Best Delivery POS Systems for Restaurants in 2023

Toast’s other standout features include:

• Free Starter POS: Toast offers a free Starter POS. Users can also opt for a pay-as-you-go option for hardware for up to two terminals. So, small restaurants can get started with Toast virtually for free. Online ordering and delivery tools are not free, of course. You’ll need to get a custom quote from Toast when you add these tools.
• Online ordering customization: Toast users can choose to integrate directly with Grubhub or other third-party platforms via the go-between apps Chowly and ItsaCheckmate. You can keep these integrations live while adding Toast Online Ordering to receive orders through your own website.
• Order and pay via QR code: Bring-your-own-device (BYOD) tools are a new frontier for restaurants, and Toast was one of the first POS brands to roll out a built-in BYOD tool in 2020. Its Order and Pay module allows customers to scan a QR code with their smartphone camera to place their orders and pay via their phones. Contactless operations don’t get much easier than that.
• Kitchen display system (KDS) sync: Online orders print directly in your kitchen or are routed to KDS screens. As orders are marked completed by your kitchen team, short message service (SMS) texts alert customers that their orders are ready.
• A wealth of other POS features: Toast offers the widest variety of built-in POS features, from full-scale workforce management with digital employee onboarding to ingredient-level inventory tracking and robust customer loyalty tools. The reporting features are easy to navigate as are peripherals like KDS screens and self-service kiosks.

• Dynamic, white-labeled online ordering site: You can have the SpotOn team build a fully integrated online ordering site as part of your POS setup.
• SpotOn Delivery: Like Toast and Lightspeed, SpotOn integrates directly with DoorDash Drive to route your in-house deliveries to third-party drivers for a flat-rate, per-delivery fee. With SpotOn, you can get DoorDash drivers for $4 per delivery.
• Order with Google integration: You can place an online ordering link directly in your Google business listing. Orders placed via Google then appear directly in your POS order stream and payments are processed in SpotOn, along with all your other credit card payments. It also partially integrates with the built-in order pacing, so your kitchen won’t get overwhelmed.
• Virtual terminal: You can run payments on SpotOn on a smartphone with an attached card reader when away from your restaurant. This is excellent for off-site events or to process in-person payments for deliveries. SpotOn is the only system on this list with such strong offsite payment tools.

• TBDine: Like Toast, TouchBistro features member restaurants on a centralized online ordering site. This helps you reach new customers when they search for restaurants in their area.
• Transparent pricing: TouchBistro’s online ordering module costs $50 per month. This price is listed transparently on the TouchBistro website; no guesswork and no custom quote are necessary. This is an incredibly affordable price, considering that tools like Lavu’s Menudrive cost $149 per month.
• Fleet management: Restaurants that manage an in-house driver fleet can get delivery management tools as part of their online ordering package. The delivery tools are less robust than those of Toast or Revel, but they allow you to assign orders to drivers and track drivers’ transactions. This may be all a small restaurant needs.
• Third-party orders and delivery: You can route third-party delivery orders to your TouchBistro POS via Deliverect or Ordermark. Both of these go-between apps aggregate orders from popular third-party platforms, such as DoorDash, UberEATS, and Postmates, and send them directly to your POS. Each comes with their own monthly fees on top of the commission rates charged by the platforms themselves, so this strategy might be too pricey for some restaurants.

• Delivery dispatch: Map-based driver dispatch tools find the most efficient routes for your delivery team and validate each address before your drivers leave the restaurant. You can email turn-by-turn directions to your drivers’ smartphones and collect tons of data about your delivery operation to create high-level reports. Drivers access orders and delivery directions via an integrated smartphone app.
• Driver management: Revel allows you to manage delivery drivers with the same level of detail as you would servers in your dining room. You can assign orders to drivers, send mapped directions to their phones, track their status in the field, and print sales reports at the end of the shift with tip tracking and performance metrics.
• Online ordering tools: With Revel, your online ordering menu is hosted on a custom URL that you can link to your website and social media channels. This menu syncs with your internal POS menu, so you never sell an item you don’t have on hand.
• Automated alerts: Like Toast, Revel’s KDS syncs with your online ordering system. So customers are automatically alerted when your cooks mark an order complete. Revel also supports a customer-facing order status display screen that shows order names and order status in real time. This screen shows orders separated by type―dine-in, pickup, or delivery―and is excellent for restaurants that operate with both in-house online ordering and third-party delivery platforms.
• Rewards and customer tracking: Like Lavu, Revel includes customer relationship management and basic rewards in its baseline POS. The system tracks customer contact information, delivery addresses, and purchase history. Enabling rewards tracking to sync across the platform is as easy as clicking a button in the management dashboard.

• Choose your own adventure delivery: Square allows you to rely entirely on third-party delivery platforms for ordering and delivery, on-demand third-party couriers, or delivery via an in-house team. Unlike others on this list, Square charges a fee of 50 cents for each delivery processed by your in-house team. So, if you do a lot of in-house delivery, you might be better served by Toast or Revel.
• Free online store: Square supports online ordering via its Square Online tool, and every Square for Restaurants account comes with free Square Online integration. Your online store quickly imports your restaurant menu, and you can choose to offer orders for in-person or curbside pickup or delivery.
• BYOD ordering: Like Toast, Square for Restaurants supports contactless ordering via scannable QR codes. This enables customers to scan a QR code, then place orders through their smartphone. Orders are sent directly to your POS order stream and print in your kitchen. Customers can pay via the QR code with Apple Pay, Google Pay, or Square Pay, or your staff can drop a check and process payment in the POS.
• No long-term contract: Square for Restaurants allows small restaurants to pay for the POS with month-to-month memberships. A seasonal seafood shack, for example, can use the POS for the summer months they are in business, then close their account without penalties when they shut in the winter.

• Lightspeed Delivery: Lightspeed Delivery is a premium add-on to the Lightspeed Restaurant POS and its pricing starts at $39 per month. This module acts as a centralized dashboard to manage orders placed via third-party delivery apps like Uber Eats and Grubhub. In this dashboard, you can view and accept third-party platform orders and manage your menus across all third-party delivery sites in one location.
• Lightspeed Order Ahead: Lightspeed’s Order Ahead enables online ordering for takeout and in-house delivery orders. Customers place orders via your online ordering website at a custom URL. You can view an order’s delivery address on either Google Maps or Apple Maps in the POS dashboard.
• In-house fleet management: You can dispatch a staff team of drivers via Lightspeed’s integration with UEAT. This app requires an additional, custom-quoted monthly fee. But the app includes map-based dispatch, driver routing, and real-time driver tracking. UEAT also includes the option to hail third-party drivers for flat-rate fees.
• Accessibility and flexibility: You can download Lightspeed Restaurant directly from the Apple App Store and get started taking orders as soon as you connect a payment processor. Add-ons like KDS and self-order kiosk software are also right at your fingertips in the App Store. So, you can pivot your operation in minutes.

Lavu’s standout features include:

• Menudrive: Lavu owns the online ordering app Menudrive. This includes easy-to-use tools for building online ordering menus, automated email marketing, and QR code ordering.
• Text ordering: Via Menudrive, you can accept orders via text message. You can also send text messages to customers, letting them know when their orders are ready for pickup or delivery.
• Employee scheduling: Like Toast, Lavu includes employee scheduling in the baseline POS. Unlike Toast, however, Lavu includes an employee-facing site where employees can log in to view their schedules, note their availability, and request shift changes. Having all of this scheduling data in one place keeps you from tracking down multiple handwritten notes when it’s time to write a new schedule.
• Loyalty: Lavu includes loyalty tools in the baseline POS. You can choose whether to reward customers with a reward item or a percentage or dollar discount. Your Lavu system prompts servers or cashiers to apply acquired rewards at checkout.
• Delivery routing: Lavu includes delivery routing for restaurants that have an in-house driver team. Lavu’s routing tools are not quite as robust as Revel’s—you can’t track drivers in real time when they are away from your restaurant—but they may be all that a small restaurant needs. You create driving directions from order addresses and either print them or email them to your drivers’ smartphones.