Pain point 01
Five vendors to invoice every month.
Toast for POS, Resy for reservations, DoorDash + Uber for delivery, Homebase for scheduling, QuickBooks for accounting. Five sources of truth that don't talk to each other.
Restaurants
Run a sharper restaurant on one platform.
POS, kitchen display, online ordering, reservations, inventory, and reporting — built to talk to each other. Time clock + scheduling export to your existing payroll provider. No Commerce OS per-cover fee and no proprietary terminal requirement.
The problem
What this industry actually struggles with.
Pain point 02
Pre-shift hardware tax.
Proprietary terminals and locked-in payment rails can turn point-of-sale into an upfront cost center before a single guest walks in.
Pain point 03
Reporting that lives in spreadsheets.
You want labor cost % + food cost % + average ticket trend per location, side-by-side. Today that's a Sunday-morning Excel ritual.
The platform
What Commerce OS gives you for this industry.
Every feature below ships with every plan. No add-on per-vertical SKU, no separate license, no integration tax.
- POS with split checks, table sessions, bar tabs, and modifier-aware checkout
- Kitchen Display System (KDS) with station routing + bump bar + recall
- Floor plan editor + reservation management + waitlist + host stand
- Online ordering surface with DoorDash Drive + Uber Direct delivery
- Time clock + scheduling + tip-pool distribution + per-line tip attribution (FLSA overtime math, exports to your payroll provider)
- Recipe costing + menu engineering (Stars/Puzzles/Plowhorses/Dogs)
“We're collecting real merchant testimonials during pilot. We'd rather earn the quote than fabricate it.”
vs. the competition
How Commerce OS compares.
Industry-specific capabilities side-by-side with the category leaders. Notes describe the structure of each gap, not point-in-time pricing.
| Capability | Commerce OS | Toast | Square | Lightspeed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Multi-vertical platform (8+ industries) | ✓One platform, every vertical | — | ▲Per-vertical SKUs (Square for Restaurants etc.) | ▲Per-vertical SKUs (Lightspeed Restaurant etc.) |
| Bring-your-own-Stripe (no payment markup) | ✓ | —Required Toast Payments | —Required Square processing | ▲Lightspeed Payments preferred |
| Open hardware (any tablet, any printer) | ✓ | —Proprietary terminals required | ▲Square hardware ecosystem | ✓ |
| Built-in reservations + waitlist + host stand | ✓No Commerce OS per-cover fee | +TablesReady / OpenTable / Resy add-on | ▲Square Appointments (not host-stand-shaped) | +Lightspeed Reserve add-on |
Multi-vertical platform (8+ industries)
- Commerce OS
- ✓One platform, every vertical
- Toast
- —Not offered
- Square
- ▲Per-vertical SKUs (Square for Restaurants etc.)
- Lightspeed
- ▲Per-vertical SKUs (Lightspeed Restaurant etc.)
Bring-your-own-Stripe (no payment markup)
- Commerce OS
- ✓Included
- Toast
- —Required Toast Payments
- Square
- —Required Square processing
- Lightspeed
- ▲Lightspeed Payments preferred
Open hardware (any tablet, any printer)
- Commerce OS
- ✓Included
- Toast
- —Proprietary terminals required
- Square
- ▲Square hardware ecosystem
- Lightspeed
- ✓Included
Built-in reservations + waitlist + host stand
- Commerce OS
- ✓No Commerce OS per-cover fee
- Toast
- +TablesReady / OpenTable / Resy add-on
- Square
- ▲Square Appointments (not host-stand-shaped)
- Lightspeed
- +Lightspeed Reserve add-on
Comparison reflects publicly-documented capabilities as of May 2026. Vendor pricing + add-on names change frequently — we describe the structural gap rather than dollar figures so the comparison stays honest as competitors evolve. Have a spec correction? Tell us.
Built for restaurants, not bolted on.
Talk to our team about a pilot — we'll review your menu, current vendor stack, and what you'd save consolidating onto Commerce OS.