In today’s fast-paced business environment, selecting the right point of sale (POS) system can determine your operation’s success. Two prominent contenders in the POS market are eHopper and Toast, each offering distinct advantages tailored to different business needs. Toast dominates the restaurant-specific POS market with 21.50% market share, while eHopper positions itself as a versatile, budget-friendly solution for small businesses across various sectors. The explosion of digital ordering and mobile payments has made choosing the right POS system more critical than ever. This comprehensive analysis examines these two systems across essential business dimensions to help you make an informed decision that aligns with your specific operational requirements.
eHopper positions itself as a cross-platform POS system specifically designed for small businesses seeking affordable solutions. Its primary strength lies in versatility - the system operates across various devices including Android tablets, iPads, Windows PCs, and Poynt smart terminals. This flexibility makes eHopper particularly appealing to small retail operations, convenience stores, and smaller food service establishments looking for budget-conscious POS solutions without hardware restrictions. The system’s adaptability extends beyond device compatibility to business type versatility, allowing operators to manage diverse inventory and customer needs.
Toast has carved out a dominant position in the restaurant-specific POS market through its specialized focus on food service operations. Built exclusively for restaurants, Toast’s entire ecosystem revolves around unique restaurant workflows. The system operates on Android-based devices and proprietary hardware, limiting hardware flexibility but ensuring consistent performance in demanding kitchen environments. Toast excels in tableside order management, kitchen operations, and comprehensive restaurant management features that address industry-specific challenges. Its specialized approach has made it particularly popular among restaurants of all sizes, from neighborhood cafes to large multi-location restaurant groups.
While eHopper offers a generalized approach suitable for different business types, Toast delivers deeper functionality specifically engineered for restaurant operations. This fundamental difference reflects each company’s core philosophy - eHopper emphasizes affordability and flexibility across business sectors, while Toast prioritizes industry-specific optimization and seamless integration within restaurant environments.
eHopper’s pricing strategy caters to budget-conscious small businesses, starting with a free Essential plan that includes basic POS functionality, inventory management, and customer tracking for up to 300 transactions monthly. This approach makes it highly accessible for new businesses with limited startup capital. For businesses requiring enhanced capabilities, eHopper offers the OmniChannel plan at approximately $39.99 per month, which includes features like table management, e-commerce capabilities, and unlimited transactions. The most compelling aspect of eHopper’s pricing model is its free credit card processing option through a cash discount or credit surcharge program, allowing businesses to effectively pass processing costs to customers. This feature can significantly reduce monthly operational expenses for businesses willing to implement such programs.
Toast takes a different pricing approach, starting at approximately $69 per month for its starter package, with additional hardware costs unless businesses opt for higher processing rates. Toast’s pricing model includes several tiers with increasing functionality, and the company often requires businesses to commit to longer-term contracts for optimal pricing. While more expensive than eHopper’s entry point, Toast justifies its premium pricing with restaurant-specific features and purpose-built hardware designed for the demanding environment of food service operations. The company’s pricing reflects its comprehensive approach to restaurant management rather than just transaction processing.
The value proposition differs significantly between these systems. eHopper appeals primarily on cost-effectiveness and flexibility, making it attractive for budget-conscious small businesses that need basic POS functionality without industry-specific features. Toast’s value proposition centers on industry-specific optimization and comprehensive integration of all restaurant operations into a single platform, justifying higher costs with specialized features that can improve operational efficiency and revenue generation.
eHopper offers exceptional flexibility regarding hardware compatibility, functioning across multiple platforms including Android tablets, iPads, Windows PCs, and dedicated Poynt terminals. This cross-platform capability allows businesses to utilize existing devices rather than investing in new, proprietary hardware. For retail establishments looking to minimize upfront costs, this represents a significant advantage. Hardware costs for eHopper-compatible devices range from approximately $69 for basic card readers to $1,450 for complete POS setups, though businesses can often use equipment they already own. The system’s hardware agnostic approach allows businesses to upgrade or change devices without switching POS providers.
Toast operates exclusively on Android-based devices and the company’s proprietary hardware ecosystem. While this limits flexibility, it ensures consistent performance and reliability in demanding restaurant environments where equipment faces constant use, potential spills, and high-temperature conditions. Toast’s hardware is specifically designed to withstand the rigors of restaurant use, including water resistance, durability features, and continuous operation capabilities. The company offers various hardware configurations including stationary terminals, handheld devices for tableside ordering, kitchen display systems, and self-service kiosks. Toast hardware packages typically start around $799 for basic setups and can exceed $1,000 for comprehensive configurations.
The contrast in hardware philosophy reflects each company’s core approach - eHopper prioritizes flexibility and cost-effectiveness by working with diverse hardware options, while Toast emphasizes reliability and purpose-built design for specific industry needs. Businesses must consider whether the convenience of using existing hardware outweighs the benefits of purpose-designed equipment when choosing between these systems.
Toast POS was built from the ground up specifically for restaurants, and this specialization shows in its comprehensive feature set. The system offers robust table management with digital floor plans, allowing staff to track table status, assign servers, and manage seating efficiently during peak periods. Its kitchen display system (KDS) integrates seamlessly with the ordering process, showing real-time order information, preparation times, and special instructions directly to kitchen staff. Toast also excels in menu management, supporting complex modifier systems, forced modifiers, and item 86ing (marking items as unavailable). Additionally, Toast offers comprehensive restaurant reporting with metrics like food cost percentages, labor ratios, and menu item performance analysis that help operators make data-driven decisions.
While eHopper can function in restaurant environments, its restaurant features are more basic compared to Toast’s specialized offerings. eHopper includes table management functionality in its OmniChannel plan, along with a menu builder and tip management system. The system supports basic kitchen ticket printing and modifier options, making it workable for simpler food service operations like cafes, quick-service establishments, or casual dining venues with straightforward operations. However, eHopper lacks the depth of restaurant-specific features found in Toast, such as advanced kitchen management, sophisticated menu engineering tools, and industry-specific analytics that larger or more complex restaurants require.
The gap in restaurant functionality stems directly from the systems’ different market approaches - Toast’s singular focus on restaurants versus eHopper’s broader application across multiple business types. For full-service restaurants with complex operations, Toast’s specialized features likely provide significant operational advantages that justify the higher cost, while smaller food service businesses with simpler needs might find eHopper’s more basic restaurant functionality sufficient for their operations.
Modern restaurants face increasing pressure to capture every revenue opportunity while managing tight labor budgets and rising operational costs. Traditional phone handling often means pulling staff away from customers or missing calls during busy periods, resulting in lost revenue and frustrated customers. AI for restaurants technology now provides a sophisticated solution that addresses these challenges directly. Loman’s 24/7 AI phone agent handles all incoming calls with human-like conversation skills, taking orders and reservations while seamlessly integrating with existing POS systems like Square, Toast, and Clover. The system is trained on restaurant menus, policies, and customer preferences to ensure accuracy in every interaction, reducing missed calls and shortening wait times while improving overall sales performance.
Unlike general-purpose POS systems that offer basic phone integration, Loman specifically addresses the unique communication challenges restaurants face daily. The platform provides built-in analytics and real-time insights that help operators make better staffing and menu decisions based on call patterns and customer preferences. With fast setup capabilities that can have restaurants live in under a day, Loman scales effectively for single locations, multi-unit operations, or franchise systems. While both eHopper and Toast offer solid POS functionality for their respective markets, Loman positions itself as the specialized solution that transforms how restaurants handle their most critical customer touchpoint - the phone call that converts into revenue.
eHopper demonstrates significant strength in retail operations, offering features specifically designed for merchandise-based businesses. The system includes robust inventory management capabilities with SKU tracking, barcode support, and the ability to manage products across multiple variations like size, color, and style. eHopper also supports purchase order management, allowing businesses to track vendor relationships and inventory replenishment efficiently. Its customer relationship management features enable retailers to maintain detailed customer profiles, purchase histories, and implement basic loyalty programs. Additionally, eHopper offers integration with weight scales for selling products by weight - a valuable feature for grocery stores, delis, and specialty food retailers.
Toast, being restaurant-focused, lacks many retail-specific features that would be necessary for merchandise-based businesses. While it excels at food inventory and menu management with sophisticated cost controls and recipe management, it doesn’t offer the product matrix capabilities, barcode management, or retail-oriented inventory tools that eHopper provides. Toast’s strength remains firmly in food service operations rather than retail merchandise management, which limits its applicability for businesses outside the restaurant industry.
For businesses that blend retail and food service - such as bakeries that sell both prepared foods and packaged goods, or cafes that also sell merchandise like coffee beans or branded items - eHopper’s versatility may offer significant advantages. The system can handle both transaction types within a single platform, whereas Toast would excel at the food service portion but potentially struggle with retail operations requiring different inventory management approaches.
eHopper offers exceptional flexibility in payment processing, supporting multiple payment processors including Evo Payments International, GoDaddy Payments, Nuvei, North American Bank, TSYS, First Data, Global, and Elavon. This variety allows businesses to shop around for the best processing rates or continue working with existing payment relationships that may offer better terms. Additionally, eHopper offers a unique free processing option through credit surcharging or cash discount programs, which effectively passes processing costs to customers. This approach can significantly reduce operational expenses for businesses willing to implement such programs, potentially saving thousands of dollars annually depending on transaction volume.
Toast takes a more restrictive approach, requiring businesses to use Toast’s proprietary payment processing service. While this creates a seamless integrated experience with unified reporting and simplified operations, it eliminates the ability to negotiate rates with different processors or leverage existing banking relationships. Toast’s payment processing rates typically start at 2.49% + $0.15 per transaction for in-person payments and 3.5% + $0.15 for keyed-in transactions. The company does offer hardware discounts for businesses that commit to their payment processing service for longer terms, but this creates vendor lock-in that may limit future flexibility.
The payment processing approaches reflect fundamental differences in business philosophy between the two companies. eHopper prioritizes flexibility and merchant choice, allowing businesses to optimize their processing costs through comparison shopping or cost-passing strategies. Toast emphasizes simplicity and integration, providing a more streamlined experience but at the potential cost of higher processing fees and reduced flexibility in vendor relationships.
Toast has developed a robust ecosystem of integrations that extend its core functionality across the restaurant operations spectrum. The platform connects with over 100 third-party applications across categories including:
This extensive integration network allows restaurants to create comprehensive operational systems tailored to their specific needs. Toast’s development focus ensures that these integrations are restaurant-specific and address industry-specific workflows, from food cost management to labor scheduling and customer loyalty programs.
eHopper offers a more limited set of integrations, though it does connect with essential business tools. The system integrates with QuickBooks for accounting, PayPal for payments, and offers a Multi-Register app for businesses operating multiple terminals. eHopper’s OmniChannel plan includes e-commerce functionality, allowing businesses to sync inventory between physical and online stores. However, compared to Toast, eHopper’s integration ecosystem is significantly smaller and less specialized, reflecting its broader market focus rather than deep industry specialization.
The difference in integration capabilities reflects each company’s market positioning and available resources. Toast, as a larger company focused exclusively on restaurants, has invested heavily in building partnerships within that specific industry. eHopper, serving a broader market with a smaller company footprint, offers fewer specialized integrations but may be sufficient for businesses with simpler operational needs.
eHopper’s customer support structure varies by plan level, reflecting its tiered pricing strategy. Users on the free Essential plan primarily rely on self-service resources like the knowledge base and online documentation, while paid plans include access to email, chat, and phone support during business hours. The company offers implementation and training services for users on the OmniChannel plan, including account setup, inventory configuration, and basic training assistance. Customer reviews regarding eHopper’s support present a mixed picture, with some praising their responsiveness and helpfulness while others report difficulties reaching representatives and resolving complex technical issues.
Toast places significant emphasis on customer support as part of its value proposition, offering 24/7 phone assistance for all customers regardless of plan level. The company provides comprehensive onboarding and implementation services, including menu building, staff training, system configuration, and ongoing optimization recommendations. Toast assigns dedicated account representatives to businesses, ensuring continuity in the support relationship and personalized assistance. Additionally, Toast offers extensive training resources including video tutorials, comprehensive documentation, and a knowledge base covering all aspects of restaurant operations. Customer reviews frequently highlight Toast’s support as a strength, though some users note that support quality can vary depending on the specific representative assigned and the complexity of the issue.
The difference in support approaches reflects the companies’ positioning and pricing structures. Toast’s higher price point includes more comprehensive support services as part of its value proposition, recognizing that restaurants often need immediate assistance during peak operating hours. eHopper’s tiered support model aligns with its budget-friendly pricing strategy, providing basic support for free users while offering enhanced assistance for paying customers.
Toast provides sophisticated analytics and reporting capabilities designed specifically for restaurant operations. The system tracks key performance indicators like food cost percentages, labor ratios, menu item performance, and customer ordering patterns. Restaurant operators can access real-time dashboards showing:
eHopper offers basic reporting and analytics suitable for small business operations. The system provides essential reports including sales summaries, inventory levels, and customer information. While functional for basic business needs, eHopper’s analytics lack the depth and restaurant-specific metrics that Toast provides. The reporting focuses more on general retail and transaction metrics rather than industry-specific operational insights.
Both systems offer cloud-based access to data, but Toast’s analytics are significantly more sophisticated and actionable for restaurant operators looking to optimize their business performance through data-driven decisions.
eHopper offers a straightforward, no-frills user interface that prioritizes simplicity over advanced design elements. The system is generally regarded as easy to learn, particularly for basic functions like processing sales, managing inventory, and handling customer information. Implementation is relatively quick, with users typically able to set up the system within a few hours using self-guided resources and online tutorials. The cloud-based nature of eHopper allows for access from various devices, providing flexibility in business management from different locations. However, some users report occasional system glitches and performance issues, particularly when handling larger inventories or during peak transaction periods.
Toast provides a more polished, intuitive interface specifically designed around restaurant workflows and staff needs. The system emphasizes visual elements like table layouts, order status indicators, and kitchen management tools that streamline common restaurant tasks. Implementation is more involved, typically requiring professional installation and comprehensive training from Toast representatives. This process usually takes several days to complete but results in a more thoroughly configured system optimized for the specific restaurant’s operations. Toast’s Android-based platform offers consistent performance even during high-volume periods, though the more complex feature set can require longer training periods for staff to master all functionality.
The user experience differences reflect each system’s fundamental approach and target market. eHopper prioritizes accessibility and quick implementation for small businesses seeking an affordable solution with minimal setup time. Toast invests in a more refined experience specifically optimized for restaurant operations, requiring more initial investment in time and training but potentially delivering smoother operation during peak business periods.
Choosing the right POS system becomes even more critical as your business grows and evolves. Both eHopper and Toast offer different approaches to scalability, but the decision ultimately depends on your specific growth trajectory and operational complexity. Small restaurants with simple operations may find eHopper’s cost-effective approach sufficient for their immediate needs, while establishments planning significant expansion or operating with complex menu structures will likely benefit from Toast’s specialized restaurant features.
Toast’s restaurant-specific design and comprehensive feature set position it as the superior choice for dedicated food service businesses, particularly full-service restaurants, growing restaurant groups, and operations with complex menu and service requirements. Its purpose-built features for restaurant management, robust kitchen integration, and extensive restaurant-specific integrations justify the higher price point for food service businesses that can leverage these specialized capabilities. Restaurants prioritizing operational efficiency and data-driven decision making will likely find the investment worthwhile despite higher costs and more restricted hardware options.
eHopper presents a compelling option for small retailers, hybrid businesses combining retail and simple food service, and budget-conscious operations just starting out. Its lower cost structure, flexible payment processing options, cross-platform compatibility, and retail-oriented features make it particularly suitable for merchants with straightforward needs and limited budgets. Businesses that value flexibility in hardware choice and payment processing, or those looking to minimize monthly expenses while maintaining essential POS functionality, will appreciate eHopper’s approach. When making your final decision, consider not just your current operational needs but your anticipated growth trajectory and long-term business goals, ensuring your chosen POS system can support your business as it evolves and expands in an increasingly competitive marketplace.
For restaurants serious about maximizing their phone revenue and operational efficiency, Loman offers a fast-to-implement, scalable AI solution that works seamlessly with both eHopper and Toast systems. Whether you operate a single location, manage multiple restaurants, or oversee a franchise operation, Loman’s AI phone agent delivers improved customer experience and increased revenue capture while allowing your staff to focus on in-person service excellence.
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