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AI for Restaurants: Uses, Tools and Prices Compared (2026)

By Ethan Halfhide · Updated October 5, 2026

AI for restaurants is software that takes over repeatable jobs: answering the phone, taking orders and bookings, forecasting sales, drafting staff schedules, tracking inventory, writing marketing and replying to reviews. An independent restaurant can start free with a general assistant, then add one paid tool for its biggest bottleneck.

Below: how restaurants use AI job by job, named tools with prices from each maker's own page (checked October 5, 2026), what a general assistant can do alone, three starter budgets and the limits to plan for.

AI tools for restaurants compared by job (as of October 2026)

JobToolWhat the AI doesPublished price
Questions about your own numbersToast IQAnswers questions about sales, labor and menu performance, and makes changes after you confirmIncluded with Toast POS at no additional cost
Questions about your own numbersSquare AI (beta)Chat that gives recommendations based on your Square dataListed as a beta feature on Square's restaurant pricing page, no separate price shown
Phone: reservations and guest questionsSlang AIAnswers calls, answers guest questions, books reservationsCore from $399 per location (Monthly tab), Premium from $599
Phone: questions, plus links to order or bookPopmenu AI phone answeringAnswers calls with custom responses and sends links for orders and reservationsAdd-on that starts at $149 per month
Phone: orders taken on the callOwner AI Phone OrderingTakes the order on the call and sends it to the kitchenWaitlist only on October 5, 2026, with no separate price shown. Owner's plans are $249/month plus a 5% fee per order, or $499/month
Phone: general-purpose agentGoodcallAnswers calls and collects caller details for any small businessStarter $79/month per agent
Sales and labor forecastingLineup.aiForecasts sales and labor for each location$79 per location per month (forecasts only), $149 (forecasts plus scheduling)
Staff schedulingHomebaseAI-powered Scheduling Assistant on the Plus planBasic $0 (1 location, up to 10 employees), Plus $70 per location per month
Inventory and invoicesMarketManAI invoice scans, plus AI order suggestions on GrowthStarter $249/month, Growth $299/month
Invoices, food cost and forecastingMarginEdgeInvoice processing, a custom sales forecast and a built-in assistant$350 per location per month
Website, online ordering and marketingOwnerAI-optimized website, online ordering, automated email and text campaigns$249/month plus 5% per order, or $499/month flat
Website and marketingPopmenuAI-crafted emails and social posts (Essentials). AI review replies are listed under Premier but marked "soon"Starter $179/month, Essentials $299, Premier $499
Listings and review repliesMarqiiAI review summaries (Growth), AI-suggested review responses (Scale)Growth $145 per location per month, Scale $180, both on an annual contract
Anything text-basedChatGPT or ClaudeDrafts menu copy, posts, review replies, job ads and checklistsFree plans, ChatGPT Plus $20/month, Claude Pro $20/month billed monthly

These are list prices on monthly billing unless noted, taken from each company's own pricing, product or help page on October 5, 2026 (the Sources list shows which). None is a sale price. Annual billing is cheaper at several: Slang AI shows $379 and $539 on its Yearly tab, Popmenu shows $159, $269 and $449 a month prepaid annually, MarginEdge and Lineup.ai both offer 10% off, and Claude Pro is $17 a month when paid as $200 up front.

How restaurants use AI today

The survey data we found on restaurant AI comes mostly from large companies. Deloitte's State of AI in Restaurants survey, run in the fourth quarter of 2024, reached 375 restaurant leaders in 11 countries, and 93% of them worked at organizations with 1,000 or more workers. In that group, 63% reported daily use of AI in customer experience and 55% reported daily use in inventory management. Generative AI, the kind behind chat assistants, was used daily by only 9%.

Two points carry over to an independent restaurant. The jobs with the most adoption are customer contact and inventory, which matches the tools you can buy off the shelf. And the executives named identifying the right use cases as one of their biggest constraints. A National Restaurant Association article on choosing AI tools, which summarizes a report underwritten by DIRECTV for Business, says the same: start by identifying the problems that need solving, then look for tools that address them.

The six jobs below run from the guest's side of the business to the back office.

1. Phone: orders, reservations and questions

A phone agent answers every call, handles the routine ones and passes the rest to your staff. The options differ in what they can finish on the call.

  • Slang AI is built for restaurants that rely on reservations. Its Core plan starts at $399 per location and includes reservation management with integrations for OpenTable, SevenRooms, Yelp and Fishbowl, plus call recordings and summaries. Slang says setup takes less than 30 minutes of your time and that unrecognized questions are forwarded to a person or answered with a texted link. Spanish is listed under Premium (from $599) and as an add-on.
  • Popmenu AI phone answering is an add-on that starts at $149 per month. Popmenu describes it as answering calls around the clock and sending links for orders and reservations. By that description, the guest finishes the order online, not on the call.
  • Owner AI Phone Ordering is described as taking the order on the call and sending it to your kitchen. Owner says allergy questions, complaints and anything outside the order are transferred to your staff. On October 5, 2026, Owner's page for it offered a waitlist, not a sign-up.
  • Loman lists takeout and delivery ordering, phone reservations, POS integration and payment over the phone on its Premium plan, with integrations that include Toast, Clover, Square, OpenTable and Resy. Its pricing page promises no per-minute fees, but prices are by request.
  • Square lists AI-powered voice ordering as a beta feature on its restaurant pricing page.
  • Goodcall is a general small business agent at $79 a month per agent with 100 unique callers included. A regular who phones many times in a month from the same number counts once.

If your calls are mostly simple questions (hours, parking, whether you take bookings), a general agent is the cheaper route. Our comparison of each AI phone answering service covers those, with setup steps and call recording rules.

2. Online ordering and your website

Here the AI works behind the scenes: it helps build the site for search and sends follow-up campaigns.

  • Owner bundles an AI-optimized website, online ordering, a branded app, loyalty and automated email and text campaigns. The Flexible plan is $249 a month plus a 5% restaurant fee per order, and Flat Rate is $499 a month with no restaurant fees. Both are month to month. The two cost the same at about $5,000 a month in online sales (5% of $5,000 is $250, and $249 plus $250 is $499), which matches Owner's note that Flat Rate is best for restaurants at $5k or more a month in online sales. Owner's pricing FAQ adds that on both plans guests pay a 5% order support fee. The trade-off, in the words of Owner's CEO, is giving up some control over how your digital presence looks and feels.
  • Popmenu starts at $179 a month for a website, interactive menu, Google Business Profile sync and automated email marketing. Online ordering is an add-on.
  • Square lists a branded online ordering profile for commission-free pickup and delivery orders that syncs with its POS.

If guests mostly message you through your website, compare customer service chatbots as well.

3. Scheduling and labor forecasting

Forecasting tools predict sales, then help turn that into a schedule and a labor budget.

  • Lineup.ai builds a prediction model for each location from historical sales plus outside data such as weather, events, traffic and holidays. Forecasts alone cost $79 per location per month, and forecasts plus automated scheduling cost $149. It integrates with Toast, Square and Clover, among others.
  • Homebase is free for one location with up to 10 employees (basic scheduling and time tracking). Its AI-powered Scheduling Assistant comes with the Plus plan at $70 per location per month. On October 5, 2026, Homebase was advertising a limited-time offer of 6 months of Plus and payroll free for businesses that add payroll.
  • MarginEdge includes a custom sales forecast that factors in past sales, major holidays, weather, seasonality and trends.

4. Inventory, invoices and food cost

This is the least visible use of AI, and it replaces the most typing: invoice lines, counts and order sheets.

  • MarketMan Starter is $249 a month and includes recipe costing, waste tracking and 50 AI-powered invoice scans a month. Growth, at $299, adds unlimited invoice scanning and Smart Ordering, which MarketMan describes as AI-powered suggestions on what to order each week. Enterprise starts at $449.
  • MarginEdge is $350 per location per month with unlimited invoices processed and no contract. It says invoices are coded by a combination of AI and real people. It also has a built-in assistant named Tom and a connector for asking about your restaurant data inside ChatGPT and Claude. One extra cost: MarginEdge says Toast customers need Toast's Restaurant Management Suite, at $50 per month per location, for the sales integration.

5. Marketing

Restaurant marketing repeats: a weekly special, an event, a holiday menu. AI drafts the copy and you approve it.

  • Toast email marketing includes an AI assistant that writes the email copy for you to review, and Toast IQ can recommend menu pairings from sales data and set them up as upsells.
  • Popmenu Essentials ($299 a month) includes AI-crafted emails and social posts.
  • Owner includes automated email and text campaigns on both plans.

For tools that are not restaurant-specific (design, video, email platforms), see our guide to AI marketing tools for small business.

6. Review replies

Google lets a verified business reply to its reviews. Replies are public, and Google checks each one against its content policies before it appears. AI helps in two ways: it drafts the reply, and it summarizes what guests keep saying.

  • Marqii Growth ($145 per location per month, annual contract) monitors reviews on Google, Yelp, Facebook and delivery apps and adds AI review summaries. AI-suggested responses come with Scale at $180.
  • Popmenu Premier ($499 a month) includes reputation management for online listings and reviews. Its pricing page lists AI review replies under Premier with a "soon" label, so treat that feature as not yet available as of October 5, 2026.
  • Toast IQ lists reading guest feedback and sending replies among the tasks it handles.
  • A general assistant can draft a reply if you paste in the review and tell it what happened.

One legal line: use AI to answer real reviews, never to write them. The FTC's final rule on fake reviews, announced on August 14, 2024, prohibits businesses from creating or selling reviews by someone who does not exist, and it names AI-generated fake reviews as an example.

What a small restaurant can do with a general assistant

You do not need restaurant software to begin. ChatGPT and Claude both have free plans. ChatGPT Plus is $20 a month, and Claude Pro is $20 a month billed monthly.

Useful first jobs for an owner or manager:

  • Menu descriptions. Paste your dish list and ask for one-line descriptions in your voice. Check every ingredient yourself.
  • Social posts and emails. Give it this week's special, the price and the date, and ask for three versions.
  • Review reply drafts. Paste the review, add the facts, ask for a short and polite reply, then edit it before posting.
  • Job ads. The same National Restaurant Association article notes that AI tools can generate job descriptions and polish emails for hiring managers.
  • Checklists. Describe your opening or closing routine and ask for a printable checklist.
  • Translations. Ask for staff notices in the languages your team uses, and have a fluent speaker read them.

What a general assistant cannot do by default is see your sales, your stock or your phone line. That is the gap the tools above fill.

Our separate guide covers which ChatGPT plan to pick and what not to put into it.

What it costs: three starter setups

These examples use the list prices above for one location, as of October 2026.

SetupWhat it includesMonthly cost
Free startA free ChatGPT or Claude plan, plus Homebase Basic for scheduling (1 location, up to 10 employees)$0
Phone firstChatGPT Plus or Claude Pro ($20) plus Goodcall Starter ($79)$99
Back office firstMarketMan Starter ($249) plus Lineup.ai forecasts ($79)$328

A restaurant that wants a reservation-specific phone agent should budget from $399 per location for Slang AI's Core plan in place of the $79 general agent.

How to choose

  1. Pick one problem. Missed calls, late schedules, food cost drift or unanswered reviews. Buy for that problem only.
  2. Start with what you already pay for. Toast includes Toast IQ. Square lists Square AI as a beta feature. Homebase has a free plan.
  3. Check that it connects to your POS and reservation system. Lineup.ai, Loman and Slang AI each publish their integration lists.
  4. Read the contract terms. Owner is month to month and MarginEdge has no contract on monthly billing (its discounted annual option is a 12-month commitment), while Marqii's listed prices are based on an annual contract.
  5. Use the trial with real work. Homebase offers a 14-day trial of its top plan, and Lineup.ai's FAQ describes a risk-free trial period. After a month, compare the hours or orders recovered with the cost.

Limits to plan for

  • It only knows what you tell it. A phone agent with an old menu or old hours gives guests wrong answers. Someone has to own updates.
  • Allergens and complaints need a person. Vendors differ here. Owner transfers allergy questions to staff, while Slang AI and Popmenu both list allergy information among the questions their phone agents answer. Ask where those answers come from, and consider having such calls transferred.
  • Calls are recorded. Slang AI, for example, captures full call recordings. Check the recording consent rules that apply where you operate.
  • Your data. Toast says business data used by Toast IQ is not used for general model training. Check the data settings of any general assistant before pasting in anything about staff or guests, and never paste card numbers.
  • Vendor results are marketing. Sales lifts and savings quoted on vendor pages come from the vendors and their customers, so we left them out.

Where this fits with your other AI tools

A restaurant is still a small business, so the general advice applies: one assistant, then one tool for your worst bottleneck. For picks that are not specific to food service, see our list of the best AI tools for small business, or read our guide on how small businesses use AI. If you are not sure where to begin, check your AI readiness first.

What we could not verify

  • 7shifts pricing. Its pricing page did not show plan prices in a form we could read on October 5, 2026, so this restaurant scheduling tool is not in the table.
  • Loman prices. Pricing is by request.
  • When Owner AI Phone Ordering opens up, and whether it costs extra. Its page offered a waitlist on October 5, 2026, and the pricing page lists what both plans include but does not mention phone ordering.
  • Which Square plans include Square AI and voice ordering. Both are marked as beta.
  • Whether Popmenu's AI phone answering needs a Popmenu plan. It is listed as an add-on.
  • When Popmenu's AI review replies will be available. The pricing page marks the feature "soon".
  • Slang AI's billing unit. The price cards say "per location" under tabs named Monthly and Yearly, with no further explanation.
  • Toast's plan prices. The description of its pricing page says pricing starts at $0 a month, and the page says hardware and implementation costs vary.
  • Quality. We have not placed calls through these phone agents or run these tools in a restaurant. Judge accuracy on your own trial.

FAQ

How is AI used in restaurants?

Restaurants use AI to answer calls and take orders or reservations, forecast sales and staffing, scan invoices and track food cost, write marketing emails and social posts, and draft review replies. Toast and Square (in beta) also offer chat assistants that answer questions from your own business data.

What is the best AI for restaurants?

It depends on the job. For reservation calls, Slang AI is built for restaurants and connects to OpenTable and SevenRooms. For phone orders, look at Loman, or at Owner's AI Phone Ordering, which had a waitlist as of October 2026. For forecasting, Lineup.ai. For invoices and food cost, MarketMan or MarginEdge. For writing tasks, a general assistant such as ChatGPT or Claude is enough.

How much does AI for restaurants cost?

As of October 2026, a general assistant is free or $20 a month, and Toast IQ is included with Toast POS at no additional cost. A general phone agent such as Goodcall starts at $79 a month, and restaurant-specific phone agents start at $149 a month (Popmenu's add-on) or $399 per location (Slang AI Core). Lineup.ai forecasting starts at $79 per location, and MarketMan starts at $249 a month.

Can ChatGPT help run a restaurant?

Yes, for writing and planning work: menu descriptions, social posts, review reply drafts, job ads, checklists and translations. It cannot see your sales, stock or phone line on its own, so it will not forecast demand or answer calls without other software.

Can AI answer the phone and take orders for a restaurant?

Yes. Loman lists takeout and delivery ordering with POS integration, and Owner describes a phone agent that takes the order on the call and sends it to the kitchen, though it had a waitlist as of October 2026. Popmenu's phone answering sends the caller a link to order online. Slang AI focuses on reservations and guest questions. Slang AI and Owner both say calls go to staff when the agent cannot help.

Will AI replace restaurant staff?

The tools in this guide take over tasks, not whole roles: routine calls, invoice entry, schedule drafts and copy. A National Restaurant Association article on choosing AI tools describes the aim as fewer repetitive tasks, so managers can spend more time with guests.

How this page was put together

We compared each company's official pricing and product pages on October 5, 2026, along with Deloitte's restaurant AI survey, a National Restaurant Association article, Google's Business Profile help and the FTC's announcement on fake reviews. We did not run trials or place calls. Prices change often, so check each pricing page before you buy.

Sources