Toast review

What Toast hardware actually costs

The $0 headline covers one Countertop Starter Kit: a Toast Flex terminal, a Toast Tap payment device, a data security router and self service installation support. Everything after that is priced, and Toast publishes the numbers in its own kit configurator.

• 14 inch Toast Flex with counter stand: $749 plus $50 a month
• Toast Go 3 handheld, wifi only: $599 plus $50 a month
• 14 inch Toast Flex for kitchen with wall mount: $749 plus $35 a month
• 8 inch Toast Flex guest wedge: $299
• Toast receipt printer: $329, kitchen printer: $339
• Toast Tap on counter: $149, Flex 3 cash drawer with insert: $99
• Wired plus cellular router plan: $40 a month

Note the pattern: most terminals carry a purchase price and a per device monthly software fee. Section 4.10 of the merchant agreement is the reason. It requires an active software subscription licence for every hardware device, and lets Toast deactivate a device without one or backdate the software fees that would have been due.

Onboarding is priced the same way. A self built menu, self install and a post launch check in are included. A menu built for you costs $250, a guided install costs $250, and first day phone support from a technician costs $225.

How the free plan bills for add-ons

Toast does not sell modules on the Starter Kit. It sells feature packs, and each one is priced in basis points rather than dollars. All three cost $0 a month.

• Basic, 3.09% + $0.15: payment processing, 24/7/365 support, reporting
• Core, 3.39% + $0.15: everything in Basic, plus online ordering, delivery, and the DoorDash, Uber Eats and Grubhub integrations
• Growth, 3.69% + $0.15: everything in Core, plus gift cards, loyalty, SMS and email marketing, websites, catering and events

That is a 30 basis point step for online ordering and another 30 for the marketing tools, applied to every card sale you take, not just the ones the module touches. A restaurant on Growth doing $40,000 a month in card volume pays $240 a month more than the same restaurant on Basic.

On the $69 Point of Sale plan the same capabilities are billed monthly instead. Merchant Maverick puts digital ordering and third party ordering at $75 a month each, loyalty and gift cards at $50 each, email marketing and Toast Websites at $75 each, and catering and events at $100. Toast does not publish those figures itself, which is why the venue is named here.

What the merchant agreement actually says

Toast publishes its merchant agreement, and the four clauses that decide what leaving costs are worth reading before a demo rather than after.

Section 8.1, term and renewal. The initial term is set in the order form, not in the agreement, and the Starter Kit checkout states a 2 year agreement. After that the term renews automatically for successive one year periods unless either side gives at least 30 days written notice before the current term ends. The clause also says that once a renewal term starts, "any special terms or promotions previously offered by Toast to Merchant shall no longer be valid."

Section 8.4, early termination. The fee is the remaining software subscription fees for the rest of the current term, or on a pay-as-you-go subscription $150 multiplied by the months remaining, plus any processing fee tied to software financing.

Section 6.2, rate changes. Software fees hold during the initial term, but Toast can change card processing rates and other non-software fees at any point on 30 days written notice. If you reject a card rate change and terminate, the early termination fee is waived. If you keep trading past the effective date, you are deemed to have accepted it.

Section 4.7, hardware. The services "do not function with every device and may only be used on approved Toast Hardware." There is no bring-your-own-tablet path and no second life for the terminals on another platform.

The 2023 order processing fee

In late June 2023 Toast announced a 99 cent fee charged to the diner on any online order of $10 or more placed through Toast's own ordering channels. The money went to Toast, not to the restaurant, and operators could not waive it or opt out.

It went live on 10 July 2023. Nine days later, on 19 July, Toast reversed it. Then chief executive Chris Comparato said the company "made the wrong decision" and that the fee would come off the digital ordering channels by the end of that week.

It still comes up in reviews three years on, and the reason is not the 99 cents. It is that a pricing change reaching a restaurant's own customers shipped without the restaurant's consent. Section 6.2 of the merchant agreement is the mechanism that made it possible, and it is still in force.

Toast Capital

Toast lends against the card volume it already processes. Loans run from $1,000 to $300,000, are issued by WebBank, and carry one fixed fee stated in dollars rather than an interest rate, with no application, prepayment or late fees and no personal guarantee.

Repayment is automatic and taken as a fixed percentage of daily card transactions running through Toast, so a slow Tuesday repays less than a busy Saturday. Target terms are 90, 270 or 360 days depending on eligibility, and the maximum repayment window runs 60 days past the end of the target term, after which any balance is collected by ACH. On the 270 and 360 day terms a repayment milestone schedule can apply, with a shortfall every 30 days collected by ACH.

There is no credit score requirement and applying does not touch your credit. Eligibility is judged on card processing volume, time on Toast and bankruptcy status. Funding can arrive the next business day after the credit agreement is signed.

The trade is straightforward and worth naming: the repayment percentage comes off the top of daily settlement, so the loan tightens working capital in exactly the weeks trade is slow.