Toast POS Pricing: What Does Toast Really Cost Restaurants?
What does Toast POS cost?
Toast POS pricing starts at $0 per month for the Starter plan, but most restaurants need a paid tier. The Point of Sale plan starts at $69 per month, while Build Your Own pricing is available on application. Hardware ranges from around $409 for a handheld device to $999 or more for a full countertop terminal. Payment processing fees of 2.49% plus 15 cents per card-present transaction add a significant ongoing cost on top.
Before you go further: if you run a restaurant in the UK or Ireland, Toast is not currently a practical option. Toast is a US company and its product is designed primarily for the North American market. UK-specific compliance, payment infrastructure, and local support are not established in the same way. This article breaks down Toast pricing for completeness, then covers what UK and Irish restaurants should actually be evaluating instead.
Toast pricing tiers explained
Toast offers four main plan options for US restaurants:
| Plan | Monthly fee | Key features |
|---|---|---|
| Starter | $0 | Basic POS, no online ordering |
| Point of Sale | $69/month | Full POS, reporting, staff management |
| Build Your Own | Varies | Modular — choose only what you need |
| Enterprise | Custom | Multi-location, advanced features |
The Starter plan is very limited and only suited to the smallest, simplest operations. The Point of Sale plan at $69 per month covers a single terminal. Additional terminals, kitchen displays, and modules add to the cost.
These are US dollar prices from the Toast website and are subject to change.
Hardware costs
Toast uses proprietary hardware. You cannot run Toast software on a third-party terminal — you must purchase Toast-branded devices.
Typical hardware costs in the US:
| Hardware | Approximate cost |
|---|---|
| Toast Flex terminal | ~$999 |
| Toast Go handheld device | ~$409 |
| Toast Hub (networking component) | ~$70 |
| Kitchen display screen | ~$627 |
| Self-service kiosk | ~$999+ |
A typical two-terminal setup with a kitchen display and a handheld device will cost around $3,000 to $4,000 in hardware before any monthly fees. Some Toast plans allow hardware to be paid monthly rather than upfront, but the total cost is the same over the contract term.
Proprietary hardware creates lock-in. If you decide to move to a different POS platform, you cannot reuse your Toast hardware.
Payment processing fees
Toast processes payments through its own payments platform. Standard fees for US customers:
- Card-present transactions: 2.49% + 15¢
- Card-not-present (online, keyed): 3.5% + 15¢
- Custom rates available on higher-volume plans
On standard plans, you cannot use a third-party payment processor — you are committed to Toast's rates.
To understand what this means in practice: a restaurant with £500,000 in annual card sales at 2.49% pays approximately £12,450 per year in processing fees alone. A difference of even 0.5 percentage points in processing rates equals £2,500 per year. Payment processing is one of the largest variables in your total POS cost, and it is one most operators underestimate when comparing headline subscription prices.
The hidden costs
The monthly subscription and hardware are the visible costs. The hidden costs catch many operators out:
Installation and onboarding. Toast charges for installation, particularly at larger or more complex sites. This can add several hundred dollars or more.
Add-on modules. Toast's online ordering, loyalty, marketing automation, and scheduling tools are separate paid products. A fully-featured setup costs considerably more than the base POS subscription.
Third-party integrations. Connecting Toast to accounting software, delivery aggregators, or inventory management platforms may require paid integrations from the Toast marketplace.
Support tiers. Basic support is included, but priority support — which most busy restaurants need — may require a higher plan or additional payment.
Contract length and exit costs. Toast contracts typically run annually. Exiting early can involve penalties, and switching costs are high once you are embedded in a proprietary hardware ecosystem.
Toast POS in the UK and Ireland
Toast's primary market is the United States. UK and Irish operators looking at Toast face several practical obstacles:
- Toast does not have an established UK product with local payments infrastructure
- UK VAT reporting, HMRC compliance, and FCA-regulated payment processing are not native features
- Integration with UK delivery aggregators (Deliveroo, Just Eat UK, Uber Eats UK) is not a primary product focus
- UK customer support at the scale US customers receive is not established
Some UK operators have investigated Toast, but very few have successfully deployed it. The practical answer for UK and Irish restaurant operators is to evaluate platforms built for their market.
What UK restaurants actually need from a POS
A POS designed for UK and Irish restaurants should offer:
- FCA-regulated card payment processing in GBP (and EUR for Irish operators)
- VAT-compliant reporting and HMRC-ready data
- GDPR-compliant customer data handling
- Integration with UK delivery aggregators (Deliveroo, Just Eat, Uber Eats)
- Branded online ordering without marketplace commission
- Multi-channel management: in-venue, online, kiosk, phone
- Local customer support
None of these are incidental requirements. They are the baseline for operating legally and efficiently in the UK market.
Best alternatives to Toast for UK and Ireland restaurants
1. Flipdish
Flipdish is the strongest option for UK and Irish restaurant operators evaluating an integrated restaurant technology platform. Flipdish was built for restaurants in the UK and Ireland — not adapted from a US product — and operates fully in both markets with local support and UK-compliant payments.
Flipdish provides:
- A full restaurant POS system with kitchen display and integrated payments
- Branded online ordering via website and mobile app — no commission
- Self-service kiosks that increase average order value
- AI phone ordering to capture orders without staff involvement
- Customer loyalty and AI marketing automation
- Multi-location management for chains and groups
For operators who want a single platform rather than separate subscriptions for POS, online ordering, and loyalty tools, Flipdish is the natural starting point for UK and Irish market evaluation.
2. Lightspeed Restaurant
Available in the UK. Designed for table-service restaurants with solid floor plan and reservations tools. Less suited to QSRs and takeaways.
3. Epos Now
A UK-based POS provider with a broad hospitality product. Covers straightforward operations well. Online ordering requires separate third-party integrations.
4. Square for Restaurants
Available in the UK with a free entry-level tier. Suits simple, small operations but lacks multi-location management and integrated ordering at scale.
How to calculate what a POS will actually cost
When comparing any POS — Toast, Flipdish, Epos Now, or others — apply this framework:
- Monthly software fee × 12 = annual software cost
- Hardware cost ÷ expected years of use = annual hardware cost
- Payment processing rate × annual card sales = annual processing cost
- Add-on modules × 12 = annual module costs
- Integration fees × 12 = annual integration costs
- Installation and onboarding (one-time, but worth factoring in)
Sum these for a true annual cost of ownership. Most operators who do this exercise find the monthly subscription is a small fraction of total cost, with payment processing and add-ons dominating the picture.
Why Flipdish makes financial sense
Flipdish bundles POS, online ordering, kiosks, and AI tools into a single platform. For many restaurants, this eliminates the cost of separate subscriptions for online ordering (typically £50–£200 per month with a third-party provider), loyalty tools, and a phone answering service.
The AI phone agent alone replaces a function that would otherwise require staff time or a separate service — and it never misses a call. For a busy takeaway losing orders to an engaged line during peak hours, that captures real revenue.
For restaurant groups operating at scale, the operational efficiency of a single integrated system compounds across locations. One training process, one integration, one support relationship, one dataset.
Talk to the Flipdish team about pricing for your operation at flipdish.com.
Summary
Toast POS pricing starts at $0 per month, but the real cost — hardware, subscription, processing fees, and add-ons — is substantially higher for most restaurants. For UK and Irish operators, Toast is not a realistic option given its US-market focus.
The right choice for UK and Irish restaurant operators is a platform built for their market. Flipdish delivers integrated POS, online ordering, kiosks, and AI tools designed specifically for UK and Irish restaurants, with local support and compliant payments infrastructure included.