ChowNow vs Toast
ChowNow
Commission-free branded online ordering for restaurants
Kitfinch pick for 1 job across 1 trade.
Toast
Restaurant point-of-sale platform with online ordering and staff tools
Kitfinch pick for 1 job across 1 trade.
FromFree plan
Starter KitLast verified 45 days ago
How they differ
| Feature | ChowNow | Toast |
|---|---|---|
| Entry price | Check price on vendor site | Free planStarter Kit |
| Free plan | Not stated | Not stated |
| Free trial | Not stated | Not stated |
| Point of sale | — | |
| Online ordering | ||
| Staff scheduling | — | |
| Suits | restaurants | restaurants |
We don't have a verified price for both ChowNow and Toast yet, so we can't chart the cost by team size. Check each vendor's pricing page.
ChowNow
Strengths
- Restaurant keeps its own branding and direct customer relationship instead of a marketplace's
- Positioned against high-commission third-party delivery apps
- Focused product built specifically around restaurant online ordering
Drawbacks
- Pricing page was blocked by bot protection this session (TLS handshake failure on fetch); plan pricing was not verified directly
- Single-purpose tool; needs a separate POS and reservations tool alongside it
Toast
Strengths
- Deep restaurant-specific POS feature set (menus, modifiers, kitchen display)
- Online ordering and payroll add-ons available inside the same ecosystem
- Wide adoption gives it a large support and integration network
Drawbacks
- Pricing page returned a bot-protection response this session; current plan pricing was not verified directly
- Hardware and processing costs are often bundled with software plans, complicating like-for-like comparisons
Frequently asked questions
What do ChowNow and Toast have in common?
Both cover online ordering.
Which is cheaper, ChowNow or Toast?
We can only answer that with prices verified on both vendors' pricing pages, and we don't have that for ChowNow right now. Check the vendor sites for current prices.