Toast ups the ante with new handheld POS

Toast today debuted Toast Go 3, its next-gen handheld POS designed for hospitality environments where restaurants operate beyond fixed Wi‑Fi, such as patios, food halls, curbside pickup and festivals.

The device integrates ruggedness with enhanced ToastIQ features (menu upsells, shift at a glance, digital chits), built‑in cellular for payment and ticket printing, and over 24 hours of battery life in a device 16 percent lighter than its predecessor. According to Toast, its handheld units have already powered over 2 billion orders since the company's original launch in 2018.

What Toast is betting on

Spotlighting features like real-time pairing prompts, inventory-aware shift dashboards and guest-specific prompting, Toast is positioning the Go 3 as a hospitality-first tool designed to drive revenue and service via smart prompts built into the ToastIQ engine. Cellular connectivity aims to eliminate limitations of Wi‑Fi zones, offering true mobile freedom for service staff, and addressing growing demand for off-premise and pop-up locations, the company stated.

What competitors are doing

Industry insiders have said they’re differentiating by focusing on economics, vertical diversity and cost transparency.

At a recent fintech forum, Shift4 Payments CEO Jared Isaacman emphasized how Shift4 competes with Toast’s restaurant-centric model by offering a "more disciplined approach" to unit economics and a lower cost of customer acquisition, noting that Shift4 serves multiple verticals beyond food service, which makes its financial model more resilient (see bit.ly/3HdBkmf).

Fiserv's Clover continues to compete for market share with Toast in restaurant payments, covering around 160,000 U.S. restaurant locations compared to Toast’s 130,000; however, Toast controls about 16 percent of U.S. restaurant payments volume, double Clover's 8 percent (see bit.ly/40ML8ua). Clover claims its flexibility (on site count and hardware) makes it attractive to smaller and fine-dining establishments that prefer simpler pricing.

Square remains the go-to platform for kitchenless operations like food trucks, grab-and-go cafés or small startups, thanks to its ease of setup, iOS/Android portability and no-monthly-fee software.

Upserve (now part of Lightspeed) differentiates itself through robust analytics, loyalty and table management, delivering restaurant-tailored tools with a unified platform. The company said its appeal emerges where operators want sophisticated reporting and guest relationship tools without switching to a more costly competitor.

Key themes

Reviews and industry commentary from trade publications suggest key themes:

• Applications like Shift4 pitch better margins and scalability outside restaurants;
• Clover aims at price-sensitive independents or fine dining venues;
• Square attracts low-risk, mobile-first operations with no long-term contract;
• Upserve/Lightspeed appeals to high‑service restaurants needing deep analytics and embedded guest programs.

Toast Go 3, a rugged, connected handheld engineered for modern hospitality, is an aggressive upgrade in its vertical. But payments industry competitors aren’t standing still. Whether leaning into a guest-centric, vertically integrated approach or competing through broader market reach, feature flexibility and alternative pricing models, they’re in the restaurant POS game to stay.

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