Jason Feemster - Extremely easy to use
- Android-based platform
- Strong data reporting features
- Strong customer support team
- In-house processing only
- Requires contract
- Price can add up
Toast POS Review
Table of Contents
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Updated as of June, 2023
My Toast POS review provides extensive information about this top point of sale provider. If you’re looking to purchase a new POS or improve your current operations, it’s essential to understand pricing and the various options available, and how it can impact your business. We have reviewed all of the top POS companies, summarized the product with honest feedback, and provided our final verdict. Is Toast POS system the perfect fit for your restaurant or bar? It’s time to find out!
Overview of Toast
Toast POS is a point of sale system built specifically for the hospitality sector. Instead of focusing on a broad range of niches, Toast POS focuses on tools that help restaurant owners improve efficiency and manage various business components. The company is based in Boston, Massachusetts.
Toast POS offers a sleek, easy-to-use POS software product that couples with excellent hardware options on the Android platform. The software provides features required for today, like online ordering, delivery, and takeout. As a user, you’ll benefit from touchscreen hardware devices that help you take orders quickly. Toast POS software and hardware is designed and built to handle the demands of the restaurant business.
Not only does Toast POS have restaurant-specific tools, but the company also provides a few unique specifications for specific restaurant niches. For example, there are features available for cafes, bars, bakeries, fine dining, and a host of other hospitality niches. These separate categories help you access tools built to benefit your particular restaurant type.
Third-party integrations and in-house payment processing can also help you improve your business’s efficiency. There is a lot to like about Toast POS — it’s time to continue with our review of Toast POS and take a closer look at the details!
Pros vs Cons
- Extremely easy to use
- Build custom menus with categories and different features
- Reliable Android-based platform
- Niche specifications for certain types of restaurants
- Strong data reporting features
- Strong customer support team
- No payment processing flexibility
- Price can add up when you consider the cost of additional features
- Requires contract
Pricing
How much does Toast cost? Toast POS pricing starts at $0 per month (first terminal). The fee that you pay will depend on the package that you choose. You can purchase hardware and installation at an additional cost. Below, let’s take a look at the starting prices of various Toast POS components:
Toast Starter Kit (Pay-as-You-Go)
Best for restaurants that prefer accessing Toast’s platform with no upfront hardware costs and no fixed monthly subscription.
- Software for the first terminal (per month): $0/mo
- Toast Starter Kit Hardware Bundle: Starting at $0
- Remote Installation: $250
- Add Digital Ordering & Marketing Suite: +.40% per transaction
- 2.99% + $0.15 (in-person) Visa, Mastercard, and Discover Card Rates (new customers and single locations only)
Toast Starter Kit (Standard)
Ideal for small restaurants to get up and running on Toast.
- Software for the first terminal (per month): $69/mo
- Additional terminals (per month): $50 each
- Hardware: Popular package is $799 (interest-free financing)
- Remote Installation: $250
- Loyalty Program: $25 (per month)
- Gift Card Program: $50 (per month)
- Online Ordering Program: $50 (per month)
- 2.49% + $0.15 (in-person) Visa, Mastercard, and Discover Card Rates (new customers and single locations only)
Toast Essentials
Ideal for restaurants looking to expand into off-premise channels.
- Starting at $165/mo
- Includes Online Ordering & Delivery
- Includes Toast Takeout App
Custom Price
Ideal for using your data to attract new guests and drive repeat visits.
- Get Quote for Pricing
- Includes Online Ordering & Delivery
- Includes Toast Takeout App
- Includes Gift Cards, Loyalty, Marketing
New Restaurant Basics
Ideal for new restaurants who want to get started with Toast and save money by bundling POS and Payroll.
- Price: $110/mo (+$4 per employee/month)
- Payroll lite
- Scheduling lite
- Additional employee management tools
In my opinion, Toast POS is relatively affordable when compared to the rest of the market. The only downside is that the price can add up if you choose to purchase some extra benefits (such as gift cards, marketing, and their loyalty program). You’ll need to assess the total cost across your business before deciding on this platform’s affordability.
I do like that Toast finally advertises the pricing of their in-house payment processing. They claimed to have a ‘flat rate,’ but it wasn’t advertised on their site; now you can find it in the pricing section above or under the Toast credit card processing section below.
Toast POS is also happy to work with you to customize a package. If you have a large restaurant or chain of restaurants, you may get a lower price per terminal. It’s always worth discussing your options with the Toast POS system before committing to a specific package.
Key Features
What’s on offer at Toast POS? Let’s take a deep dive into the various features available if you choose this point of sale system:
- Easy ordering system that allows staff to receive orders and process transactions quickly
- Extensive menu building platform that will enable you to split menus into categories and divide items intuitively. You can also choose to mimic your restaurant’s currently displayed menu. You can use these tools to speed up the menu navigation process
- Customize special pricing and promotional offers directly in your point of sale system
- Tableside ordering for restaurants who need quick-service options for their customers
- Automatically send digital receipts to your customers
- An extensive data reporting system that allows you to understand your business and its various functions
- Track customers and details about their visits to your locations — this can help you target individual customers for specific promotions
- Manage your inventory directly to ensure you don’t disappoint customers with shortages of food or products
- Allow staff members to clock in and out directly via your point of sale platform — this helps you pay wages and keep track of staff promptness
- Track voids, cancellations, and a range of other indicators to keep your finger on the pulse of your business
- Access to a mobile tablet (Toast Go Handheld), which means that you can directly take orders and payments from anywhere on your premises
- A range of niche specifications that help you focus your point of sale system on certain types of hospitality businesses — such as fine dining or bakeries
- Online ordering and delivery modules available
Data Reporting
The ‘back office’ features at Toast POS are another strong point associated with this provider. You can access sales data in real-time from an offsite location. Toast POS provides users with useful visuals, reports, comparison tools, automated alerts, and more.
Best of all, you can access all of this directly from a mobile phone. You can control your business without stepping foot in your office.
Deployment Type
Toast POS is a cloud-based mobile POS solution. Implementation includes a local LAN network for its clients by providing a dedicated router for PCI standards compliance. This way, all the POS data is downloaded and stored on every connected device and secure. Further, if the internet is down, all of your devices will still work as they should in offline mode. Credit card payments can also be accepted offline, and the processing data is stored until the internet is available. However, it can’t process gift cards offline.
Industries Served
As mentioned earlier, Toast POS is an all-in-one restaurant management solution. It offers convenient features to help you run whatever food industry business. It will work exceptionally well in companies that involve serving food and drinks for profit.
The POS system is suitable for small restaurant establishments, though it’s fully adept with chain restaurant management. The data will sync automatically across all the locations – you only need to use your username and password to access the data.
Ease of Use
The POS system is generally easy to grasp, and the company goes out of its way during the setup process to ensure you have everything you need to get started. One of Toast’s representatives will be there to walk you through the system and take all the time you need to get acquainted with it. The interface is modern, clean, and fast to navigate than some of the more traditional point-of-sale solutions.
The ordering and payment processing platforms make it easy to conduct transactions in your restaurant. It can save you time and money if you experience a lot of foot traffic.
Hardware
Toast will provide you with what you need here, depending on your budget. For those just starting, there are POS terminals, sale tablets, card readers, bar printers, kitchen display screens, and more, depending on your specific requirements.
Toast POS hardware packages start at $799 for single locations with 1 terminal. If you need additional hardware, you’ll need to request a quote directly from Toast.
What’s included with the starter hardware bundle:
The most popular “starter” hardware bundle starts at $799 and includes:
- 14″ Toast Flex terminal
- Toast Tap for Payment Processing
- Meraki Router
- Add Guest-Facing Display – $200
Integrations
Using third-party integrations can help you instantly enhance your current point of sale platform. If you want to improve your business’s individual components, such as online ordering or payroll, third-party integrations can do the trick.
At Toast POS, there’s an impressive number of in-house add-ons and some third-party options. Integrations include:
- PeachWorks
- CrunchTime
- Samsung Pay
- Bevager
- Kitchensync
- CTUIT
- Compeat
- GrubHub
- PayTronix
Payment Processing
Mandatory secure credit card processing is included in the general package. And to use Toast as your POS, you have to use Toast as your payment processor, which can be a bit of a challenge — especially if you want to keep your current provider.
The Toast starter kit comes with Toast Tap to accept payments. Toast Tap reader supports tap, dip, and swipe (NFC, EMV, & MSR) payments from credit cards and digital wallets like Apple Pay and Google Pay, allowing guests to pay whatever way is most convenient for them.
Toast advertises these flat payment processing rates on their website:
- 2.49% + $0.15 (in-person) Visa, Mastercard, and Discover Card Rates (for new customers with a single location)
Toast will let you accept cash, checks, gift cards, and works with most credit and debit cards (MasterCard, Visa, American Express, and Discover).
You can accept payments tableside with the Toast Go Handheld device.
Customer Service
Toast customer support was a paramount consideration when the founders set out to create a POS system — and it shows. They have invested in quite a high level of support, which is rarely seen within the industry, from personal customization of the software to match the customers’ unique needs, to 24/7 technical assistance to the sheer number of hands-on training materials available. Plus, most of these services come free of charge.
However, platform installation and configuration are available at a small fee, which is enough to cater to the cost of the people who provide these services. It’s entirely possible that they lose money by offering installation services.
Our Verdict
I found Toast POS as one of the best POS solutions I’ve come across recently. It gives you all of the features you’d expect from a high-end system, with few (if any) product gaps. With a recent announcement of $400M in Series F Funding, any feature or technology gaps will quickly be dissolved. There are tens of thousands of new restaurants joining their platform every year, so Toast is definitely one of the restaurant industry leaders. Also, their exceptional customer service really sets them apart.
However, I think it would be better if users could choose whether to keep Toast as their payment processor. Still, this isn’t a deal-breaker, considering the few complaints and many praises about the processor from its current users. That said, we have no doubt recommending Toast to anyone running a business in the food-service industry.
Toast pricing is on the high side of the market when you start to add additional features. Their advertised flat-rate processing fees are in the “industry standard” range, albeit on the higher side. Flat rates can be predictable but pricey for high-volume restaurants or bars.
If you’re looking for a more cost-effective solution on the Android platform, we recommend checking out Harbortouch POS systems. Harbortouch pricing starts at only $39 per month for a comparable solution, with tons of features and negotiable processing rates.
If our Toast POS review didn’t meet your expectation and it’s not the perfect choice for your business, you can also check out some of our other POS reviews here.
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4 reviews for Toast POS
Add a review
JAMES David BROWN –
As a long time Executive Chef I have used my share of POS systems. Toast is hands down the easiest and user friendly. Training time cut way down. Their long list of integration partners and payroll system makes it a true all in one platform. I highly recommend any business to at the very least look into it. You will be impressed.
Laurie –
We have used Toast for approximately 6 months. Hardware breaks continually, credit card readers disconnect numerous times each day, which requires a complete reboot of the system. Support on the weekends requires a 40+ minute wait on the phone. Our IT person is completely exasperated. There are never any solutions offered for our issues. I will give Toast another 6 months to get it together before we jump ship.
Andrew Briere –
I haven’t experienced their “great customer service” yet. My sales rep is VERY bad at communicating via email. This has been a stressful experience thus far and all I have to show for it is my deposit taken out of my bank account and absolutely NO idea when we can expect to see the equipment. I’ve tried calling customer service several times but it’s always a twenty minute or better wait…. we picked toast because we heard such great things, wow am I disappointed!!!
Chris –
I cannot speak to others reviews here saying hardware is breaking and credit card readers not working, to each their own experience I guess, but from our experience, Toast has been nothing short of amazing switching from Square.
We chose Square as it was cheap and low cost and got the job done, but we quickly outgrew it. Shopped around and ended up talking to a Toast rep in our area (Albuquerque, NM) they gave us a virtual demo and talked us through everything from what made their hardware different to the software that would help us drive revenue (email marketing, loyalty etc.) A huge selling point to us was the ability to use DoorDash but not pay commissions on delivery orders which used to really cut into our online ordering revenue.
We have had toast for about a year now and it has been wonderful, really simple to teach new staff, we use their handhelds which are AWESOME, really sleek design and fit right in our servers pockets. No substantial issues with credit card reader, we had one handheld freeze up once but a 10 minute call with their customer service fixed it right away. I’ve only called them a handful of times since we opened, and have never waited more than 5 minutes to reach an actual person for help.
All in all i’d give Toast 4/5 stars for the system but ranked them here 5/5 because our sales rep we worked with took our budget we gave him and got us to a number that fit what we could afford. I really recommend going through your local sales rep, in my experience they have more ability to help on discounting.
All in all very positive experience, a few places around us have Toast too and i can’t say i’ve heard any complaints from them either. Would highly recommend to any mom/pop shop opening up a first location or anyone needing an upgrade.
Good luck with your search!