◆ The layer between the apps and the kitchen

Otter vs Chowly: the Zayos read on two different middle layers

Published July 2026 · Updated October 4, 2026

Quick answer

Otter now sells its own POS: bundles listed at $79, $178 and $278 per location a month, plus a transaction fee it does not publish. Chowly keeps your existing point of sale, connects 150+ delivery apps to it across 50+ POS systems, and publishes no pricing at all.

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

One question decides it

Is my point of sale staying or going?

Almost every other comparison between these two is noise. Answer this one and the shortlist writes itself.

Path A Pick: Otter

Your point of sale is being replaced anyway

Opening a new location, coming off a register you hate, or running on paper. You are buying hardware either way.

Otter is now a point of sale company as well as an aggregation company, and it prices like one. Otter lists three bundles: Starter at $79, Advanced at $178 and Professional at $278 per location a month. Its product line covers the POS terminal, Order Manager with delivery app aggregation, online ordering, QR code ordering, a website builder and kiosks, so check on its pricing page which bundle carries which. Every bundle carries a transaction fee on top that the page does not print. One vendor, one contract, one screen on the counter.

Path B Pick: Chowly

Your point of sale is staying

Your team knows the register, your accountant knows the reports, and nobody wants a migration in the middle of a season.

Chowly is built to leave your register alone. It states integration with 50+ POS systems, naming Toast, Square, SpotOn, Clover and Lightspeed, and 150+ delivery apps connected through to that POS, with orders printing straight to the kitchen and no extra hardware. It is also a DoorDash Preferred Integration Partner. If the win you are after is "stop retyping tickets from three tablets into one register", this is the shape of tool that does it without changing what your staff touch.

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

Why can’t I get a straight price out of either of them?

You can get half of one. Otter publishes bundle prices on its website. Chowly publishes none and says pricing is scoped to your locations and the products you turn on, which is a normal enterprise sales motion and not a red flag on its own.

The gap that matters is the same on both: neither company publishes the per order transaction fee. Otter’s pricing page names a transaction fee on top of each bundle and prints no number for it. That fee is the one that scales with your success, so it is the one worth pinning down first.

Second thing to pin down: what the monthly price renews at. Ask in writing whether the listed bundle price is a standing rate or a promotion, and what it becomes after the first term. Otter also lists a minimum processing charge of $100 a month when card volume is under $25,000, so a quiet month has a floor.

Get these four in an email
  1. The per order transaction fee, in cents or in percent.
  2. What the monthly price renews at after any promotional period.
  3. Whether the price is per location or per account, and what a second location costs.
  4. What happens to your menus and your integrations on the day you cancel.

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

Side by side

The line by line comparison.

Otter
Chowly
What it fundamentally is
A restaurant operating suite that now includes its own POS hardware and software.
A layer that connects the POS you already own to the delivery apps and to a marketing stack.
Published price
Yes. Otter lists Starter at $79, Advanced at $178 and Professional at $278 per location a month.
No. Chowly states pricing is scoped to your locations and the products you turn on.
Per order fee
Charged on every bundle, but the amount is not published.
Not published.
POS coverage
Its own POS is the headline. Integrations with other systems exist but the bundles are sold around Otter hardware.
50+ POS systems stated, including Toast, Square, SpotOn, Clover and Lightspeed.
Delivery app coverage
Order Manager with delivery app aggregation is part of the Otter product line.
150+ delivery apps connected directly to the POS, and a DoorDash Preferred Integration Partner.
Marketing tooling
Marketing, Loyalty, Ratings and Reviews, Virtual Brands and a Website Builder are named products in the lineup.
Marketing Website, Online Ordering, Google Business Profile, Google Ads, Email Marketing, Mobile App, Dynamic Pricing, Customer Surveys and Loyalty Program.
Hardware
Terminals, kiosks, printers, cash drawers, scanners and stands, sold bundled or piece by piece.
None required. Orders print to the kitchen through the POS you already run.
Guarantee
None published on the pricing page.
A money back Guaranteed Growth promise: grow first party sales within six months or Chowly refunds you.
How you find out your real cost
Website for the bundle price, sales call for the per order fee.
Sales call for all of it.

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

Where each one genuinely wins.

Otter wins on

  • ◆ A price you can read before you talk to anyone.
  • ◆ One vendor for the terminal, the kitchen screen, the kiosk and the aggregation.
  • ◆ New openings, where there is no POS to protect.
  • ◆ Virtual brands and kiosk ordering as first class products rather than roadmap.

Chowly wins on

  • ◆ Leaving a POS your staff already know completely alone.
  • ◆ Breadth of register support, stated at 50+ POS systems.
  • ◆ Groups whose locations run different registers.
  • ◆ Carrying some of your risk, with a published six month money back growth promise.

If you are still torn after that, you are probably not choosing between two products. You are deciding whether this is the year you replace the register.

Where does Zayos sit next to these two?

Not opposite them. Zayos runs its marketplace ingestion through Otter, so if you are already on Otter, tell us and we set it up with you. What Zayos adds is the channel neither of these two is really about: your own ordering site, on your own domain, where the food revenue is not a percentage of anything.

Prices are on the website and there is no unpublished per order fee to chase: $399, $499 or $599 per month per location, month to month, no setup fee. The diner pays a service fee at checkout, $0.99 pickup, $0.99 delivery, $0 dine in, 10% catering, and the restaurant keeps 100% of the food revenue, and 100% of tips on pickup and dine in. On delivery the tip goes to the driver. Naya Grill in Pompano Beach is live and taking direct orders on it. 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. We are a Fort Lauderdale company.

Read on: how Otter ingestion works with Zayos, Zayos compared with Otter, and Zayos compared with Chowly.

Otter and Chowly, the questions that actually come up.

Otter and Chowly both say they aggregate delivery orders. What is the actual difference?
Where the orders end up. Otter aggregates them onto Otter, and its current bundles are sold around an Otter POS terminal on your counter. Chowly aggregates them into the point of sale you already own, across 50+ POS systems, so the tickets print from the register your kitchen already uses. If you are replacing the POS, Otter is the shorter path. If you are keeping it, Chowly is.

Which one publishes its prices?
Otter does, partly. Its pricing page lists Starter at $79, Advanced at $178 and Professional at $278 per location a month. Chowly publishes nothing and says pricing is scoped to your locations and the products you turn on. Neither publishes the per order transaction fee, and on Otter that fee is named with no number next to it.

What should I get in writing before I sign either one?
Four numbers. The per order transaction fee in cents or percent. What the monthly price renews at after any promotional period. Whether the price is per location or per account. And what happens to the integrations on the day you cancel. Any vendor will answer all four in an email; the ones that will not are telling you something.

Is Chowly’s six month growth guarantee real?
It is published on Chowly’s own site as a money back Guaranteed Growth promise: grow first party sales within six months or Chowly refunds you. Treat it the way you would treat any guarantee, which is to read the definition of the metric and the refund mechanics before you count on it. It is still the only guarantee either of these two publishes, and that is worth something when you are the one carrying the risk.

Do I need either of them if I only sell on one delivery app?
Probably not. The value of this whole category is proportional to the number of channels you are retyping between. One app and one register is one tablet, and a tablet is cheaper than an integration. The math turns at two or three channels, or at the point where a menu change means editing the same 90 items in four places.

Which one is better for a small group with different POS systems per location?
Chowly, clearly. Fifty plus POS systems is the whole point of that product, and a group that grew by acquisition usually has a Toast here, a Clover there and a Square somewhere else. Standardising all of them onto one new POS is a real project with real downtime. Connecting them is not.

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

Sources

Read directly from each vendor’s own site. Otter’s prices were read on its pricing page on 4 Oct 2026, and Chowly’s product facts on July 26, 2026. Where a figure is not published we have said so and not estimated it.

Keep reading
Otter integration, explained →
What ingestion means when it is your kitchen tablet.
POS integration guide →
How an order gets from a website into a register.
Restaurant tech glossary →
Ingestion, dispatch, KDS, 86ing, in plain English.
Also: Zayos vs Otter · Zayos vs Chowly · integrations · all comparisons

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