Toast is considered one of the main players in the restaurant point-of-sale industry. Toast offers a suite of software and hardware from e-commerce to payroll to handheld payment terminals to help support restaurants in any way that might arise. Additionally, they offer pricing models such as zero dollars down that allows restaurants to pay for their system in transaction fees.
While this is a popular option for many restaurant owners who simply want to get up and running, it can prove to become expensive quickly when fees and add-ons start to pile up. For example, want your restaurant on Uber Eats and Doordash? That's another $75 a month. Want e-commerce and marketing tools? That's gonna add another 0.4% to what they take out of each transaction. Want time clock and payroll services? That's another monthly fee and $4 per employee per month.
Here is Toast's current add-on and fee structure:
- Toast Flex - $675
- Toast Flex Service - $45/mo (per unit)
- Toast Flex Guest Display - $124
- Guest Display - $124
- Digital Ordering - $75/mo
- Gift Cards - $50/mo (plus cards)
- Email Marketing - $75/mo
- Loyalty - $50/mo
- DoorDash, Grubhub, & Uber Eats - $75/mo
- Toast Catering & Events - $100/mo
- Toast Printer with Power Supply - $296
- Toast Kitchen Printer - $269
- Toast Go® 2 - $854
- Toast Go® subscription - $100/mo (per unit)
- Toast Cash Drawer - $134
- Kitchen Display Screen - $629
- Kitchen Display Screen Monthly Subscription - $25/mo (per unit)
Once you realize the true cost of what your business needs, you're already accustomed to Toast's interface so you're stuck paying more and more each month in hardware upgrades, add-ons, and transaction fees.
This is where Snack POS comes in. Snack POS is a new player in the field that seeks to compete with all-in-one solutions like Toast by offering the same quilty of software and hardware at a fair price any restaurant can pay.
Hardware
Hardware is a crucial piece of any restaurant's operation. It allows for customer-facing staff to manage tabs/tables and place orders while also ensuring kitchen and backroom workers know exactly what each customer ordered. Outdated and cheap hardware can cost you valuable productivity and cause mistakes, so it is important to make sure your restaurant is equipt with quilty hardware. Both Toast and Snack recognize this need and offer solutions to address it. 
Both solutions offer three main hardware options, each with its variations and options: a printer, a handheld terminal, and a stationary terminal. Toast and Snack (featured to the right) put out hardware that is similar in durability, features, and reliability. Snack also offers a barcode scanner add-on for iPads that allows for easier inventory management.
Overall, the main difference between Toast and Snack hardware-wise is the pricing. While both offer similar pricing on new hardware, Toast tends to have higher monthly fees at $45 a month per terminal versus $29 a month. Additionally, it is much easier to find a deal on Snack POS by going through a third-party integrator such as SeeNoFees because they often offer discounts you cannot get directly from the manufacturer.
Software
Software is just as crucial to your restaurant's success as hardware. Good software will run on bad hardware but poorly made software won't even run well on high-quality hardware. A staff member may be a little annoyed by bad hardware, but buggy software can shut down your entire operation. Snack recognizes the importance of this and puts substantial effort into making their software as good as if not better than Toast. Both systems share the same general features, including loyalty programs, online ordering, delivery app integration, marketing tools, and payroll to new a few. 
The main factor to consider is pricing. Snack offers prices and plans that simply make it the most economical option on the market. Many of the features mentioned above require an additional monthly subscription with Toast, however, they are included with Snack. The only additional fees you pay with Snack are for delivery app integrations and additional terminals. This means all the premium features of Toast such as online ordering, loyalty, marketing, invoices, automated order, and many more are included at no extra cost with Snack.
While these features can be easily overlooked when first opening because you don't quite need these tools yet, they can cause a huge hassle when you grow and these needs arise. This is why we recommend taking the price of these into account when you pick a system even if you do not need them in the beginning.
