Costs and fees · verified September 2026
What POS add-ons actually cost: loyalty, reservations, gift cards
A restaurant POS quote opens with a monthly plan price, and for most restaurants that figure turns out to be less than half of what they pay for software. The features a restaurant asks for after the first month — a points programme, a reservation book, gift cards — are usually sold on top, priced per location, and sometimes bundled so that wanting one means buying four. This page puts each vendor's published numbers side by side and adds them up.
Square Loyalty, UpMenu, Otter, SpotOn, Rezku and TouchBistro figures are from each vendor's own pricing; Toast Loyalty, Toast Tables and Toast gift card figures are from Toast's own product pages and named 2026 third-party reporting. Ginger's inclusions are its published pricing, where only AI phone ordering and delivery-app integration are paid add-ons. Read September 2026.
Why the plan price is not the price
Every restaurant POS quote starts with a monthly plan figure, and that figure is real. It is also, for most restaurants, less than half of what they end up paying for software, because the features a restaurant actually asks for after the first month are usually not in it.
The pattern is consistent across the industry. The base plan covers taking orders and taking money. Loyalty, gift cards, reservations, marketing and online ordering are sold separately, priced per location, and in several cases bundled together so that wanting one means buying four.
None of that is hidden exactly. It is just not on the page you were quoted from, and the arithmetic only assembles itself once you have listed what you actually intend to use. This page does that arithmetic with each vendor's published figures.
Loyalty
Loyalty is the most expensive common add-on and the pricing varies by more than a factor of twenty across vendors. Toast does not sell it on its own at all: loyalty arrives inside a Marketing Essentials bundle at $185 a month, which also carries gift cards, email and SMS, so a restaurant that wants only a points programme buys the other three.
Square sells it standalone at $45 a month per location with no volume discount, so two locations is $90 and five is $225. UpMenu prices a loyalty module at $19 a month. Otter does not sell loyalty below its $278 Professional tier, so for many restaurants the true cost of loyalty is the gap between the tier they need and the tier that has it.
| System | Loyalty price | Sold how |
|---|---|---|
| Ginger | $0 | included in the free POS |
| UpMenu | $19 per month | standalone module |
| Square | $45 per month per location | standalone; no volume discount |
| SpotOn | Core Bundle $50/mo + 20 bps of card volume, capped at $200 | bundled with online ordering and marketing |
| Toast | $185 per month | only inside Marketing Essentials, with gift cards, email and SMS |
| Otter | Professional tier, $278 per month | not available on lower tiers |
| Rezku | included | in the $99 Basic subscription |
| TouchBistro | quote only | no price published |
Toast's loyalty figure is the bundle price because the feature cannot be bought separately. Square's is per location, so it multiplies rather than scales. Read September 2026.
Reservations and waitlist
Toast Tables is the clearest example on this page of why the headline number needs reading twice. It costs $50 a month, and for that you get an unlimited waitlist and twenty-five reservations a month. Twenty-five. A restaurant taking four bookings a night exhausts that in the first week, and the unlimited version, Toast Tables Plus, is $199 a month.
That is $2,388 a year for reservations, on top of a Point of Sale plan that starts at $69 a month, from a vendor that already has your floor plan and your table data. UpMenu, by contrast, sells a reservations module at $9 a month. TouchBistro prices reservations by quote alongside its other eleven unpriced add-ons.
Worth saying plainly: reservations are a feature where the per-cover fee model used by the big booking platforms is a separate and often larger cost, and a POS-native reservation book avoids it. That is a genuine argument for buying reservations from your POS vendor. It is not an argument for paying $199 a month for it.
| System | Reservations price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Ginger | $0 | reservations and waitlist, included; reservations switched on per restaurant |
| UpMenu | $9 per month | reservations module |
| Toast Tables | $50 per month | unlimited waitlist, 25 reservations a month |
| Toast Tables Plus | $199 per month | unlimited waitlist and reservations |
| TouchBistro | quote only | no price published |
Toast states it does not charge per cover, which is a real advantage over the big booking platforms. The 25-reservation limit on the $50 tier is the detail worth checking against your actual book.
Gift cards
Gift cards are the add-on most likely to be bundled rather than priced, which makes them hard to compare. Toast includes them in the same $185 Marketing Essentials bundle as loyalty. Otter puts them in the $278 Professional tier alongside loyalty and a website builder. Rezku includes them in its base subscription.
Separately from software, physical cards cost money to produce. Toast's physical gift cards start around nineteen cents each at volume, before shipping and design. That is a small number but it is a real one, and it is not in any monthly figure.
The thing worth knowing about gift cards operationally has nothing to do with price: they are outstanding liabilities that walk back through your door years later, which is why the balances have to survive a change of POS. That is a migration question rather than a pricing one, and it is covered in our export checklist.
The stacked bill
Take an ordinary full-service restaurant that wants the things most full-service restaurants eventually want: a points programme, a reservation book and gift cards. Not an ambitious list.
On Toast that is the Point of Sale plan from $69, plus Marketing Essentials at $185 which brings loyalty and gift cards together, plus Toast Tables at $50 if twenty-five reservations a month is enough or $199 if it is not. So $304 a month at the low end and $453 at the high end, which is $3,648 to $5,436 a year, before payment processing and before hardware.
On Ginger the same list is $0, because loyalty, gift cards, reservations and waitlist are in the POS rather than sold on top of it. The only two paid add-ons are AI phone ordering at $250 a month and delivery-app integration at $99 a month, and both are genuinely optional services rather than features fenced off behind a tier.
The point of laying it out this way is not that one number is smaller. It is that the comparison most restaurants make, between one plan price and another plan price, is comparing the two smallest numbers in the quote.
| Wanting loyalty, reservations and gift cards | Per month | Per year |
|---|---|---|
| Ginger, everything included | $0 | $0 |
| Toast, POS plan + Marketing Essentials + Toast Tables | $304 | $3,648 |
| Toast, with unlimited reservations instead | $453 | $5,436 |
| Square, Plus plan + Loyalty | plan + $45 | plan + $540 |
| Otter Professional, loyalty and gift cards included | $278 | $3,336 |
Figures are software only. Payment processing, hardware and per-order fees sit on top of every row, and none of these totals include online ordering, which several vendors also price separately.
What to ask before you sign
Four questions, in one written quote, before comparing anything to anything.
| Ask this | Why |
|---|---|
| List every feature I named, with its own monthly price | Bundles hide which feature you are actually paying for, and whether you can drop one. |
| Which of these are per location rather than per account? | Per-location pricing multiplies at a second site and is the most common surprise on expansion. |
| Are there usage limits inside any of these prices? | Toast Tables at $50 includes 25 reservations a month. Limits live inside prices, not next to them. |
| What is the total monthly software cost, all in? | This is the number to compare between vendors, and it is rarely the one on the first page. |
A vendor that answers all four in one document is telling you something useful. So is a vendor that answers with a call instead.
Frequently asked questions
How much do restaurant POS add-ons cost?
It varies enormously and usually exceeds the base plan. Loyalty runs from $19 a month at UpMenu to $45 per location at Square to $185 at Toast, where it can only be bought inside a Marketing Essentials bundle. Reservations are $9 at UpMenu and $50 at Toast Tables for twenty-five bookings a month, or $199 for unlimited. Gift cards are usually bundled rather than priced. Ginger includes loyalty, gift cards, reservations and waitlist in its free POS.
How much does Toast charge for loyalty?
$185 a month, and it cannot be bought on its own. Toast Loyalty is part of a Marketing Essentials bundle that also includes gift cards, email marketing and SMS, so a restaurant that wants only a points programme buys all four. That sits on top of a Point of Sale plan starting at $69 a month.
How much does Toast Tables cost for reservations?
Toast Tables is $50 a month and includes an unlimited waitlist with twenty-five reservations a month. The unlimited version, Toast Tables Plus, is $199 a month, which is $2,388 a year. Toast does not charge per cover, which is a genuine advantage over the large booking platforms, but the twenty-five-booking limit on the cheaper tier is worth checking against your actual reservation volume before choosing it.
Which POS systems include loyalty and gift cards at no extra cost?
Rezku includes loyalty and gift cards in its $99 Basic subscription. Ginger includes loyalty, gift cards, reservations and waitlist in its POS, which is $0 a month with online ordering enabled; its only paid add-ons are AI phone ordering at $250 a month and delivery-app integration at $99. Most other major systems sell these separately, bundle them into a higher tier, or price them by quote.
What does a full-service restaurant actually pay for POS software?
More than the plan price, usually by a multiple. A restaurant wanting loyalty, reservations and gift cards pays roughly $304 a month on Toast at the lower reservation tier, or $453 with unlimited reservations, which is $3,648 to $5,436 a year before processing and hardware. The same list on Ginger is $0 because those features are in the POS. The comparison most restaurants make, plan price against plan price, compares the two smallest numbers on the quote.
Are POS add-ons priced per location?
Several are, and it is the most common surprise when a restaurant opens a second site. Square Loyalty is $45 per month per location with no volume discount, so five locations is $225 a month. Always ask which lines on a quote are per location rather than per account, because a price that looked reasonable for one restaurant multiplies rather than scales.
Add up your own list before you compare
Ginger is $0 a month with online ordering, and loyalty, gift cards, reservations, waitlist, kitchen display, kiosk and QR ordering are all in the POS rather than sold on top. The only paid add-ons are AI phone ordering at $250 a month and delivery-app integration at $99.