The best restaurant management software of 2026

SpotOn covers the front of house a sit-down restaurant needs: ordering, payments, table layouts, menu management and reporting, with 24/7 support on every plan. Alongside the counter stations, SpotOn sells handhelds for the floor and a $200 guest-facing display.

There are two published plans (checked November 4, 2026). POS Essentials is $55 a station a month on month-to-month terms, with card-present payments at 2.45% + 15¢ (American Express 3.19% + 15¢) and keyed payments at 3.45% + 15¢. You buy the hardware: a Station 15 terminal is $750, a Station 10 is $415 and a handheld is $297, with financing available, and implementation costs extra. The All-In plan has a $0 software fee and includes hardware, but card-present payments cost 2.79% + 20¢, there is a two-year minimum term, and processing minimums apply. A custom Build Your Own plan is quoted.

The optional Core Bundle is $50 a month plus 0.2% of sales volume, capped at $200 a location, and adds Profit Assist, SpotOn Order, Marketing Assist and software integrations.

Choose it if you run a full-service restaurant, want handhelds on the floor and would rather pay for hardware than sign a two-year term.

Skip it if you are opening small and want no monthly software fee at all; Square for Restaurants has a free plan.

Square for Restaurants has a free plan with no monthly subscription, which makes it the lowest-risk way to open on a proper POS. The free plan covers item and menu management, pickup and local delivery, and a branded online ordering page.

Card fees fall as you move up (checked November 4, 2026). In-person payments cost 2.6% + 15¢ on Free, 2.5% + 15¢ on Plus and 2.4% + 15¢ on Premium. Online payments are 3.3% + 30¢ on Free and 2.9% + 30¢ on the paid plans, and keyed payments are 3.5% + 15¢ on all three. Plus adds integrated inventory tracking and close-of-day reports, and Premium adds coursing and seat management for full-service rooms. Both paid plans come with a 30-day free trial.

Add-ons are priced per device. The kitchen display app is $30 a month on Plus and $20 on Premium, Square Kiosk is $99 a month, and Kiosk Lite on iOS is $50 on Plus and $30 on Premium. Restaurants processing more than $250,000 a year can ask about Square Pro custom pricing.

We could not read the monthly fees for Plus and Premium, because the pricing page fills them in after it opens.

Choose it if you run a cafe, food truck or small counter-service restaurant and want to start free, then add a kitchen screen or kiosk later.

Skip it if you need coursing and seat management on a budget; that sits in Premium, and SpotOn includes table layouts at $55 a station.

TouchBistro's base Point of Sale plan includes menu management, reporting, floor plan and table management, staff management, POS integrations and 24/7 phone and email support. Updates carry no extra charge, and TouchBistro takes no commission on its own online ordering.

Point of Sale starts at $69 a month, with hardware, payment processing and other fees on top. The Essentials Bundle starts at $119 a month and adds integrated payments and restaurant-grade hardware, so you pay one predictable monthly bill instead of buying terminals up front (checked November 4, 2026). Payment processing still costs extra on the bundle, and the page does not list card rates. A Custom Setup is quoted.

Most of the back office comes as add-ons, each priced by quote: inventory management, labor management, a kitchen display system, profit management, online ordering, reservations, loyalty, marketing and gift cards. Hardware financing is available for venues with two or more terminals.

Choose it if you want table management, hardware and payments set up together and like the idea of a single monthly bundle.

Skip it if you want to know your full cost before a sales call, because add-ons and card rates are quoted. SpotOn publishes both.

Lightspeed Restaurant puts a lot into its entry plan. Starter includes the POS, a menu manager, floor plans, take-out and delivery, online and contactless ordering, the Pulse mobile app, multi-location management, advanced inventory and raw API access. Inventory goes down to the ingredient level, and the POS keeps working offline when the connection drops, then syncs when it returns. Servers can use the Tableside handheld to take orders and payments at the table.

The pricing page lists Starter at $69, Essential at $189 and Premium at $399, without saying whether that is per month or per location, and notes that prices may vary by business (checked November 4, 2026). Essential adds Lightspeed Tasks and access to paid Pro Services. A kitchen display costs $30 a screen a month on every plan, and reservations and third-party delivery integrations are add-ons. Enterprise is quoted and comes with a dedicated support team. Card rates are not published.

Choose it if you run several locations or a hotel restaurant and want ingredient-level inventory and an API for your own reports from the first plan.

Skip it if you want published card rates and a clear monthly bill before you call sales; SpotOn lists both.

MarginEdge sits behind your POS and handles the paperwork that eats a manager's week. It processes your supplier invoices with no cap, pays your bills (US only), tracks inventory and ordering, costs your recipes with menu analysis, and connects to your accounting software. Budget tracking and sales reporting are included, along with unlimited email support and one-to-one training.

The full platform is $350 a location a month, or $315 a month billed yearly, which saves 10% (checked November 4, 2026). There is no setup fee, but onboarding packages and sales tax are extra. The Freepour liquor scale adds $150 a location a month and SmartPrep adds $95. If you use Toast as your POS, Toast charges $50 a location a month for its Restaurant Management Suite, which its API integrations need, plus a pass-through API fee of 10% of your MarginEdge subscription. There is no cancellation fee on monthly plans; yearly subscribers who leave early owe the rest of the term. MarginEdge shows a demo, not a free trial.

Choose it if your POS already works and the money leaks through invoices, food costs and price creep from suppliers.

Skip it if you run a single small venue on a tight budget; MarketMan starts lower at $249 a month, and Square Plus includes basic inventory tracking.

MarketMan was on our 2021 list and still fits. It is inventory and purchasing software built around what a kitchen orders, uses and throws away. Every plan includes real-time recipe costing, actual-versus-theoretical reports that show where food goes missing, and waste tracking.

Starter is $249 a month for independent operators, with one supplier EDI connection and 50 AI-read invoice scans a month. Growth is $299 a month and adds smart ordering, ordering by recipe, recipe suggestions, two EDI connections and unlimited invoice scanning. Enterprise starts at $449 and adds advanced reports, unlimited EDI connections and read-only API access (checked November 4, 2026). The page does not say whether prices are per location. Read-only API access is an add-on on the lower plans, from $25 a month for one to three locations, and a commissary module for a central kitchen is $499 a month. MarketMan offers a demo and does not mention a free trial.

Choose it if you want to see your theoretical food cost against what you used and order from recipes, at a lower price than MarginEdge.

Skip it if you also want bills paid and invoices processed without limits on the entry plan; MarginEdge includes both.

Homebase handles the weekly schedule, the time clock and the team messages that go with them. The free Basic plan covers one location with up to 10 employees, with basic scheduling, time tracking and a POS integration so labor sits next to sales.

Paid plans are priced per location a month (checked November 4, 2026). Essentials is $30 and removes the employee cap, adding advanced scheduling, advanced time tracking and team messaging. Plus is $70 and adds an AI scheduling assistant, PTO controls, departments and permissions. The top plan, at $120, adds onboarding, labor cost management and HR and compliance tools. The page has a monthly and yearly toggle with a 20% saving but does not say which billing the listed prices reflect.

Payroll is an add-on at $49 a month plus $6 for each employee paid, after six months free, and a Tip Manager is $25 a location a month. You get a 14-day trial of the top plan with no card, and the account drops to Basic afterwards if you qualify.

Choose it if you run one or two locations and want free or low-cost scheduling and time tracking alongside your POS.

Skip it if you want labor, inventory and accounting in one back office; Restaurant365 covers all three.

Restaurant365 is back-office software for operators who have outgrown spreadsheets and a general bookkeeping tool. Its accounting module has a restaurant-specific general ledger and chart of accounts, daily sales and bank reconciliation, automated accounts payable and reports across locations or brands.

Inventory and purchasing covers food cost tracking, supplier integrations, waste, transfers, recipe costing, prep tools and price alerts. Workforce management adds drag-and-drop scheduling with sales forecasts and labor rules, plus shift swaps and time-off requests on mobile. Payroll and HR handles payroll, automated tax filing, tip pooling, hiring, onboarding and benefits.

Restaurant365 does not publish prices. You get a custom quote and a free demo, and the pricing page does not say which modules are sold together (checked November 4, 2026).

Choose it if you run several locations or brands and want your accountant, kitchen managers and general managers working from the same numbers.

Skip it if you run one venue; Homebase for scheduling and MarketMan for food cost cover the basics with published prices.