◆ Enterprise layer vs all in one

Olo vs Toast, sized up by Zayos

Published July 2026 · Updated October 4, 2026

The short answer

Olo is enterprise ordering middleware that sits above the point of sale systems a large brand already runs. Toast is an all in one point of sale that includes ordering. Olo publishes no pricing and states it is built for enterprise brands. Toast lists plans from $0 and $69 a month.

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Source for the prices and rates in this section: Toast pricing, read 4 Oct 2026. A company can change them; its own page is what counts.

What is Olo, in plain English?

Olo is middleware. Middleware means software that sits between two other systems and passes information between them. In this case it sits between your guests and whatever registers your restaurants already run, takes the order at the top, and hands it down to the right store on the right system.

That sounds abstract until you picture a 400 store brand. Corporate stores on one register. A franchise group in the Southwest on another. Twelve stores that came with an acquisition on a third. One brand, one app, one website, one menu team, and three registers underneath. Nobody's point of sale can be the ordering system for all of them, because a point of sale only speaks for the stores running it. Something has to sit on top. That something is what Olo sells.

Olo splits that job into named modules, which is why the sales conversation involves a list of product names rather than a plan tier.

Serve: The white label ordering front end. Your brand on the outside, Olo underneath.
Rails: Marketplace orders. Pulls DoorDash, Uber Eats and Grubhub tickets into the same flow as direct orders instead of leaving each on its own tablet.
Dispatch: Direct delivery. Routes a delivery order from your own site to a courier network rather than to your own driver.
Catering+: Bulk and scheduled ordering, which behaves differently enough from a $30 lunch order to need its own product.
Pay: Payments and fraud handling inside the ordering flow.
Engage and the guest data platform: Marketing, personalization, loyalty and the single guest record that ties orders across all those registers back to one person.

Toast has answers to most of those jobs too. The difference is that Toast's answers assume Toast is the register. Olo's answers assume it is not.

At what size do I outgrow Toast and need Olo?

Location count is the rough proxy everybody uses, so start there. But the real trigger is uniformity, not size, and the ladder below says so at every rung.

Rung 1
1 location
Toast

There is no version of this where a single restaurant should be evaluating Olo. Olo is not sold to you, is not priced for you, and would not solve a problem you have. Buy a point of sale. Toast belongs on that list alongside Square, Clover and the rest.
Rung 2
2 to 5 locations
Toast

Still a point of sale decision. At this size an all in one platform handles shared menus, per store pricing and consolidated reporting without needing anything above it. The thing that actually hurts at 2 to 5 stores is marketplace tablets stacking up on the pass, and that is an aggregation problem, not an Olo problem.
Rung 3
6 to 25 locations
Toast, usually

The first real strain shows up here: a marketing team that wants a mobile app on its own release schedule, a franchisee who wants a different register, and enough marketplace volume that somebody is manually re keying tickets. Most brands at this size fix it with an aggregation layer and a proper app, not by replacing the ordering stack. Olo is still a heavier answer than the question deserves.
Rung 4
25 to 100 locations
It depends on how uniform you are

This is the actual fork. If every store runs the same register with the same menu structure, an all in one still works and switching costs you more than it saves. If you have inherited point of sale estates from acquisitions, franchisees on three different systems, or a mobile app your own engineers maintain, you have the problem Olo was built for: one ordering layer above many registers.
Rung 5
100+ locations, or multi brand, or franchised
Olo

Olo states it is built for enterprise restaurant brands and trusted by 90,000 locations across 800+ brands, and names customers including Waffle House, Five Guys, Panda Express, Denny’s, P.F. Chang’s, Portillo’s, Qdoba and First Watch. At that scale you are not buying a register, you are buying an ordering and data layer that speaks to whatever registers your franchisees already run. Toast does not compete for that job in the same shape.

The one sentence version

You do not outgrow an all in one point of sale because you got big. You outgrow it because you stopped being uniform.

What does each one publish about itself?

From each vendor's own site; Toast's plan prices were read on 4 Oct 2026. Olo publishes no pricing, so several rows on its side say exactly that rather than carrying an invented figure.

Line item

Olo

Toast

What it is

Ordering middleware. Software that sits between your guests and the point of sale systems your locations already run, passing orders down and data back up.

An all in one restaurant point of sale. Terminals, handhelds, payments, ordering, payroll and reporting from one vendor.

Does it replace your register?

No. Olo assumes you have registers already and works above them.

Yes. That is the product.

Published pricing

None. Every pricing path on the site is a Request a Demo form. Treat any Olo price you find on a third party blog as unverified.

Starter Kit from $0 per month. Point of Sale plan from $69 per month. Build Your Own is a custom quote.

Card processing

Olo Pay is a module. No rate is published.

Toast processes the payments itself. No rate is listed on the pricing page; it comes in the quote.

Stated audience

"Built for enterprise restaurant brands." The ordering page also describes serving 90,000+ restaurants of every shape and size, so the positioning is broadening, but the enterprise page is explicit.

Restaurants of all sizes, with plan pages aimed squarely at independents and small groups.

Marketplace orders

Rails, a module that pipes marketplace orders into the same flow as direct orders.

Marketplace orders are handled through integrations rather than as a core Toast module.

Delivery on a direct order

Dispatch, which routes a direct delivery order to a courier network. No published per delivery price.

Toast Delivery Services via Uber Direct. No per delivery price on the pricing page.

Commission on a direct order

Not published. Olo is a licensed platform, not a marketplace.

0%. Toast states its online ordering has no commissions.

Published scale claims

90,000+ locations, 800+ brands and 3.5M+ orders a day. These are Olo’s own published figures.

Scale claims are not the pitch on the plan pages. The pitch is a listed monthly plan price.

How you buy it

Sales led. Demo, scoping, contract, implementation project.

Listed starting plans, with a quote for Build Your Own, add ons and processing.

Swipe the table sideways to see both columns.

Source for the prices and rates in this section: Toast pricing, read 4 Oct 2026. A company can change them; its own page is what counts.

What is each one genuinely better at?

Olo is better at orchestrating many stores that are not the same

Mixed register estates, franchisee autonomy, a menu team publishing to hundreds of stores, marketplace connections maintained centrally, and one guest record that survives an acquisition. This is a genuinely hard engineering problem and Olo has been solving it at scale for years. Its published figures are 90,000 locations, 800+ brands and 3.5M+ orders a day. If that is your world, Toast is not the answer and pretending otherwise would waste your time.

Toast is better at being the whole restaurant

One vendor for the register, the payments, the payroll, the kitchen display and the ordering page, with a Point of Sale plan listed from $69 a month. For an independent or a small group, that consolidation is worth more than any orchestration feature, because the thing that actually costs you money at 3 stores is four vendors blaming each other on a Friday night.

Toast is better at letting you start a budget

This is not a criticism of Olo so much as a description of how enterprise software is sold. Scoped contracts get scoped prices. But it does mean that a growing brand can read a starting plan price for Toast off a web page and cannot start an Olo budget without a sales cycle. Toast's processing rate and its online ordering add on still come in a quote, so the web page is the start of the number, not the whole of it.

Source for the prices and rates in this section: Toast pricing, read 4 Oct 2026. A company can change them; its own page is what counts.

Where does Zayos fit in this?

We wrote this page, so here is the disclosure and the limit of our own claim. Zayos is not an enterprise orchestration platform and we are not going to pretend to compete with Olo at 400 stores. We are also not a point of sale, so we are not replacing Toast either.

Zayos sits in the space this page keeps pointing at: the operator at 1 to 25 locations who already has a register, whose real problem is that most online volume still arrives from the delivery apps at 15% to 30% base commission, or 25% to 35% blended real cost once delivery, marketing and processing fees stack. It is $399, $499 or $599 per month per location, month to month, no setup fee. Direct orders carry a small diner paid service fee, $0.99 pickup, $0.99 delivery, $0 dine in and 10% catering. The restaurant never pays it and keeps 100% of food revenue, and 100% of tips on pickup and dine in. On delivery the tip goes to the driver.

The $499 tier does the tablet consolidation job through Otter, which is the same kind of work Olo Rails does at enterprise scale, priced for an independent. Restaurants are live and taking orders today. One of them is Naya Grill, Pompano Beach. Farooj Abo Alabed, also live on Zayos, is on pace for $40k+ a year in commission not paid to a marketplace: its direct food sales after discounts from 10 Aug to 3 Oct 2026 (55 days), annualized at a 35% blended marketplace cost. If you are on the top rung of that ladder, go talk to Olo. If you are on the bottom two, the free report will tell you what your marketplace volume is actually costing.

Olo and Toast, the questions behind the shortlist

What does Olo actually do that my point of sale does not?

It sits above several point of sale systems at once. If a 300 store brand has Toast in the corporate stores, one register in the West franchise group and something else from an acquisition, Olo gives all of them one ordering front end, one menu source, one guest data pool and one set of integrations to marketplaces and couriers. A point of sale, by definition, only speaks for the stores running that point of sale. If every store you own runs the same register, this problem does not exist for you.

Can I use Olo if I have one restaurant?

In practice, no. Olo is sold through demos and scoped implementations, its enterprise page states plainly that it is built for enterprise restaurant brands, and its named customers are chains like Waffle House, Five Guys, Panda Express and Denny’s. A single independent restaurant asking for an Olo quote is asking a company to run an implementation project for one store. Buy a point of sale, or an ordering layer that sits on the point of sale you own.

How much does Olo cost?

Olo does not publish pricing anywhere on its site. Every route to a number ends at a Request a Demo form. That is normal for enterprise software sold on scoped contracts, and it is also why you should not trust an Olo price quoted on a third party blog or comparison site. If you need a number, the only reliable way to get one is to ask Olo directly with your location count and order volume in hand.

Is Olo a point of sale?

No. Olo does not sell you terminals, does not run your register and does not ring in a dine in check. It handles digital ordering, payments, delivery routing, catering, marketplace connections and guest data on top of the registers you already have. That single distinction settles most Olo vs Toast comparisons before any feature list gets involved.

I run 12 locations on Toast. Should I be looking at Olo?

Probably not yet, and the deciding question is uniformity, not count. If all 12 stores run Toast with a shared menu structure and you are not fighting your own register, replacing that with a layer above it costs a large implementation to solve a problem you do not have. Revisit it when one of three things is true: you acquire stores on a different register, you franchise and the franchisees pick their own systems, or your own engineers start maintaining the guest app.

What is Olo Rails and would it help me?

Rails is Olo’s module for marketplace orders, pulling DoorDash, Uber Eats and Grubhub tickets into the same flow as your direct orders instead of leaving each on its own tablet. The problem it solves is real at every size, which is why aggregation products exist for independents too. The difference is that Rails is bought as part of an enterprise platform, so a 4 store operator with the same tablet problem should be shopping aggregation on its own rather than buying Olo to get it.

What is Olo Dispatch, and how is it different from Toast Delivery Services?

Both send a direct delivery order to a courier instead of your own driver. Toast Delivery Services runs through Uber Direct. Olo Dispatch routes across courier networks. Neither lists a per delivery price on its pricing page, so ask each for it in writing. The functional difference at enterprise scale is routing logic across many providers and many markets. The practical difference for a small operator is that Toast Delivery Services comes with the register you already bought, and Dispatch comes with an enterprise platform.

Sources

Olo positioning and scale: "Built for enterprise restaurant brands. Trusted by 90,000 locations", 800+ brands, and named customers including Waffle House, Five Guys, Panda Express, Denny's, P.F. Chang's, Portillo's, Qdoba, Nando's, CKE, Freddy's and First Watch. olo.com/restaurants/enterprise-brands and olo.com.
Olo modules and its own scale figure: Serve, Rails, Dispatch, Catering+, Pay and the guest data platform, plus Olo's own figure of 3.5M+ orders a day. olo.com/ordering.
Olo pricing: not published. Every pricing route on olo.com ends at a Request a Demo form. Read 4 Oct 2026.
Toast plans: Starter Kit from $0 per month, Point of Sale plan from $69 per month, Build Your Own custom quote, online ordering (Digital Storefront) as an add on with no price shown, and no processing rate or delivery price on the page. pos.toasttab.com/pricing, read 4 Oct 2026.
Toast online ordering: no commissions on Toast Online Ordering, and Toast Delivery Services via Uber Direct. pos.toasttab.com/products/online-ordering.
Zayos pricing: zay-os.com/pricing.

Olo's location, brand and order counts above are Olo's own published claims, reproduced as such and not independently verified by us. Vendor pricing and positioning change, so confirm on each vendor's own site before you build a shortlist. If a figure here is out of date, tell us and we will correct it.

Source for the prices and rates in this section: Toast pricing, read 4 Oct 2026. A company can change them; its own page is what counts.

Keep reading

Zayos vs Olo →

The enterprise layer against a platform priced for independents.

How much Toast online ordering costs →

Every published Toast plan and fee, on its own page.

Restaurant tech glossary →

Middleware, ingestion, dispatch, KDS, and the rest of the jargon.

Also: Zayos vs Toast · Zayos vs Otter · integrations · point of sale integration guide · what is Zayos