Toast, Inc. — Cyborg Score 8/10

Strong
Cloud-Based Restaurant Technology / Hospitality SaaS

Strategic Profile

The company released over 500 new product features including ToastIQ to drive customer engagement and operational improvements. Toast reported early success in retail markets such as grocery and butcher shops, by adapting its platform to support high SKU environments and complex inventory through new partnerships like Instacart.

Cyborg Score Rationale

Full-year 2025 net income surged to $342M and free cash flow to $608M as Toast expanded to 164,000 locations and guided 2026 EBITDA up to $795M. 2026 guidance reflects expectations of sustained net location additions and consistent mid-single-digit growth in average revenue per user. Operating leverage improvement and strategic AI investments support continued momentum.

Top Insights

  • Added a record 30,000 net locations in 2025, with recurring gross profit growing 34%
  • Ongoing investment in AI product innovation and new market entry, but headwinds from increased hardware costs and tariffs
  • Higher SaaS gross margins achieved through expanded adoption of high-margin products and leveraging AI for customer support
  • Typical customer is a mid-market restaurant generating slightly more than $1 million in revenue annually

Named Competitors

  • Square for Restaurants — Payment processing and POS for small restaurants
  • Toast — Comprehensive cloud-based restaurant operating system
  • MarginEdge — Restaurant back-office software for inventory and accounting
  • TouchBistro — iPad-based POS system for restaurants

Recent Developments

  • (February 2026) Partnership with Instacart for restaurant and retail ordering integration
  • (February 2026) Q4 2025 earnings beat with 22% revenue growth and record 30,000 net location additions
  • (Q4 2025) Released over 500 new features including AI-driven ToastIQ for operations

Open the full interactive Toast, Inc. report

Strategic research, analyst-debate audio, full Cyborg Score breakdown across 11 dimensions, and saved-company audio playlists.

Open report →