Food truck / mobile / Online ordering
Online ordering for a food truck
Scored and compared prices dated
The short answer
For a truck, online ordering is mostly about pre-orders for a scheduled stop or a catering booking rather than replacing the window, so the system worth having is whichever one bolts cleanly onto the POS you already picked. Otter's aggregation is less useful here than it is for a fixed site, since its hardware-bundle model sits oddly with a truck's need to keep kit minimal.
Reviewed by the editorial team · updated 11 August 2026
Step 3
What matters most to you?
Pick one or two. Everything below re-scores instantly, and we show you the maths.
Winner overall
Square for Restaurants
The default answer for anyone who wants to be selling this afternoon.
The trade-off
Offline mode takes the card without knowing if it will clear, so a declined payment surfaces after the customer has gone.
Why it won
- price
- ease of setup
- support
- volume
- integrations
Our scores, 1 to 5, defined on the methodology page.
Everything else, ranked the same way
| # | Product | From | Contract | Card rate | Score | Price checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Square for Restaurants The default answer for anyone who wants to be selling this afternoon. | Free, then $49 | none | 2.6% + 10¢ in person on the free plan, 2.5% + 15¢ on Plus | 4.2 | Pricing checked 10 Aug 2026 |
| 02 | SpotOn The one people actually praise for picking up the phone. | Free, then $55 | 2-year minimum on the $0 plan, month to month on Essentials | 2.79% + 20¢ on the $0 plan, 2.45% + 15¢ on Essentials | 3.6 | Pricing checked 10 Aug 2026 |
| 03 | Toast The one built for restaurants only, with the lock-in that implies. | Free, then $69 | multi-year is typical | 2.99% + 15¢ on the free Starter Kit, 2.49% + 15¢ on the $69 plan | 3.6 | Pricing checked 10 Aug 2026 |
| 04 | Otter Pulls DoorDash, Uber Eats and the rest onto one screen, sold as a hardware bundle rather than a subscription. | From $198 | not published, sales-quoted | separate, plus a per-order transaction fee on every bundle | 3.4 | Pricing checked 11 Aug 2026 |
| 05 | Clover Sold through resellers, which is the single most important thing to know about it. | From $59.95 | 36 months is common when hardware is bundled | roughly 2.3% to 2.6% + 10¢ in person, varies by who sold it to you | 3 | Pricing checked 10 Aug 2026 |
What's different about buying this for food truck / mobiles
A fixed restaurant uses online ordering to catch demand throughout the day. A truck's version of the same problem looks different: someone wants to order ahead of a lunch stop so they are not waiting in a line that has not started yet, or a business wants to book the truck for an event and pay in advance. That is closer to a pre-order and deposit tool than a live ordering feed.
Square and Toast both handle this reasonably, letting customers place an order ahead of a scheduled stop that lands in the same queue as window orders, and since most trucks are already choosing their POS from this pair or SpotOn, adding the ordering module from the same vendor avoids a second system to watch.
Otter is built around aggregating third-party delivery apps into one screen, which matters far more for a fixed takeaway kitchen running four tablets than for a truck, where the whole point is minimal kit that survives being driven around. Its hardware-bundle pricing model, from $198/month plus a per-order fee, reflects that mismatch.
Questions people actually ask
- Should a food truck bother with third-party delivery apps?
- Generally less useful than for a fixed kitchen, since delivery logistics from a mobile location that moves daily are a harder problem than from a fixed address. Pre-order and pickup tends to be the better fit for most trucks.
- Does online ordering need to know the truck's location?
- It should, if you are taking pre-orders for a specific stop. Check that whatever you use lets you post a schedule customers can order against, rather than a generic storefront with no location logic.