Toast's fees, and the one it does not publish.
Toast publishes software at $0, $69 a month and $69 plus $9 per employee. It publishes no card processing rate, no hardware price, no contract term and no funding timetable. Everything that decides your cost arrives in a quote.
What this page settles.
Three questions, in the order most people ask them.
What it actually is
Toast is a restaurant point-of-sale platform and nothing else. That focus is its whole proposition: coursing and kitchen display, table and floor management, handhelds, online ordering and delivery integrations, inventory, labour and scheduling, all built for restaurants rather than adapted to them.
On the payments side, Toast describes itself as a payment facilitator that partners with processors. In practical terms that means Toast sits between you and the processing, the way Square and Shopify do, and that the processing is tied to the platform.
The thing to understand before anything else: Toast publishes what its software costs and does not publish what its payments cost. For a restaurant doing $80,000 a month in card volume, the software is a line item and the processing is the bill. Who publishes and who does not.
Every published price
| Toast | |
|---|---|
| Pricing model | Software published, processing quoted |
| In person | Not published |
| Keyed | Not published |
| Online | Not published |
| Monthly | $0, $69/mo, and $69/mo plus $9 per employee a month are the plan figures on the pricing page |
| Contract | Not published |
| Monthly minimum | Not published |
| Funding | Not published |
| Chargeback fee | Not published |
| Hardware | Not published. The page says hardware and implementation costs vary, with 0% financing available by application. |
| Account type | Toast describes itself as a payment facilitator that partners with processors |
Toast publishes these at pos.toasttab.com. Read 2026-10-08.
Also published:
- Toast publishes software plan prices and does not publish a processing rate anywhere on its pricing page
- The plan figures are for new customers and single locations, and include the first hardware terminal subscription
The blanks are the part most people came for, and they are blanks rather than omissions: where that table says a figure is not published, Toast does not publish it. We read Toast’s own pages rather than taking a number from a review site, and a number we cannot source we do not print.
Published prices change. These are list prices for a business buying direct, read on the date above, and a quote you are given may differ.
What it costs in practice
We can only show you half of this, and the half we can show you is the smaller half.
Software, as published: a $0 plan, a $69 a month plan, and a $69 plus $9 per employee a month plan. The footnotes say the figures are for new customers and single locations and include the first hardware terminal subscription, with additional charges for subsequent devices.
Processing, unpublished. To give a sense of scale: a restaurant doing $80,000 a month at an illustrative 2.6% effective rate pays about $2,080 a month in processing. That is roughly thirty times the published software fee. Whatever Toast quotes you, that is the number the decision turns on.
Hardware, unpublished. The page says hardware and implementation costs vary, with 0% financing available by application. For a restaurant fitting several stations, handhelds and kitchen displays, this is usually the largest first-year cost and “varies” is a large unknown.
The six figures to get in writing before you sign anything: the card-present rate and per-item, the keyed rate, every monthly fee named individually, the contract term and what it costs to leave, the full hardware and implementation total, and the funding timetable. Comparing two quotes.
What it is good at
It is the best restaurant system in its class, and that is not a close argument. Coursing, kitchen display, multi-area service, handhelds on the floor, delivery aggregation, labour and scheduling. For a full-service restaurant with a real kitchen workflow, Toast does things its competitors approximate.
The integrations are deep. Online ordering, delivery platforms, accounting, payroll and inventory are built in rather than bolted on, which for a busy operation is worth more than a rate difference.
Hardware is built for the environment. Spill-resistant handhelds with real battery life and kitchen displays designed for a kitchen, not a shop counter.
There is a genuine $0 software tier, with conditions, which lowers the barrier for a new restaurant considerably.
It is a serious company with serious support, which matters at 7pm on a Friday in a way it does not in most categories.
Where it costs you
The unpublished rate. Everything else on this list is secondary. You cannot compare Toast to anything until it gives you a number, and the number is where the money is.
Processing is locked to the platform. Once your menu is built, your staff trained and your kitchen printers wired, the processing rate is no longer a decision you can revisit. That is why it has to be settled before the platform decision, not after. Choosing a restaurant POS.
The term. No contract term is published. Multi-year commitments are the norm in restaurant point-of-sale, and a multi-year term with a liquidated damages clause is the most expensive exit cost there is. Ask, and get it in the agreement. Agreement red flags.
The $0 plan’s conditions. New customers, single locations, first hardware terminal subscription included, additional charges for subsequent devices. Read all of them; the headline $0 is doing a lot of work.
Implementation. Toast names it as a variable cost, which is honest, and it is a real one — menu build, install, training and a messy week of two systems.
Who it suits, and who it does not
Toast suits a full-service restaurant where kitchen workflow is the operation: coursing, several service areas, handhelds, serious online ordering and delivery volume, and enough staff that labour management is a real problem. For that restaurant it is probably the right system and the question is only what it costs.
Toast does not suit a cafe, a bar with simple service, a quick-service counter or a food truck, where Square or SpotOn does the job for materially less, nor a restaurant whose primary concern is processing cost — because the platform lock is what prevents acting on that.
Before you sign: get the six figures above in writing, and work out what the processing rate costs you a month at your own volume. Then compare that total — software plus processing plus hardware amortised — against the alternatives. The software fee is not the comparison.
What we charge
Interchange + 0.50% + 10¢ in person, interchange + 0.75% + 25¢ keyed, with no contract, no monthly fee and no monthly minimum.
Because Toast does not publish a rate, the only way to compare it to anything is to get its quote in writing and reduce it to an effective rate at your own volume. Send us the quote and a page of a statement and we will do that — including when the quote turns out to be better than ours.
While we are on the subject
What does Toast charge for processing?
It does not publish a rate. You have to get a quote, and you should get it in writing alongside the software, hardware and contract terms.
Is Toast's $0 plan really free?
The software tier is $0, with conditions: new customers, single locations, and the first hardware terminal subscription included. Additional devices carry charges, and hardware and implementation are separate.
Can I use my own processor with Toast?
Not meaningfully. Toast is a payment facilitator and the processing is tied to the platform, which is why the rate has to be settled before you commit.
Is Toast worth it for a small restaurant?
For a simple operation, usually not — the capability that justifies Toast is the complex-service end. For a full-service restaurant with a real kitchen workflow, it generally is.