Toast Pricing in 2026: The Published Tiers, and the Costs Around Them

Key takeaways

• Toast publishes three software tiers: **Starter Kit from $0/month**, **Point of Sale from $69/month**, and a custom-priced **Build Your Own**. All three say "starting at."
• The pieces most owners actually ask about, such as online ordering, Toast Websites, marketing, and payroll, are sold as **modules and higher tiers with no published price**.
• The software subscription is usually the smaller line. Processing, hardware, onboarding, and the contract term shape the real bill: NerdWallet puts card-not-present processing at **3.50% + $0.15** on the upfront-hardware plan and contract terms at **two to three years**.
• Prices change. Verify against Toast's own pricing page before you sign anything; that is what we did for this article, on August 26, 2026.

Toast is the biggest name in restaurant POS, and its pricing page is genuinely clearer than most in the category. It is still easy to walk away thinking the number is $0 or $69 a month. This article lays out what is published, what is not, and which costs live outside the software subscription, so you can ask for a complete quote instead of a starting one.

The three published tiers, verified August 2026

Two details worth reading twice:

• Every tier says **"starting at."** The number on the page is a floor, not an estimate for your restaurant.
• The $0/month Starter Kit is limited to one location and up to two terminals, for new customers, and the hardware arrives with "no upfront costs" because it is financed through the plan rather than free.

There is also a published bundle: **Point of Sale plus Payroll from $69/month plus $9 per employee per month**. For a 15-person team that line alone is $204 a month before anything else.

What carries no published price

Toast's own comparison chart marks the growth features as modules or higher tiers, without a dollar figure:

• **Digital Storefront Essentials**: online ordering, Toast Delivery Services, and the Local by Toast app.
• **Digital Storefront Pro**: everything in Essentials plus Toast Websites, custom online ordering, and the SEO features. If you want Toast to run your website, you are in this tier, above the $69 base.
• **Marketing Essentials**: email marketing, loyalty, and gift cards.
• **Team Management**, **xtraCHEF**, and third-party delivery integrations.

None of this is hidden, but none of it is priced on the page either. The practical consequence: a restaurant that wants the register, online ordering, a website, and email marketing cannot compute its own bill from Toast's pricing page. You get that number from a sales call.

The costs around the software

The subscription is one line on the bill. Four others usually matter more:

• **Processing.** Toast is the processor; you cannot bring your own rate. NerdWallet lists card-not-present processing at 3.50% + $0.15 on the plan where you pay for hardware upfront. On $30,000 a month of online orders that rate is $1,095 a month, which makes the $69 subscription a rounding error.
• **Hardware.** Terminals, handhelds, and kitchen displays are Toast's own. On the $0-upfront path the hardware cost lives inside your processing rate rather than disappearing.
• **Onboarding.** NerdWallet lists on-site onboarding at $1,000 per day and remote onboarding at $800 per day.
• **The contract.** NerdWallet puts standard terms at two to three years. Whatever number you negotiate, you keep it for the length of the term.

Questions that get you a real quote

Bring these to the sales call and the "starting at" number becomes an actual one:

• What is my all-in monthly bill with the register, online ordering, Toast Websites, and email marketing, itemized by module?
• What is my exact processing rate for card-present and card-not-present, on my hardware plan?
• What is the total hardware cost over the contract term, including the "free" kit?
• What is the contract length, and what does leaving early cost?

How Dinevate prices the same job

Dinevate covers the guest-facing side of that stack: the website, online ordering, the branded mobile app, loyalty, email marketing, and local SEO content on your own domain. The shape of the price is deliberately different:

• **$499, one time.** A set onboarding price, the same for every restaurant, covering the website, online ordering, the branded app, loyalty, local SEO, email marketing, and the Order Manager tablet (loaned, and it stays Dinevate property).
• **One ongoing arrangement**, quoted after we have looked at your volume and channel mix: a per-order service fee or a flat monthly. Something always recurs, and we would rather say that plainly than print "starting at."
• **No contract.** No cancellation penalty.
• **Add-ons priced separately**: reservations, Dinevate Voice AI, Catering Pro, and Social Media Pro. None of them sit inside the $499.

If you are comparing the two directly, the full feature-by-feature table is in our [Dinevate vs Toast comparison](/compare/toast/), and the four-axis framework for judging any Toast alternative is in the [Toast alternative guide](/blog/posts/toast-alternative/).

Frequently asked questions

**Is Toast really $0 a month?** The Starter Kit tier is published at $0/month for new single-location customers with up to two terminals. Processing fees still apply to every card payment, and the no-upfront-cost hardware is financed through the plan.

**How much does Toast online ordering cost?** Toast does not publish a price for it. Online ordering sits in Digital Storefront Essentials, and Toast Websites with SEO features sit in Digital Storefront Pro; both are quoted by sales on top of your base tier.

**Does Toast require a contract?** NerdWallet lists standard contract terms of two to three years. Ask for your exact term and early-termination conditions in writing.

**Can I use my own payment processor with Toast?** No. Payment processing is part of Toast's platform, and your rate depends on your hardware plan, which is why the processing question belongs in every quote conversation.

**What does Dinevate cost compared to Toast?** Dinevate's onboarding is a set $499, one time, then one quoted ongoing arrangement with no contract. The detailed side-by-side, including what each platform includes at each price, is in the [Dinevate vs Toast comparison](/compare/toast/).