Toast Debuts Toast IQ Grow to Take On Marketing and Drive Demand for Operators

Toast (NYSE: TOST) today introduced Toast IQ Grow, a complete marketing solution that takes on the day-to-day work of marketing a business. From spotting a lunch slowdown to launching the campaign to fix it, Toast IQ Grow provides the tools operators need to launch and grow their brand online.

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Operators wear a lot of hats: marketer, scheduler, inventory manager, finance lead. Today’s announcement, which includes more than 20 updates across marketing, payroll, inventory, and operations, is about Toast lightening the load and taking on some of that work. Key highlights include the debut of the Marketing Agent—a cornerstone of Toast IQ Grow that builds audiences and automates campaigns across channels—and a reimagined Toast Local consumer app featuring integrated Resy reservations, increasing the number of locations available for booking to more than 20,000.

“The work of growing a business can often get pushed aside by the work of running it. We think AI agents can change that by actually doing a lot of that work, starting with marketing. Our customers shouldn’t have to choose between being busy today and building for tomorrow,” said Steve Fredette, President and Co-Founder of Toast. “Our vision is for the Toast IQ ecosystem to become an agentic platform that handles the heavy lifting, giving our customers the tools to get busy, stay busy, and own their growth.”

Toast IQ Grow: marketing, handled

Toast IQ Grow combines agentic AI with a dedicated human marketer who helps customers optimize the tools and drive results, and helps run digital marketing for operators who don’t have time to do it themselves. Toast IQ Grow identifies opportunities to grow their business and takes action, whether it’s re-engaging lapsed guests with personalized offers, or recommending campaigns to drive repeat visits after a first order. And coming soon, Toast IQ Grow will be able to spot surges in local demand from nearby events and draft targeted promotions. By combining automated execution with human expertise and reaching guests across email, SMS, social media, and paid channels, Toast IQ Grow helps drive consistent, incremental demand. In the Toast IQ Grow pilot, restaurants working with a Marketing Success Manager saw sales grow more than 8% on average compared to similar Toast restaurants, and so far the top 25% of performers saw +40% growth in the first month¹.

Bundled together for $499/month, Toast IQ Grow offers operators a more cost-effective, integrated alternative compared to purchasing point solutions. It includes:

• Marketing Agent [New|AI]: Currently available in beta, AI that understands past performance, and identifies marketing opportunities like BOGO or holiday promotions based upon that information. It then designs and plans a customized, tailored campaign strategy with assets including email, SMS, and organic social channels to fill slow shifts without manual effort.

• Dedicated Marketing Success Manager [New]: A human marketer who guides campaign direction, refines messaging, and ensures every effort aligns with the operator’s specific brand and goals. The marketer and customer can work together to fine tune campaigns and tactics for optimal outcomes.

• Core Toast growth tools: Email Marketing, SMS Marketing, Loyalty, Gift Cards, Social Media Marketing, Toast Websites, Toast Online Ordering, Toast Delivery Services, Guest CRM, and Toast Advertising.

Keita Okugawa, Manager of Matoi in San Diego, previously struggled to connect his third-party agency’s marketing spend to real-world results. “Before [Toast IQ Grow], our marketing was more expensive and we couldn’t really track what it was driving. Now, because everything is integrated, we can see what we spent, what it drove, and even who came in from a given marketing initiative, like email campaigns or ads. It gives us real accountability for our marketing spend.”

Since mid-February, Matoi has generated $3.4K in attributed email revenue in just two months, more than 3x the cost of Toast IQ Grow over that same period. Paired with a 4.5x return on ad spend, Matoi now has full visibility into performance, turning marketing from an opaque cost center into a measurable, ROI-driven growth engine with clear visibility and control.²

Toast Local: the all-in-one discovery and rewards app

The newly enhanced Toast Local app builds on existing capabilities like commission-free takeout, delivery, and reservations, and adds new ways for restaurants to reach and retain guests. With expanded reservation availability from Resy restaurants, frictionless loyalty sign-ups, and smart offers, Toast Local makes it easier for diners to discover and engage with restaurants directly within the Toast ecosystem. Restaurants also maintain ownership of their guest data, giving them the ability to build direct, lasting connections beyond a single transaction.

• Live reservations and waitlists: Guests can discover and book more than 20,000 restaurants from Toast Tables and now Resy, as part of a strategic, multi-year partnership with American Express, directly within the Toast Local app.

• Offers and rewards: Operators can push specific offers and loyalty programs directly to diners through the app, driving repeat visits and higher lifetime value, and helping to fill tables during typically slow periods. Restaurants can also offer on-premise exclusive offers to guests—a perk for the guest sitting in front of them, and an easy way to fill a slow shift.

By expanding Toast Local as a key surface for these offers, restaurants can reach more diners in the moment of discovery and unlock even greater value from their existing marketing programs.

“We use Toast offers to fuel our ‘regular’ engine,” said Tyler Paolini, Owner and Chef at Holdfast Specialty Seafood. “The loyalty math is simple: a third visit is, from our experience, the tipping point where a guest is likely to become a lifelong customer. When you look at it that way, a “Spend $40, get a free side of fries” offer is a worthwhile investment to get more eyes on our brand and help convert new guests into predictable, repeat revenue.”

More hats, handled: platform-wide updates across payroll, inventory, and operations

Toast is also introducing updates designed to support businesses as they run daily operations and scale.

To help automate decision making:

• Toast IQ Multi-Location Analysis [AI]: An enhanced capability of the Toast IQ AI Assistant that delivers advanced intelligence, surfacing trends and performance insights across complex, multi-unit operations.

• Menu Upsells [AI]: A POS feature now enhanced with AI-driven recommendations that uncovers high-margin items and add-on recommendations across surfaces, including handhelds, kiosks, and guest-facing displays, to encourage upsells and increase check size at the point of purchase.

• AI Invoice Scanning [AI]: Currently available in beta, an enhancement to Toast Retail that enables AI to pull invoice information into Toast’s receiving workflows, automating aspects of invoice capture, saving time on new product intake, reducing manual labor, improving inventory and cost accuracy. AI Invoice Scanning can also help operators protect margins by catching cost changes before products reach the shelf.

To provide financial visibility and automate part of your back office:

• Toast Finance: Integrated financial products to understand your cash flows, plan for what’s coming and access the funding you need—built for the way restaurants and retail actually run.³ With Toast Checking⁴ and real-time cash flow insights, operators have everything they need to help understand, control, and improve their cash flow—without leaving Toast.

• Auto Payroll & Payroll Success Partners: Payroll software that can automatically run each pay cycle after an operator reviews hours, tips, and payroll costs, combined with the human expertise of Payroll Success Partners⁵ to handle complex business needs like deductions and tax filings.

• Inventory Management in Toast Now: Currently in beta, a Toast Retail tool that enables operators to count stock directly from the Toast Now mobile app, with new features for editing catalogs and processing invoices.

To scale across service models:

• Toast Drive-Thru: An enterprise-grade solution that unifies hardware, software, an AI voice ordering integration, and services designed to optimize speed and accuracy of service in the drive-thru.

• Toast IQ Catering [AI]: Toast IQ AI Assistant now understands your Catering Online Ordering configuration, so you can quickly troubleshoot issues, confirm settings, and make changes with confidence.

• Toast Go® 3 global availability: The expansion of Toast’s next-generation handheld hardware, bringing innovation and reliable performance to all markets where Toast operates commercially.

To learn about the full list of Toast’s latest product releases, visit https://pos.toasttab.com/innovation-hub/spring-2026.

About Toast

Toast [NYSE: TOST] is a global technology platform built for restaurant and retail businesses. From the busiest local restaurants and shops to large hospitality brands, Toast helps owners and operators manage their businesses more efficiently, drive guest demand, and build lasting success.

Toast integrates software, agentic AI, payments, financial technology solutions, and hardware with a broad partner ecosystem. Powering billions of purchases throughout local commerce, Toast delivers the precision and innovation required for modern restaurant and retail environments. For more information, visit www.toasttab.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains “forward-looking statements,” within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements may be identified by the context of the statement and generally arise when Toast or its management is discussing its beliefs, estimates or expectations. Such statements generally include the words “believes,” “plans,” “intends,” “may,” “will,” “expects,” “anticipates,” “outlook,” “continues,” or similar expressions. These statements are not historical facts or guarantees of future performance, but represent the beliefs of Toast and its management at the time the statements were made regarding future events which are subject to certain risks, uncertainties and other factors, many of which are outside Toast’s control. Actual results and outcomes may differ materially from what is expressed or forecast in such forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements include, without limitation, statements regarding Toast’s business plans and strategy; the anticipated development, capabilities, and benefits of the Toast’s products and features; the global availability and performance of Toast Go® 3 hardware; business arrangements with Toast’s partners and customers and the anticipated benefits thereof, and Toast’s product and innovation strategies.

The forward-looking statements contained in this release are also subject to other risks and uncertainties, including those more fully described in Toast’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), including in the sections entitled “Risk Factors” and “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” in Toast’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2025, and Toast’s subsequent SEC filings. Toast can give no assurance that the plans, intentions, expectations or strategies as reflected in or suggested by those forward-looking statements will be attained or achieved. The forward-looking statements in this release are based on information available to Toast as of the date hereof, and Toast disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements, except as required by law. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing Toast’s views as of any date subsequent to the date of this press release.

TOST-CORP

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1Based on internal Toast data, Q3–Q4 2025. 8% reflects average GMV lift in controlled study of a beta program across 144 restaurants. 40% reflects the top 25% of participants in a separate before/after analysis; typical results averaged 6%.

2 Based on Toast Advertising and Toast Email Marketing data, February 11–April 15, 2026. Email revenue reflects actual online orders and estimated in-store visits based on campaign engagement. Cost comparison based on current Toast IQ Grow list price, not Matoi’s actual cost.

3Toast Finance is the integrated suite of financial products and services offered by Toast or its affiliates that you can use to manage your business’s finances. Some products are offered in partnership with third-party financial institutions. Terms, conditions, and fees may apply based on the underlying product or service.

Toast Capital Loans are issued by WebBank. Loans are subject to credit approval and may not be available to borrowers in certain jurisdictions. WebBank reserves the right to change or discontinue this program without notice.

4Toast is not an FDIC-insured bank. Toast Checking Accounts are provided by Thread Bank, Member FDIC. FDIC deposit insurance covers the failure of an insured bank. Certain conditions must be satisfied for pass-through deposit insurance coverage to apply. Toast Checking Account offers limited checking services. You may issue checks from your Account but not deposit checks into your Account.

5Available to select customers.

 

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