Toast scores highest for multi-site operators when a real integration list, not a roadmap is the thing you care about most. The one built for restaurants only, with the lock-in that implies.
This page is the connects to my other tools cut of our full pos and payments comparison for multi-site operators. Same data, weighted differently. Change the weighting below and it re-scores in front of you.
Step 3
Pick one or two. Everything below re-scores instantly, and we show you the maths.
Winner on connects to my other tools
The one built for restaurants only, with the lock-in that implies.
The trade-off
You are locked to Toast payment processing. There is no bringing your own processor.
| # | Product | From | Contract | Card rate | Score | Price checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | 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 | 4 | Pricing checked 10 Aug 2026 |
| 02 | Lightspeed Restaurant Strong reporting and stock control, priced for somewhere above the small independent. | From $69 | month to month available | 2.6% + 10¢ on Starter, negotiable on higher tiers | 4 | Pricing checked 10 Aug 2026 |
Once you are running more than one site, the questions change entirely. It stops being about ringing up a burrito fast and becomes whether a menu price change made once actually propagates to every location without someone re-entering it four times, and whether a site manager's permissions stop them approving something expensive without head office knowing.
Toast covers this well precisely because its POS, kitchen display, inventory and scheduling all sit in one ecosystem, which means a single login gives consolidated visibility across sites rather than stitching four separate systems' reports together. The cost is the same as it is everywhere else Toast appears: their hardware, their processing, a multi-year contract, multiplied across every site you add.
Lightspeed Restaurant is the other real contender, with reporting built for exactly this comparison-across-sites use case and no requirement to lock into their processing the way Toast does. It needs the Essential plan at $189/month per site to get the depth that actually matters, and additional registers run $59/month each, both worth budgeting for honestly before you commit across several locations.