Toast (TOST) Has Restaurant Scale. Can It Defend the Software Upsell?

The Restaurant Platform Is Becoming a Competitive Battleground Toast, Inc. (NYSE:TOST) has turned restaurant point-of-sale software into a growing payments and services business. However, its next earnings opportunity comes from selling more tools to merchants already using the platform, precisely where competitors are expanding. DoorDash's September 30 launch of DashOS put restaurant marketing, loyalty and other software functions into focus without requiring merchants to abandon existing checkout systems. The distinction is important: Toast does not need to lose a core payment customer for competition to limit how much it earns from that customer.