Toast loyalty program: what restaurants get, and what it misses
Toast bundles Loyalty with email and SMS in its Marketing Suite, tied to a POS subscription. What that setup covers, and what a wallet card does instead.
If your restaurant already runs on Toast, turning on Loyalty looks like another toggle in a system you already pay for. It mostly is. The part worth slowing down on is what that toggle actually includes, and what still has to come from somewhere else.
Toast’s Loyalty program tracks points and hands out rewards. Reaching a customer by email or text is a different piece, bundled a level up in what Toast calls its Marketing Suite. Here is what each layer does, what it costs where that is public, and what stays tied to the till either way.
Key takeaways
- Toast Loyalty tracks points by spend or visit and issues rewards automatically. On its own it has no messaging: no email, no text, no push to a lock screen.
- Email and SMS live in Toast’s separate Marketing Suite, which can target guests already enrolled in Loyalty with automated welcome, win-back and thank-you sends.
- Toast’s Point of Sale plan is widely reported at $69 a month per terminal. Toast does not publish a standalone figure for Loyalty or the Marketing Suite. Reviewers who track Toast pricing estimate the add-on layer at roughly $25 to $75 a month on top, but the only way to get an exact number is a sales call.
- Both products require an active Toast POS subscription. Neither sends a message to a customer’s lock screen, because enrollment is an account, not a wallet pass.
What Toast Loyalty does
Toast’s own product page describes a points-based program built into the till. A restaurant chooses whether guests earn points by dollars spent or by number of visits, and sets a value per point. It can also require a minimum spend, so a reward never costs more than the margin on the ticket. Rewards range from a free item to straight cash back, chosen by the operator rather than fixed by Toast.
Points are recorded automatically at the register, so there is no physical card to carry or scan. Guests can enroll at the till, from a line on their digital receipt, during online ordering, or through a standalone sign-up link. They can then log in afterward to check their point balance and available rewards. Operators get the same visibility in reverse: real-time reporting on how the program is performing.
The one lever that goes beyond flat accrual is timing. A restaurant can run day-and-time bonuses, like double points on a slow Tuesday, or dining-option bonuses, like extra points on takeout orders it wants to encourage. Birthday and welcome perks work the same way, set once and then automatic.
Source: Toast Loyalty, retrieved October 2026.
What that list does not include is a way to reach anyone. Loyalty tracks and rewards a visit. It does not, on its own, write or send anything to the customer who just left.
Where email and SMS live
Messaging sits a layer up, in Toast’s Marketing Suite, which bundles email marketing, SMS marketing, loyalty and gift cards into one product rather than selling messaging as part of Loyalty itself. Inside it, Toast offers prebuilt automated flows described as “set it and forget it.” That covers a welcome email for a guest’s first order, a win-back email for someone who has gone quiet, and a thank-you email for top guests. Campaigns can specifically target guests already enrolled in the loyalty program, with A/B testing on top.
SMS works the same way: restaurants can send a one-time text or run an automated campaign, and an AI writing assistant will suggest the message copy. Sign-up prompts for SMS appear at the same points Loyalty enrollment does: checkout on online orders, the loyalty sign-up page, and digital receipts.
Source: Toast email marketing, Set Up an Ongoing Toast Marketing Campaign, retrieved October 2026.
So a restaurant that wants loyalty plus two of the three channels can get them from one vendor, as long as everything runs through Toast’s own system end to end. Push, email or SMS: which one to send covers what each channel is actually good for, which is worth reading before assuming a restaurant needs all of them on day one.
What it costs, where the numbers are public
Toast’s own pricing page quotes a figure only after a sales conversation, so there is no single public number for either the POS plan or the add-ons riding on top of it. Independent reviewers who track Toast’s pricing, including NerdWallet and Capterra, consistently report a Point of Sale plan starting around $69 a month per terminal. Card processing is billed separately on top of that.
Loyalty and the Marketing Suite are extras on that base. Reviewers who track the add-on pricing put the combined figure somewhere between roughly $25 and $75 a month, depending on the source and the bundle. Toast does not publish one number for this layer, so treat any figure quoted online, including the range above, as an estimate rather than a quote you can act on without checking with Toast directly.
| Toast Loyalty alone | Toast + Marketing Suite | Wallet-based card | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Channels | None: tracks points only | Email and SMS | Push, email and SMS |
| Lock-screen push | No | No | Yes |
| Requires a specific till | Yes, Toast POS | Yes, Toast POS | No |
| Published price | Bundled into the POS plan | Not published; reviewers estimate $25 to $75/mo on top of the $69/mo POS plan | See pricing |
Why it matters: the till requirement is the real fork. A restaurant already standardized on Toast can add messaging without a second vendor. One running a different till, or more than one, cannot use Toast Loyalty at any price.
What it misses
Both of Toast’s layers require an active Toast POS subscription. Loyalty is not sold on its own, and the Marketing Suite needs Loyalty switched on first. A restaurant running a different till, or more than one till across locations, cannot use either product regardless of budget.
Neither layer puts anything on a customer’s lock screen. Enrollment creates an account inside Toast’s system that a guest can check by logging in, not a pass that lives in Apple Wallet or Google Wallet. Push belongs to that format, and a points account is not that format.
Passumo sits in a different place entirely. It is a wallet card with push, email and SMS behind one subscription, built to work independently of whichever till is at the counter rather than as a layer on top of one.
It is fair to say what Toast does better for a restaurant already standardized on it. One login covers sales, loyalty and messaging together, and a reward can apply automatically at the register the moment it is earned. A wallet card asks a staff member to glance at a pass or scan a code instead, a real extra half-second at a busy service.
Who should pick which
Already running Toast as the restaurant’s till, and happy keeping marketing inside the same system. Toast’s Marketing Suite gets two of the three channels without adding a second vendor, and the one-login convenience is real for a team that already lives in Toast every shift.
Wants a card on the customer’s lock screen, not just an account they have to log into. That is the one channel neither Toast layer offers at any price, because it is a format limit, not a feature Toast chose to leave out. A wallet card is built around exactly that channel.
Runs a different POS, or more than one system across locations. Toast Loyalty is not an option here regardless of price, since it only works on top of Toast’s own till. A wallet card has no such requirement.
Frequently asked questions
Does Toast Loyalty send email or text messages on its own? No. Loyalty tracks points and issues rewards. Sending email or SMS campaigns, including to loyalty members specifically, requires the separate Marketing Suite.
Can a restaurant use Toast Loyalty without running Toast POS? No. Both Loyalty and the Marketing Suite are built on top of an active Toast Point of Sale subscription and are not sold as standalone products.
Does Toast Loyalty issue a pass for Apple Wallet or Google Wallet? Toast’s own product pages describe an account a guest logs into to check points and rewards, not a wallet pass. Nothing in Toast’s published documentation shows a lock-screen push notification from Loyalty or the Marketing Suite.
What does Toast’s Loyalty and Marketing Suite actually cost? Toast does not publish one figure. Its Point of Sale plan is widely reported around $69 a month per terminal. Reviewers estimate Loyalty plus Marketing Suite together at roughly $25 to $75 a month on top, but getting an exact quote means talking to Toast’s sales team.
Where to go next
Square Loyalty: what it costs, and what a wallet card does instead covers the same question for a different POS-bundled loyalty program. Digital loyalty cards for small businesses is the fuller guide to how a wallet-based card works from the ground up, and there is a worked setup for restaurants specifically. Current plans are on the pricing page.
Sources: Toast’s own product pages, Toast Loyalty and Toast email marketing, plus Set Up an Ongoing Toast Marketing Campaign, all retrieved October 2026. Pricing figures come from independent reviewers who track Toast’s published plans, including NerdWallet and Capterra, since Toast’s own pricing page requires a sales conversation for a final number. Treat the add-on estimate as directional, and confirm directly with Toast before budgeting against it.