPOS device. It also sells accessories, such as receipt and kitchen printers, and cash drawers.

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.

Pictured below is Toast’s Flex Terminal, a spill and heat-resistant countertop terminal that includes a flexible screen and comes in a kit with a tap and chip-and-PIN card reader.

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 Go 2: 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?

We 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.  If its US prices are anything to go by (terminals cost upwards of $700 USD), Toast’s hardware is more expensive than rival Square’s, but slightly cheaper than Clover’s.

Toast’s Key Features Explained

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

Order processing

Order processing is one of the most important aspects of any POS system, and Toast has a range of tools to make this process go smoothly.

These include easy bill splitting, where customers have the option to split bills by percentage or by a specific amount. Having these options on hand means both servers and customers can avoid having to do the math 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

Your 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.

The advantage of enabling this feature through Toast is that the 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 also offers integrations with a range of third-party delivery providers. These include OpenTable and Uber Eats. These integrations help expand the system and give your business the ability to scale and grow at a steady pace.

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

Another great paid add-on is Toast’s team management tools for employee timekeeping, messaging and shift scheduling. These features allow employees to easily swap shifts, request time off and receive shift reminders.

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.

When you start off with Toast, you can also get access to set-up support and training for a fee, but Toast doesn’t specify how much this costs.

How Does Toast Compare With Its Competitors?

Here’s a quick side-by-side comparison of the top Toast competitors:

Price

When it comes to price, Toast is on the higher end of the spectrum. Its starting price of £80 per month is already more than Square and SumUp’s maximum prices, bearing in mind that this price quickly increases with Toast’s add-on products.

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, we recommend Square or SumUp as alternatives. Both offer free EPOS software plans and are very clear about the cost of their products.

Features

When it comes to EPOS features, Toast offers a huge amount of variety, from marketing tools to cost versus profit management. It’s not alone in offering these, however, with Clover offering similar tools.

Like Toast 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, the only provider in our table that doesn’t.

Toast offers team management tools, like Square, but unlike Square, it doesn’t disclose the price of its advanced scheduling add-on; however, judging from the price of its other add-ons, it probably isn’t cheap.

Hardware range

Toast has one of the most complete hardware ranges of all the EPOS providers we researched, 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