Best CRM for Restaurants (2026): How to Choose

Quick picks

Restaurant tools are priced per location, not per user, which makes them hard to compare with office CRMs. The figures below are list prices from each vendor’s own pricing page or help center as of October 2026; where a vendor quotes guest tools only on request, the table says so.

Which CRM fits your restaurant? Take the quiz

Counter service or tasting menu, one room or ten, walk-ins or bookings: the seven questions sort that out. Each option gets a percent fit, so you can see whether your POS or your reservation platform should own the guest.

Where a restaurant’s guest data actually lives

Most “best CRM” lists treat restaurants like a sales team. They are not: a restaurant has many guests, small tickets and almost no sales calls, and the guest record builds itself from transactions.

That data is spread across three or four systems:

• The POS. Every check, item, spend and visit, plus online orders and loyalty sign-ups if they run through the same vendor. This is the richest source for most restaurants.
• The reservation platform. Party size, occasions, allergies, seating notes, no-shows and VIP tags. For fine dining this is where hospitality happens.
• Online ordering and delivery. Your own ordering site feeds the POS. Third-party marketplaces often share far less guest data with you.
• Events and catering. Corporate clients, wedding planners and office managers. Few transactions, high value, long follow-up. This looks like B2B sales.

So the real question is which system should own the guest profile and what syncs into it. There are four workable setups.

1. POS-native CRM. Counter service, cafés and most casual dining. The POS owns the guest, loyalty and marketing. Reservations, if any, sync in.
2. Reservation-platform CRM. Fine dining and reservation-led rooms. SevenRooms, Resy or OpenTable owns the guest profile and pulls spend from the POS through an integration.
3. Either of the above plus a horizontal CRM. Restaurants with a catering or events team. HubSpot or Zoho handles leads, proposals and corporate accounts; the guest tools stay where they are.
4. A data hub for multi-unit groups. Several brands, several POS systems, or acquisitions. A central database or CRM merges guest records through APIs and feeds reporting and marketing.

What restaurants actually need from a CRM

For a restaurant, these seven criteria decide whether a guest CRM pays for itself:

• Automatic profiles. Nobody types guests in during service; profiles must build themselves from orders, bookings, loyalty and receipts.
• One guest across channels. Friday’s booking, Tuesday’s takeout and December’s gift card should be one record, not three.
• Service notes at the table. Allergies, seating preferences, occasions and VIP tags must reach hosts and servers on the floor.
• Loyalty and simple automations. Welcome offers, birthday rewards and win-backs do most of the work.
• Consent-aware email and SMS. Clear opt-in at sign-up, easy unsubscribe, and a record of who agreed to what.
• Feedback and reviews. Post-visit surveys and review requests, so you fix problems before they go public.
• Data you can take with you. Exports and an API, so switching vendors doesn’t mean losing guests.

What matters less: sales forecasting, lead scoring and per-user seats. Managers and marketing use the CRM; everyone else sees it through the POS or the host stand.

The shortlist in depth

Most restaurant platforms also charge payment processing, hardware and setup, so treat the list prices below as a starting point for a quote.

Toast: best for full-service restaurants already on Toast

Fits: casual and full-service restaurants, and small groups, that run their POS, online ordering and possibly reservations on Toast.

Strengths: according to Toast’s help center, Guestbook is a master guest list that combines contact info, order history, bookings, feedback, loyalty activity and marketing engagement, and it covers the whole restaurant group or selected locations. Guests are created automatically when they place an order, sign up for loyalty or give contact info, and staff see their tags, notes and past orders on the POS.

Toast Marketing Essentials bundles email marketing, loyalty and gift cards, with SMS Marketing included. Toast Catering & Events adds embeddable lead forms that convert into catering orders.

Limits: Toast’s help center says there is no import or manual-add option in Guestbook, data can take 24–48 hours to appear, and booking data shows only for guests who booked through Toast Tables. Loyalty and marketing are not part of the base POS suite, and Toast Tables and Catering & Events are add-ons.

Pricing: Toast’s pricing page lists Point of Sale from $69 a month and puts guest marketing, loyalty and gift cards under custom “Build Your Own” pricing, so expect a quote for the marketing suite.

Square: best for counter service and cafés on a budget

Fits: quick service, cafés, bakeries and food trucks that want loyalty and marketing without a second system.

Strengths: according to Square’s pricing page, the customer directory creates customer profiles automatically every time a sale is made, tracks purchase history and segments customers with preset filters. Square Plus adds a loyalty program connected to the POS and unlimited email marketing campaigns, with 500 texts a month included per account, then 3¢ per text. Square lists reservation integrations with apps like OpenTable and SevenRooms.

Limits: the guest profile is purchase-based. It holds little of the hospitality detail (seating, occasions, allergies) that reservation platforms track, so full-service rooms often pair it with a reservation tool.

Pricing: Square Free is $0, Square Plus is $49 a month per location and Square Premium is $149 a month per location, according to Square’s pricing page. Premium raises the included texts to 2,500, then 1.5¢ per text.

SpotOn: best for one vendor with flat add-on prices

Fits: independent full-service and casual restaurants that want POS, loyalty, marketing and reservations from one company with predictable monthly prices.

Strengths: SpotOn says its DIY Marketing is included with SpotOn POS at $0 a month. It covers email marketing, social media campaigns, branded deals and campaign metrics, and collects guest emails and phone numbers from online ordering, reservations, digital receipts and loyalty.

SpotOn Reserve captures guest data with every booking, tracks preferences, dietary restrictions and visit history, and lets staff tag VIPs and see notes across every location. Reserve can also send in-meal or post-visit surveys by text.

Limits: SMS campaigns cost extra, based on message volume, according to SpotOn. The guest tools are strongest when everything runs on SpotOn; if your POS is elsewhere, look at a reservation platform instead.

Pricing: SpotOn lists Loyalty at $65 a month, Marketing Assist (automated, hands-off campaigns) at $95 a month, and Reserve at $100 a month plus a one-time $250 setup fee with no per-cover fees, each when added to SpotOn POS.

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SevenRooms: best for hospitality-led groups

Fits: fine dining, hospitality groups and multi-unit operators that compete on recognizing guests and want marketing built on reservation and spend data.

Strengths: according to SevenRooms’ pricing page, the Starter plan includes CRM and guest profiles, basic marketing automations and reputation management, plus access to the DoorDash and Deliveroo reservation marketplace with no cover fees. Add-ons include email marketing, WhatsApp and text marketing, event management, Voice AI, API and integrations (SevenRooms cites more than 100 integrations) and a group portal. SevenRooms is now a DoorDash company.

Limits: pricing is quote-only across the Starter, Growth and Premium plans, and email and text marketing are add-ons on Starter. A single small location may pay for depth it doesn’t use.

Pricing: quote only.

Resy (with Tock): best for reservation-led rooms and ticketed experiences

Fits: reservation-driven restaurants, tasting-menu rooms, wineries and venues that sell prepaid experiences or ticketed events.

Strengths: Resy says Tock is now part of the Resy network. Its pricing page lists four plans: Platform and Platform 360, plus Essential and Premium, which are “Powered by Tock”. Platform covers reservation and table management plus POS integrations; Platform 360 adds advanced analytics for automated guest insights. Essential adds event ticketing tools, and Premium adds POS integrations, lower prepayment fees and experience tools.

Limits: Resy is a reservation and guest-experience platform, not a full marketing suite; check which plan covers the guest communications you need. The Tock-powered plans charge a fee on prepayments.

Pricing: Platform and Essential are $289 a month; Platform 360 and Premium are $459 a month, with no per-cover fees, according to Resy’s pricing page. Essential charges 3% on prepayments and Premium 2%, and standard payment processing fees apply.

OpenTable: best when discovery by new diners matters most

Fits: restaurants that rely on new diners finding them through a reservation network, such as in tourist areas.

Strengths: the diner network is the main draw. Guest profiles build from bookings, and marketing and messaging tools vary by plan.

Limits: OpenTable charges a monthly plan fee plus per-cover fees on diners who book through its network, so the cost grows with bookings. Walk-ins and takeout guests stay in your POS unless you connect the two.

Pricing: plan fees and per-cover rates vary by plan and country. Get the current US rate card from OpenTable and model the per-cover fees on your real booking volume before comparing it with flat-fee platforms.

HubSpot or Zoho: for catering, events and multi-unit sales

Fits: restaurants with a catering or private events manager, groups that sell corporate accounts, and franchise brands that recruit franchisees.

HubSpot suits a catering or events manager who needs inquiry forms, proposals and follow-up reminders, and its free CRM covers up to 2 users. According to HubSpot’s pricing page, Sales Hub Starter lists at $20 per seat per month, with a discounted price from $7 for new customers in October 2026. Professional runs $90–100 per seat per month and requires a one-time $1,500 onboarding fee.

Zoho CRM is free for up to 3 users, according to Zoho, with paid editions priced per user.

Limits: neither knows what a cover, a check or a loyalty point is. Keep guest marketing in the POS or reservation platform, and use the horizontal CRM for leads, proposals and accounts. If your events team also runs on Salesforce elsewhere in the business, our Salesforce integration guide covers how it connects to other systems.

Neighbouring cases: if you run a hotel with restaurants, read the best CRM for hotels; if you sell packaged food or merchandise online, see the best CRM for ecommerce.

Comparison table

SMS consent: what the TCPA rules say

Collecting a phone number for a reservation or a pickup order is not the same as permission to send promotional texts.

The FCC’s Telephone Consumer Protection Act rules (47 CFR 64.1200) cover telemarketing or advertising calls to cell phones made with an automatic telephone dialing system or a prerecorded voice. Those need the called party’s prior express written consent.

The rules define that consent as a written agreement, which may be signed electronically, that clearly authorizes the seller to send marketing messages to a specific number. It must include a clear disclosure that agreeing is not a condition of purchase.

The same rules let a guest revoke consent to calls or text messages by any reasonable method, including replying “stop”, “quit”, “end”, “revoke”, “opt out”, “cancel” or “unsubscribe” to a text. Revocation requests must be honored within a reasonable time not exceeding ten business days.

From November 25, 2026, under an FCC order published in October 2026, a sender may instead make one disclosed method, such as replying STOP, the only way to opt out, if it says so in every message. The FCC has also proposed shortening the ten-day window, so check the current rule before you set up opt-out handling.

In practice: use your platform’s built-in opt-in at checkout or loyalty sign-up, keep the consent record in the guest profile, and make sure an opt-out in one system reaches every system that sends texts. State laws can add rules. This is general information, not legal advice.

Costs beyond the license

Restaurant guest tools look cheap per month; the hidden costs are moving loyalty balances, metered texts and staff time. Typical 2026 estimates, depending on scope:

• Setup and menus. SpotOn lists a $250 Reserve setup fee, and HubSpot requires a $1,500 onboarding fee on Professional. Loyalty rules, templates and automations take a manager’s time.
• Data migration. Moving guest lists, loyalty balances and gift card balances from an old POS or marketing tool. Toast’s Guestbook cannot import guests directly, so plan the migration through the platform’s own import tools, such as Toast Tables’ guest list import.
• Integrations. A simple one-way push, such as event inquiries from your website into a CRM, typically costs $2,000–10,000 when built as custom code. A two-way sync between a POS, a reservation platform and a central CRM is closer to $10,000–40,000. Pricing a POS-to-CRM link? Our API integration cost guide covers those ranges in more detail.
• Messaging volume. Texts are usually metered: Square charges 3¢ per text after the Plus allowance, and SpotOn bills SMS by volume.
• Training. Short sessions for hosts and servers on guest notes and opt-ins, and a longer one for managers on campaigns and reports.

When off-the-shelf stops fitting: you run several brands or POS systems after acquisitions, you need one guest view and one report across them, or your catering business has its own ordering and invoicing flow. Then a central guest database or an integration layer can pay off before a platform switch does.

Multi-brand groups that outgrow POS-based CRMs can size a custom build in our custom CRM development cost guide and plan the merge of POS, reservation and delivery data with cost of data integration. Restaurant app development cost covers branded ordering and loyalty apps.

Setup plan: from signup to guests who come back

1. Pick the owner of the guest profilePOS for counter service and most casual dining, the reservation platform for reservation-led rooms. Write it down; every other system feeds it.
2. Clean and import your guest dataExport lists from the old POS, marketing tool and reservation book. Merge duplicates by email and phone, and bring over consent status, not just contacts.
3. Connect POS and reservationsTurn on the native integration so spend and visits land on the guest profile. Test with a few real checks before going live.
4. Set up capture pointsLoyalty sign-up at checkout, online ordering accounts, digital receipts, Wi-Fi or QR codes. Each one needs a clear opt-in for email and, separately, for SMS.
5. Turn on three automationsWelcome, birthday and win-back. Add a post-visit survey or review request once the basics work.
6. Add a pipeline for events and cateringIf you sell them, route inquiry forms into Toast Catering & Events, a reservation platform’s event tools or a horizontal CRM, with stages from inquiry to deposit paid.
7. Train by role and measureHosts on notes and tags, servers on loyalty sign-up, managers on campaigns. After 30 days, check repeat visit rate, loyalty sign-ups per 100 checks and campaign revenue.

Before you sign up: checklist

Only need somewhere to track catering leads? The best free CRM guide may be all you need. For a broader comparison of general-purpose tools, see the best CRM for small business.

FAQ

Where Gilzor fits

When the guest is split between a POS, a reservation book and a marketing tool, someone has to join the pieces. Gilzor does that kind of work. We are a software development company from Poland and Cyprus. We are not a CRM or POS vendor, and we resell neither.

For restaurant groups and other businesses we set up and migrate CRMs, connect POS, reservation and marketing tools through API development, and build custom guest data hubs and CRMs when no product fits. Share your POS, reservation platform and number of locations, and we’ll suggest a setup with a rough cost and timeline.