Toast is purpose-built for restaurants but locks you into Toast Payments and multi-year hardware contracts. QKClose gives you restaurant POS, KDS, online ordering, AND books — without the lock-in.
No multi-year hardware contracts AI bookkeeping included — Toast requires xtraCHEF or QuickBooks Bring your own processor — Toast Payments is mandatory KDS, CFD, kitchen ticket scanning, and recipe costing included
Restaurant-specific UX polish Deep online-ordering integration Mature payroll and team management for restaurants
Toast Starter is $0/mo with mandatory Toast Payments rates around 2.49% + 15¢; full plans run $69–$165/mo per terminal. QKClose is $9.99/mo total.
Yes — full KDS plus customer-facing display (CFD), handwritten ticket scanning via GPT-4o, and online pre-orders.