Who are Toast's competitors?
Toast's FY2025 10-K, filed February 18, 2026, says it competes with cloud-based point of sale platforms, legacy point of sale and payments providers, and point technology providers for front- or back-of-house operations, without naming them. By name, the main rivals are the card processors that sell restaurant point-of-sale systems. In a January 2026 report published by Payments Dive, Baird estimated that Fiserv's Clover leads the small-restaurant point-of-sale card processing market with about 20% share and 175,000 locations, ahead of Toast with about 17% and 145,000 locations, Block's Square with 13% and Global Payments, which acquired Worldpay, with 11%. Baird assumed the 250 largest restaurant groups process directly with Fiserv, Worldpay, JPMorgan Chase and other major processors, and named NCR Voyix and Oracle-owned Micros among the other heavyweights; only Toast and SpotOn are focused entirely on restaurants. Toast had about 180,000 locations and $60.7 billion of gross payment volume in Q2 2026. On AI, Toast's assistant Toast IQ had 40,000 weekly active locations in May 2026; Block says its Managerbot agent is automating marketing, margin analysis and operational fixes for Square sellers; and Fiserv launched agentOS, an agentic AI operating system for banks, in May 2026. Toast's 10-K also warns that some large restaurant organizations build their own point of sale software.[1][2][3][4][5][6]
Data as of Nov 2, 2026 · Toast profile updated Oct 22, 2026 · 16 sources cited on this page · 56 fintechs profiled on this site · Markdown
What does Toast's 10-K say about its competition?
"The market is competitive and evolving rapidly. Our platform combines functionality from numerous product categories, and we therefore compete with a range of providers, including cloud-based point of sale platforms, legacy point of sale platform payments solutions, and point technology providers with products addressing specific front of house or back of house operations." (Form 10-K for 2025, Item 1, "Competition", filed February 18, 2026.)[1]
The 10-K lists the factors it competes on, starting with "the ability to provide an all-in-one software and financial technology platform specifically designed to meet the existing and future technology needs of prospective customers, including comprehensive partner ecosystem integrations", and says "we expect that our industry will continue to attract new market entrants, including smaller emerging companies".[1]
The risk factors add that "some potential customers in the restaurant industry, particularly large organizations, have elected, and may in the future elect, to develop their own business management and point of sale software and platforms", that some competitors have "partnered with, or have acquired or been acquired by" other competitors, and that expansion into retail and international markets will bring "competition from incumbents in these markets."[1]
Who are Toast's main competitors, line by line?
Shares are Baird's estimates for the US small-restaurant point-of-sale card processing segment (restaurants outside the top 250 groups, about 75% of the market), published by Payments Dive on January 8, 2026. A dash means no sourced figure was found.
| Competitor | Where they compete | Dated scale figure | How they compare on AI | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clover (Fiserv) | Small-restaurant point of sale and card processing; Fiserv has singled out Clover as a key driver of future growth | About 20% share and 175,000 locations (Baird, January 2026); Fiserv total revenue of $21.2 billion in 2025 | Fiserv launched agentOS, an agentic AI operating system for banks, on May 14, 2026; no Clover-specific AI product found | Payments Dive; Fiserv 10-K; Fiserv[2][7][6] |
| Square (Block) | Small-restaurant point of sale and card processing | About 13% share (Baird, January 2026); Square GPV grew 13% year over year in Q2 2026 | Managerbot, an agent in Square Dashboard, is automating marketing, margin analysis and operational fixes for sellers (August 2026); Square automates risk assessment for more than 99.95% of transactions | Payments Dive; Block 8-K; Block 10-K[2][5][8] |
| Global Payments (Worldpay) | Small-restaurant card processing; Worldpay also processes for the largest restaurant groups | About 11% share (Baird, January 2026) | — | Payments Dive[2] |
| SpotOn | Restaurant point of sale; with Toast, the only provider in Baird's report focused entirely on restaurants | — | — | Payments Dive[2] |
| NCR Voyix and Oracle Micros | Restaurant point of sale; named by Payments Dive among the other heavyweights in a market where established processors compete with fintechs such as Toast and Square | — | — | Payments Dive[2] |
| JPMorgan Chase and Fiserv (enterprise processing) | Card processing for the 250 largest restaurant groups, which Baird assumes process directly with Fiserv, Worldpay, JPMorgan Chase and other major processors | — | — | Payments Dive[2] |
What companies are similar to Toast?
Clover: Fiserv's point-of-sale unit, the largest small-restaurant card processor in Baird's January 2026 estimate with about 20% share and 175,000 locations; Fiserv acquired it in 2019 through its $22 billion purchase of First Data.[2]
Square: Block's seller business, third in Baird's small-restaurant estimate with 13% share, whose GPV grew 13% year over year in Q2 2026.[2][5]
SpotOn: the only other point-of-sale provider in Baird's report that is focused entirely on restaurants.[2]
Global Payments: the processor that acquired Worldpay and holds about 11% of the small-restaurant segment in Baird's estimate.[2]
What does the Toast profile record on this topic?
The rows below are the entries of the Toast AI strategy profile that bear on this page, as of Oct 22, 2026; the profile holds the full record of 10 dated moves, 9 use cases and 11 sources.
| Use case | What the record shows | Status | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Toast IQ conversational assistant | Operators ask questions in natural language and take actions in Toast (menu, inventory, performance analysis); 40,000 weekly active locations in May 2026. | In production | [1][4][9] |
| Toast IQ Grow marketing agent | Builds and runs campaigns across email, SMS, push and social from the restaurant's own data at a flat monthly rate; pilots reported about 8% higher sales. | In production | [4][10][11] |
| Toast IQ for Tips Manager | In-product AI guide, launched October 2026, that helps managers navigate tip-pooling configurations, troubleshoot setups and understand distribution math. | In production | [12] |
| Toast Capital origination models | Proprietary systems incorporating data science models, historical POS data and payment volume support loans originated by the bank partner and repaid from daily sales. | In production | [1][13] |
| Agentic ordering via Google Ask Maps | Toast's ordering integrates with Google's agentic food ordering in Ask Maps under a Universal Commerce Protocol for Food, rolling out from August 2026. | Rolling out | [14] |
| Date | Move | Detail | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 16, 2026 | Toast IQ for Tips Manager launches; Toast IQ Early Access opens | Toast's October 2026 product update adds Toast IQ for Tips Manager, an in-product AI guide that helps navigate tip-pooling configurations, troubleshoots setups and explains distribution math, and opens a Toast IQ Early Access beta program for restaurants to test upcoming AI features before release. | [12] |
| Oct 15, 2026 | Toast Capital terms as published | Toast's product page offers loans from $1,000 to $300,000 issued by WebBank, repaid through daily sales; the Spring 2026 innovation hub reports Toast IQ Grow customers' sales up more than 8% versus similar Toast restaurants. | [13][11] |
| Oct 14, 2026 | Toast publishes a 2026 Restaurant AI Report on Toast IQ usage | Analysing aggregated, anonymised Toast IQ usage data from Q2 2026, Toast reports 53% of all prompts occur during peak lunch (26%) or dinner (27%) service, 54% of prompts are sent from mobile devices (58% for fast-casual operators), sales and revenue questions are the top topic (30% of threads), and updating item stock is the most common action requested in chat (31% of action requests). | [15] |
| Aug 6, 2026 | Google Ask Maps food ordering launches with Toast | Google began rolling out agentic food ordering in Ask Maps with Square and Toast as partners and Uber Eats to follow, co-developing a Universal Commerce Protocol for Food. | [14] |
| Aug 4, 2026 | Q2 call: agent platform and $10 million ARR path for Grow | Toast IQ Grow on track to be the fastest product to $10 million of ARR; plans for a series of agent products on top of the software platform; SaaS gross margin up about 240 basis points partly from AI in support; Toast Capital-led fintech gross profit $57 million. | [10] |
| Aug 4, 2026 | Q2 2026 results: record 9,500 net new locations | ARR $2.4 billion (up 25%), about 180,000 locations, GPV $60.7 billion, net income $154 million, adjusted EBITDA $221 million; Narang called Toast IQ Grow the fastest-growing offering Toast has launched. | [3] |
| May 7, 2026 | Q1 2026 call: Toast IQ Grow, the first agent, launches | Narang said Toast IQ had 40,000 weekly active locations, that Toast IQ Grow pilot users saw an average 8% sales increase, that engineering coding velocity was up over 60% and about 40% of support interactions were resolved by AI, and set out the evolution 'from a software platform to an agent platform'. | [4] |
| Feb 18, 2026 | 10-K names AI a core capability and risk | The annual report describes Toast IQ as a conversational AI assistant acting on real-time data, lists 'We use artificial intelligence in our platform' among risk factors, and reports 164,000 locations, $195.1 billion of 2025 GPV and about 6,500 employees. | [1] |
| Feb 12, 2026 | Q4 2025 call: half of locations used Toast IQ in four months | Narang said the conversational assistant, one of over 500 features released in 2025, had been used by more than half of locations with over 8 million queries, and that it executes tasks in Toast; over half of support interactions now start with an AI agent and 70% never reach a human. Toast Capital contributed $51 million of gross profit. | [9] |
| May 1, 2025 | Toast IQ launches | An intelligence engine built into the platform delivering prompts, recommendations and automated workflows: Menu Upsells, Shift at a Glance, Digital Chits, an AI-Marketing Assistant and Advertising. An early-usage Atlanta restaurant saw about a 6% increase from Menu Upsells. | [16] |
Who are Toast's biggest competitors?
Fiserv's Clover, Block's Square and Global Payments, which owns Worldpay. In Baird's January 2026 estimate for the US small-restaurant segment, Clover had about 20% share, Toast about 17%, Square 13% and Global Payments 11%. NCR Voyix, Oracle-owned Micros and restaurant-only SpotOn also compete.
What companies are similar to Toast?
SpotOn is the closest in focus: Baird says only Toast and SpotOn concentrate entirely on restaurants. Clover and Square are the other large point-of-sale card processors for small restaurants in Baird's estimate, and Global Payments, with Worldpay, competes on processing.
Is Toast bigger than Square in restaurants?
In Baird's January 2026 estimate for US restaurants outside the top 250 groups, Toast held about 17% of point-of-sale card processing, with 145,000 locations, against 13% for Square and about 20% for Clover. Toast reported about 180,000 locations in total in Q2 2026.
Does Toast compete for the largest restaurant chains?
Only a little. Baird assumed the 250 largest restaurant groups process their card payments directly with Fiserv, Worldpay, JPMorgan Chase and other major processors; its analyst said Toast has a little in the enterprise range, but not a lot. Toast's 10-K adds that some large organizations build their own point of sale software.
How do Toast's competitors use AI?
Block says its Managerbot agent is automating marketing, margin analysis and operational fixes for Square sellers, and that Square automates risk assessment for more than 99.95% of transactions. Fiserv launched agentOS for banks in May 2026. Toast's own assistant, Toast IQ, had 40,000 weekly active locations in May 2026.
- Toast, Inc. Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2025
- Toast, Clover battle for small eateries
- Toast Announces Second Quarter 2026 Financial Results
- Toast (TOST) Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript
- Block, Inc. second quarter 2026 shareholder letter (Form 8-K, Exhibit 99.1)
- Fiserv Launches agentOS: The Operating System for Agentic AI in Banking
- Fiserv, Inc. Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2025
- Block, Inc. Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2025
- Toast (TOST) Q4 2025 Earnings Call Transcript
- Toast (TOST) Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript
- Toast Innovation Hub: Spring 2026 (retrieved October 15, 2026)
- October 2026 Product Updates – US
- Toast Capital: Business Loans (retrieved October 15, 2026)
- Ask Maps gets more helpful with food ordering and more
- Does AI Belong in the Dinner Rush? Operators Say Yes, Asking More Than Half Their Questions at Peak Service: The 2026 Restaurant AI Report
- Toast Launches ToastIQ to Superpower the Future of Restaurants
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