Slice vs ChowNow, checked by Zayos
Published July 2026 · Updated July 26, 2026
ChowNow charges a flat monthly subscription from $249 with no platform fee per order. Slice charges $39 a month plus $3.00 per order for pizzerias. Slice wins under about 70 online orders a month. Above that, ChowNow costs less, and it serves any cuisine.
Every price on this page was read off the vendor’s own site on July 26, 2026. Sources at the bottom.
Free, 60 seconds, no card. It reads your real order mix before you sign anything.
Do you sell pizza? That question decides most of this.
People shop these two against each other because both promise direct ordering without a marketplace commission. They are not really the same category. Slice is a pizza company. Its pricing page is titled for pizzerias, its ordering tools page is titled for pizzerias, and the menu features it advertises are half and half pies and custom toppings. The Slice consumer app is a pizza marketplace, and that app is a large part of what you are paying for.
ChowNow makes no assumption about your menu. A ramen shop, a taqueria and a bakery all get the same product. It integrates with more than 20 point of sale systems and sells no register of its own.
If you are not a pizzeria, this comparison is over. Slice can technically take your orders, but you would be paying for a pizza marketplace that will never send you a customer.
If you are a pizzeria, keep reading, because the money question is genuinely close and it turns entirely on volume. More cuisine specific notes live on our online ordering for pizzerias page.
What does each one actually charge in 2026?
Both vendors publish their prices, which is more than most of this category does. Read straight off their pricing pages on July 26, 2026.
Slice
- Online Membership. $39 a month plus $3.00 per order. No per order fee on orders under $10.
- Family Membership. $399 a month plus $2.00 per order, after a $1,000 implementation fee. Ships Slice Register hardware.
- Card processing. 2.90% + $0.30 on both.
- Contract. Month to month. Slice states zero locked in contracts.
- Included on both. Point of sale, website, online ordering, Slice app access, Google listing management, loyalty rewards, automated marketing, integrations, 24/7 support, owner portal.
- Family adds. Phone ordering, flex delivery, supplies access, an account manager.
ChowNow
- Launch. $249 a month billed monthly, $229 billed annually. Up to 500 marketing contacts.
- Grow. $349 monthly, $319 annually. 2,000 contacts plus 2,000 email and SMS credits.
- Elevate. $449 monthly, $409 annually. 5,000 contacts plus 5,000 credits.
- Setup. $119 to $499 one time. Printer hardware $250 to $420.
- Per transaction. 2.95% + $0.29. No separate platform fee per order.
- Included on all tiers. 100% fraud and chargeback protection, 20+ POS integrations, 24/7 phone and chat support. Flex Delivery is listed at $7.98 per order. Branded mobile apps carry a $99 annual Apple developer fee.
At my order volume, which one is cheaper?
Card processing is close enough on both sides that it drops out of the comparison, so this is Slice Online Membership against ChowNow Launch billed monthly, platform cost only.
The break even is 70 online orders a month. ($249 minus $39) divided by $3.00 equals 70. Below 70 orders Slice costs less. Above 70 orders ChowNow costs less, and the gap widens by $3.00 with every order you add.
On ChowNow’s annual billing ($229) the break even drops to about 64 orders. Against ChowNow Elevate at $449 it rises to about 137 orders.
Two things that would be unfair to leave out
- Slice Family includes a register. At 400 orders, Slice Family is $399 plus $800, so about $1,199 a month with a full POS in the box. ChowNow at $249 does not include a POS. Compare Slice Family against ChowNow plus whatever your point of sale already costs you, not against ChowNow alone.
- Slice’s fee is flat, so it shrinks as a percentage. $3.00 is 15% of a $20 ticket, 10% of a $30 ticket and 5% of a $60 ticket. Family’s $2.00 fee is 10%, 6.7% and 3.3% at the same tickets. A shop selling large family orders is treated far more kindly by Slice than a shop selling single pies.
Slice vs ChowNow, line by line
So which one should I pick?
There is a real winner in each of these cases. Find the one that describes your shop.
A pizzeria under about 70 online orders a month
$39 plus $3.00 an order beats a $249 floor until the orders show up. You also get the Slice consumer app, which is the only pizza marketplace in this comparison. Nothing about ChowNow is worth $200 a month to a shop doing 40 online orders.
A pizzeria that needs to replace its register
Family Membership bundles the register, terminal, cash drawer and both printers for $399 a month after the $1,000 implementation fee. ChowNow sells no POS. If your register is dying anyway, that bundle is the honest cheaper path.
Any restaurant over about 100 online orders a month
A flat subscription stops growing. A per order fee does not. At 400 orders the gap is roughly $990 a month, and every order you win after that adds another $3.00 to the difference.
Anyone who does not sell pizza
This is not close. Slice’s marketplace demand, menu tooling and marketing all point at pizza. ChowNow makes no assumption about your menu and integrates with the POS you already run.
More depth on each vendor on their own pages: Slice, ChowNow, and the full ChowNow cost breakdown.
Where Zayos fits, and where it does not
Zayos is our own platform, so read this as an interested party. It is $499, $599 or $699 a month per location, month to month, no setup fee. That is more per month than every plan on this page. We charge the restaurant nothing per order: the diner pays a flat service fee at checkout ($0.99 pickup, $2.99 delivery, $0 dine in, 10% on catering) and the restaurant keeps 100% of food revenue and 100% of tips.
The $599 tier is the one operators pick, because it pulls DoorDash, Uber Eats and Grubhub orders onto the same kitchen tablet as your direct orders through Otter, the aggregation layer most kitchens already run. Neither Slice nor ChowNow does that.
When not to pick us. If you are a pizzeria doing 40 online orders a month, Slice at $39 is the right call and we will tell you so. If you want the lowest possible subscription line and nothing else, we are not it.
Naya Grill in Pompano Beach and West Palm Beach is the restaurant live and taking orders on Zayos today, keeping over $48,000 a year that used to go to marketplace commissions. Storefronts are built for seven more, with ordering opening at each launch. We are a Fort Lauderdale, Florida company. More on what Zayos is and our pricing.
Questions owners actually ask about these two
At what point does ChowNow get cheaper than Slice?
Is Slice only for pizzerias?
What percentage is Slice actually taking from me?
Slice Family is $399 a month. Why would anyone pay that over ChowNow at $249?
Which one is easier to leave?
Do either of them get me orders I would not have had anyway?
What does the setup actually cost on day one?
Sources
Every figure above was read off the vendor’s own site on July 26, 2026. Vendors change prices without notice, so confirm before you sign, and tell us if you find a number here that has moved.
- ◆ slice.com/pricing · membership prices, per order fees, the under $10 exemption, card processing, the $1,000 implementation fee, hardware list, month to month terms.
- ◆ slice.com/products/online-pizza-ordering-system · the pizzeria positioning and the “up to 24% more monthly online orders” claim for the Slice app, which is Slice’s own figure.
- ◆ get.chownow.com/pricing · Launch, Grow and Elevate prices on monthly and annual billing, the $119 to $499 setup fee, 2.95% + $0.29 per transaction, contact caps, printer and Apple developer fees, Flex Delivery at $7.98 per order.
- ◆ get.chownow.com cancellation policy · the cancellation form plus consultation call requirement.
Zayos is a product of Zay Revenue Group, LLC of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, so we compete with both vendors named here. We publish the vendors’ own numbers and link to them so you can check us.
Before you sign either one, see your own math.
The free AI report reads your real order mix and average ticket, then shows what each pricing model would actually cost you. 60 seconds. No card.
More head to head reads on the comparison hub · ChowNow alternatives