Shopify is a commerce platform designed for both online stores and retail locations. Shopify offers a professional online storefront, a payment solution to accept credit cards, and the Shopify POS application to power retail sales.
$39
per month
Toast Point of Sale
Score8.3 out of 10
N/A
Toast Point of Sale is a cloud-based restaurant point of sale solution provided as the foundation for Toast's all in one restaurant management solution which supports payment processing, as well as customer care, gift cards and loyalty, as well as back of house and back office (HR, payroll, schedule and shift management, etc.).
$69
per month
Pricing
Shopify
Toast Point of Sale
Editions & Modules
Basic Shopify
$39
per month
Grow
$105
per month
Advanced
$399
per month
Shopify Plus
2,000
per month
Shopify Plus
2,300
per month
Starter
$69
per month
Essentials
$99
per month
Growth
$199
per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Shopify
Toast Point of Sale
Free Trial
Yes
No
Free/Freemium Version
No
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
No setup fee
Additional Details
A 25% discount is offered for annual billing.
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More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Shopify
Toast Point of Sale
Considered Both Products
Shopify
No answer on this topic
Toast
Verified User
Chose Toast Point of Sale
Toast has been a lot better than Aloha. The system itself is more up-to-date. Aloha was more dated. The only thing I liked more about Aloha is the Loyalty program. Aloha Loyalty worked better by keeping track of when one account had comped a product and not allowing …
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Verified User
Chose Toast Point of Sale
I've used Touch Bistro, but honestly I used it for 6 months and Toast had a significant difference in performance. I have used Square POS in the past, and it has been amazing to use in the administrative way as well as customer wise though I preferred working on Toast for …
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Shopify allowed us to handle matrix items and combined listings. Both of which we could not do on our previous platform. There was some customization involved but overall, it did what we needed it to. The one downside was that if we want to change anything we would have to reload the entire set of matrix items manually.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
For restaurants it's great, and that's the only scenario I'm really use to seeing it. However I do have to say that during Christmas time, our city has a craft bizarre where local artists are featured and sell their wares, and this Bizarre was using Toast POS. Therefore, I think it can really span across all avenues. It's great because of how it categorizes menus, and how you can run reports like a p-mix to see your top sellers, and bottom sellers, etc. The more I think of it, now, really any business that sells something and needs to track those sales, could use this POS. A tire store? Sure. A hat shop? Absolutely. The great thing about Toast is that it is just SO customizable! You can even make the buttons different colors, that's how customizable it is. Lastly, the ability to sell online has been a game-changer. I wish there was a little bit better formatting for online ordering, but really, you can add pictures, descriptions, modifiers, use discount codes, and accept gift cards all online. We didn't have to build out an online store, we just had to build out our menu buttons and we were all set.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
It's base security and integration with trusted security partners (such as NoFraud) is a game-changer when it comes to reliability and a "hands off approach" for our IT department. The up-time is also very good.
It offers a wide range of verified plugins that are (for the most part) easy to install and use for any specific scenario you're looking for.
It's Analytics area in the admin is actually nice and offers a wide variety of reports that you can run.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
I would love it if Shopify built an in house app which helped us post UGCs and social proof from platforms such as Instagram, Youtube etc. more seamlessly on our website. Right now, we are able to do it through third party apps but the look and feel is just okay.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Though sales details are available in real time, the analytics take 2-3 days to post. So if you are looking for specific modifications you'll have to wait.
Though you can edit the menus directly from the devices and move them around like you do on a smartphone, it doesn't give you a sorting option. If you're OCD like me, you have to alphabetize my hand.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Nothing we have used in the past or have seen thus far even comes close to offering what we get with Shopify Plus, especially for the price. You cannot even come close to getting what we are getting at the price we pay. We are beyond thrilled and Shopify Plus meets and exceeds all of our needs and expectations. We love it!
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
There are many features I wish Toast had that it currently does not, but we are likely to renew this year because given Toast's recent increase in funding and expanding of their staff, we are hopeful some of these issues will finally be resolved in 2019. Plus, though I've never done it, I'd imagine that switching to another POS system would take a ton of time, money, and resources---things most businesses don't have a lot of. So we'll sit tight with Toast for now and see what they come up with this year in terms of fixing our biggest pain-points.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
It is fairly easy to use Shopify regardless of what task you are attempting to perform. Most things are customizable to a degree without requiring coding ability. I have very limited coding experience and have still been able to navigate my way around changing features of the website that require edits to the code with the use of AI and trial-and-error. This previously wasn't possible with the WooCommerce platform.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Toast POS is a great basic POS tool, having some features I didn't think would be possible at this price point, such as:
processing CC payments in "offline mode" in case there is an internet outage
kitchen display screens
collecting payment from customers using a handheld right at their table
pre-approving card payments to assure the customer has enough money to pay for their order, etc
That being said, I still feel that Toast misses the mark on some things that I truly would consider 'common-sense' features, such as:
providing hardware that connects the Register Screen (Elo) to the Cash drawer so it doesn't fall off the table when flipped over for customer signature
accepting physical and e-gift cards as payment on their own online ordering platform (ToastOO)
a Rewards Program that allows for online enrollment, rather than holding up quick-serve lines to sign up
a Promo code feature that allows you to add basic restrictions such as Limit 1 per customer, or date/time limitations
increasing in-store operations efficiency by creating more straight-forward ways to manage restaurant/ToastOO hours, and Delivery/Takeout quote estimates
Facing these issues after 3+ years has been a frustration. We hope Toast has some solutions in mind that they will be implementing in 2019.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
In terms of support I give Shopify a 9 out of 10 because they're always very friendly and thorough, and they personally can't solve my problem for me they always point me in the proper direction with the proper information I need to move forward
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Shopify offered us several trainings to setup a Shopify store, how to build a brand, SEO, product photography etc. All this content have been super helpful in our journey.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Big Commerce and SAP Hybris are two other platforms we've investigated and Shopify is by far easiest to use and customize. While it doesn't do everything out of the box, the apps do fill in many gaps. The cost however, is probably the biggest selling point against these other two options.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Toast is so much easier to use than Breadcrumb. The display is so much easier to navigate. The card readers are more quality with Toast. Chownow was hard because it had its own printer, different than our kitchen printer, for to go orders, but now with Toast's all in one ordering we get the to go orders sent to the kitchen with the same ease as if they were getting fired from the main floor.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
It got the store up quickly so the client could start selling. She was previously selling products on Etsy and Facebook and wanted to consolidate everything onto one website, so the main thing Shopify solved was to reduce the store owner's time in managing all her products on multiple sites. Also, we had previously built a website on Wix with all the custom functionality and branding she needed - a truly great, high-end website - but it performed so slowly that it was unusable. So the speed at which Shopify can be set up and then works on the page is appreciable.
The website was manageable by the client - she could figure the system out herself after a while so she saved money on costs for hiring developers. She did have to hire developers to customize some of the plug-ins but costs are all relative; it wasn't a high investment compared to building a full e-commerce website. With the complexity and size of her product base and the functionality and branding she wanted to have in a website, and the potential of her business, she would have needed to invest well over $10,000 to get to where she really needs to be. In the end she kept the budget under $5000.00.
Costs kept climbing with plug-ins having to be added with everything. My client became more involved in building the website and began to try multiple plugins, and she did not have the skill base to evaluate the plugins functionalities so she chose plugins that did not do everything she needed, and then ended up paying the plugin developers to customize the plugins. So on one hand, it's pretty amazing to be able to bring up an e-commerce website as quickly as a week or so, but on the other hand if you need anything customized or deeper functionality in regards to product searching and filtering on the web page, and management on the backend, it quickly goes beyond the skills of the average person to manage, and above their expected budget as well. In the end my client really did not get anything close to the functionality for the website we had originally envisioned.
Shopify was the easiest way we could find to bring the client's products to a global market. We evaluated several other platforms and the functionality simple did not seem to be adequate, so Shopify seemed like the only solution that could do enough of what we needed and still stay within this client's budget. Really the problem in this project was not platform per se but that the budget wasn't large enough. Shopify managed to provide a solution for an ecommerce store with thousands of products on a tiny budget, so in the sense of pure functionality it provided the best value of all the platforms we evaluated. The solution still isn't big enough for this client's business though so, without having insights into this client's post-build sales results, my guess is that because her new website did not make her products easier to sort through, and she likely didn't have much more budget left to invest in SEO and other marketing of the website, her sales probably didn't increase substantially as a result of having built the website. So I think this project all in all did not likely have a high ROI.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
