How much does Chowly cost? Zayos reads the terms
Published July 2026 · Updated July 26, 2026
Chowly does not publish a price. Its own terms set a floor of $35 per month minimum per location plus a one-time setup fee per location, with the actual number custom quoted by location count and modules. Direct ordering is commission-free; Google Ordering carries a separate per-order stack.
Why is there no Chowly price page?
There genuinely is not one. chowly.com/pricing returns a 404, and Chowly’s own comparison content says so in as many words: pricing is "Custom-quoted per restaurant based on location count and the products you choose," and prospects are told to "Get exact numbers in a demo." That is a legitimate way to sell a modular platform. It is also a wall if you are trying to build a budget on a Tuesday afternoon.
But there is a second document, and it is the one most buyers never open. Chowly’s Terms and Conditions are public, and they contain more hard numbers about money than most vendors put on a pricing page: a monthly minimum, a setup fee, a per-order fee schedule for one channel, two different contract terms and a notice period for price increases. This page is a reading of that document. Everything below is quoted from it.
What do Chowly’s own terms say about money?
Eight lines, all of them from chowly.com as it read on 26 July 2026. Where the terms give an exact figure, it is quoted. Where they do not, the row says so instead of guessing.
| Cost item | What is published | Detail + attribution |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly fee | Custom quoted, per location | The terms require "a monthly fee per location in advance of each month". Chowly's own comparison content describes pricing as "Custom-quoted per restaurant based on location count and the products you choose" and tells prospects to "Get exact numbers in a demo". No rate card is published. |
| Monthly minimum | $35 per location | Straight from the terms: "All locations are subject to a $35 per month minimum fee per location." This is a floor, not a price. It matters most for a multi-unit operator, because it sets the smallest possible bill for a quiet location that is barely using the platform. |
| Setup fee | Yes, amount not published | The terms state that customers agree to pay "a one-time set up fee per location". Chowly does not publish the amount, and per location means a ten-unit rollout carries ten of them. Ask for the figure and the total before you sign anything. |
| Direct online ordering | Commission-free, per Chowly | Chowly states on its own site that "Direct online ordering is commission-free" and markets "Commission-free ordering on YOUR domain". That claim is about your own domain specifically, and this page treats it as accurate on those terms. |
| Google Ordering, per order | 2.9% + $0.30, plus up to 10% | The terms set out the Google Ordering channel separately: "$0.30 per order, plus 2.9% of the order amount, and Chowly up to 10% of the Base Order Value." The first part is payment processing; the second is Chowly's share of that channel. It does not apply to orders on your own domain. |
| Monthly term | 30 days notice | A monthly agreement runs "one month or the length of the monthly commitment following the Effective Date, thereafter automatically renewing every month, until either party provides at least 30 days' prior written notice of termination". Reasonable, and clearly written. |
| Annual term | 60 days before renewal | An annual agreement runs one year, "thereafter automatically renewing for successive one-year periods until either party provides valid written notice of termination at least 60 days before the end of the Initial Term or a Renewal Term". Miss that window and you own another full year. |
| Price changes | 30 days written notice | The terms allow Chowly to "change fees by providing 30 days' written notice prior to the end of a monthly invoicing period". Standard for the category, and another reason to keep the signed rate somewhere you can find it. |
Is $35 a month really what Chowly costs?
No. The $35 in Chowly’s terms is a minimum, not a price, and the distinction is not academic. A minimum protects the vendor from billing almost nothing for a quiet location. A price tells you what you will pay. Those are opposite functions, and a search result that reports "Chowly starts at $35" has confused one for the other.
Where the floor does matter is a rollout. Twelve locations, two of them seasonal, and the terms say those two still carry $35 a month each while they sit on the agreement. Multiply the minimum by your unit count and you have the smallest bill the contract permits, then ask for the real per-location rate and what happens to it when a location closes for a remodel.
The setup fee deserves the same treatment, because the terms charge it per location rather than per account. Chowly does not publish the amount, so a twelve-unit operator has an unpublished number multiplied by twelve sitting in month one. Ask for it as a line item and as a total.
What does Chowly’s Google Ordering cost per order?
Chowly’s terms price the Google Ordering channel on its own: "$0.30 per order, plus 2.9% of the order amount, and Chowly up to 10% of the Base Order Value." Here is that stack as straight arithmetic. Chowly’s share is capped rather than fixed, so every figure is a ceiling.
| Order | Processing | Chowly share | Total | Effective |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $20 | $0.88 | up to $2.00 | up to $2.88 | up to 14.4% |
| $30 | $1.17 | up to $3.00 | up to $4.17 | up to 13.9% |
| $50 | $1.75 | up to $5.00 | up to $6.75 | up to 13.5% |
Two things must be said clearly, because getting either wrong would misrepresent Chowly. First, this schedule is for the Google Ordering channel, not for orders placed on your own website. Chowly says direct online ordering on your own domain is commission-free, and nothing in the terms contradicts that. Second, the 10% is a ceiling written as "up to", so your agreement may set it lower.
Even at the ceiling, up to 14% on a Google order is well below the 15% to 30% base commission the marketplaces charge, and far below the 25% to 35% those channels really cost once delivery, in-app marketing and processing are stacked. The reason to know the number is not alarm, it is attribution: two orders of the same size can carry very different costs depending on which door they came through.
How do I get out of a Chowly contract?
On a monthly agreement, easily: it renews every month until either side gives at least 30 days written notice. That is a fair term and Chowly writes it plainly.
On an annual agreement, the number to remember is 60. The terms auto-renew for successive one-year periods unless written notice arrives at least 60 days before the end of the current term. Ten months into a twelve-month deal, you have roughly two weeks of decision time left. Put the notice deadline in a calendar the day you sign, not the month you start feeling unsure.
None of this is unusual for restaurant software, and Chowly deserves credit for publishing terms this specific when it publishes no price at all. But an auto-renewing annual agreement with an unpublished rate is exactly the combination that rewards reading the paperwork.
Who is Chowly genuinely right for?
Operators drowning in tablets. Chowly started life as third-party order integration, pushing marketplace orders straight into the restaurant point of sale, and that heritage is still its strongest card: it says it connects 150+ delivery apps and offers 50+ POS integrations, naming Toast, Square, SpotOn, Clover, Aloha and Lightspeed, and pulling in DoorDash, Uber Eats, Grubhub, ezCater, Postmates and Menufy. If you are running four marketplaces on four screens and re-keying tickets by hand, that is a real problem and Chowly solves it.
The wider platform (marketing website, online ordering, Google Business Profile, Google Ads, email, mobile app, dynamic pricing, surveys, loyalty) makes it a broad purchase. Breadth is a virtue if you will use it and a cost if you will not, which is exactly why the per-module line items matter more here than on a two-plan vendor.
Less good fit: a single independent that wants a direct ordering site up quickly with a number it can see in advance. That operator is buying against a custom quote, an unpublished setup fee and, on annual terms, a 60 day exit window. Our guide to marketplace order ingestion covers the same problem Chowly solves, and the category rundown starts from vendors that publish.
How does Zayos compare on cost?
Both platforms want your orders off the marketplaces. They differ on how much of the price you can see before the demo.
$499 Operator, $599 Operator plus Marketplace, $699 Concierge, per location per month. No setup fee on any tier, which for a multi-unit rollout is the difference between one predictable line and an unpublished number multiplied by your unit count.
There is no annual term, so there is no 60 day notice deadline to miss and no automatic twelve-month renewal. If it stops earning its keep, you stop paying for it.
$0.99 pickup, $2.99 delivery, $0 dine-in, 10% on catering, paid by the diner at checkout. The restaurant never pays it and keeps 100% of food revenue and 100% of tips, so you do not have to work out which door an order came through to know what it cost.
Integration breadth. 150+ delivery apps and 50+ POS integrations is a wider net than Zayos casts, and dynamic pricing and Google Ads management are products Zayos does not sell. Zayos brings marketplace orders in through Otter at $599 and gets a restaurant live in under two weeks, usually with the first direct order inside a week of signing up.
- Chowly Terms and Conditions · "a monthly fee per location in advance of each month"; "All locations are subject to a $35 per month minimum fee per location"; "a one-time set up fee per location"; Google Ordering at "$0.30 per order, plus 2.9% of the order amount, and Chowly up to 10% of the Base Order Value"; the monthly 30 day and annual 60 day termination notice provisions; and the 30 day notice for fee changes (accessed 26 July 2026).
- Chowly, comparison content · "Custom-quoted per restaurant based on location count and the products you choose"; "Direct online ordering is commission-free"; "Get exact numbers in a demo" (accessed 26 July 2026).
- Chowly platform page · the ten modules and "Commission-free ordering on YOUR domain" (accessed 26 July 2026).
- Chowly homepage · "150+ delivery apps connected", "50+ POS Integrations", and the named POS and marketplace partners (accessed 26 July 2026).
- chowly.com/pricing · returns HTTP 404. Chowly operates no pricing page (checked 26 July 2026).
- Zayos pricing · the $499 / $599 / $699 per location tiers, no setup fee, and the diner-paid service fee quoted above.
Percentages in the Google Ordering table are straight arithmetic on Chowly’s published schedule, with its share taken at the stated ceiling of 10%. Terms and conditions change; read the version attached to your own agreement.
Chowly cost questions, answered.
How much does Chowly cost per month?
Is $35 a month really what Chowly costs?
Does Chowly take a commission on orders?
How do I cancel Chowly?
What does Chowly actually do?
How does Chowly compare to Zayos on price?
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