Restaurant email marketing is one of the highest-ROI channels available to operators, yet most restaurants underuse it. Email marketing delivers approximately $42 for every dollar spent in the restaurant industry. Toast email marketing removes the biggest barrier to entry: the gap between your POS data and your email campaigns. For restaurants already running on Toast, the platform's native marketing tools let you turn transaction data directly into targeted campaigns without exporting spreadsheets or managing a separate tool.
This guide covers exactly how Toast email marketing works, what it costs, where it performs well, and what its limits are, so you can decide whether it fits your strategy and how to get the most from it.
Key Takeaways
- Toast email marketing integrates directly with your point of sale, removing the need to manage guest data in a separate system.
- Toast email marketing can be added to Toast POS for $75 per month.
- In Toast's own survey, 22% of restaurant guests selected email as a channel they are "very interested" in hearing from their favorite restaurant through, and 50% selected email as "somewhat interested."
- According to Toast's own case studies, restaurants on their marketing suite see an average 12% increase in repeat visits within 90 days of activation.
- Toast Marketing works best for single-location Toast POS users; multi-location operators and those using non-Toast POS systems face integration gaps.
What Is Toast Email Marketing?
Toast Marketing is a native email marketing product offered by Toast. Restaurants that use Toast's point of sale (POS) platform can connect with guests and increase repeat visits with Toast Marketing.
It is a fully integrated marketing solution specifically designed for restaurants. Through smart segmentation and automated drip campaigns, it takes the friction out of email marketing by allowing you to quickly and easily send targeted messages to the right guests in order to drive repeat visits, increase revenue, and improve customer loyalty.
The key distinction from general-purpose email tools is where the data comes from. Since Toast Marketing is native to Toast POS, users never have to export email addresses and import them into a third-party email marketing tool. Every qualifying order at your POS, online ordering channel, or kiosk feeds the same database your marketing campaigns draw from.
SMS Marketing is also included in Toast's Marketing Suite along with email marketing, loyalty, and gift cards, giving operators a multi-channel setup from a single dashboard.
How Toast Builds and Manages Your Guest List
The quality of your email list determines the quality of your results. Toast handles list building automatically across several touchpoints.
Guest emails are collected automatically through a variety of sources in Toast, including Online Ordering, the Local by Toast app, Loyalty, Online Gift Card purchases and eGift Cards, and Digital Receipts.
These emails feed into Toast's Guestbook, a centralized guest database. The Guestbook is the one place where all data about your guests is housed. It currently captures guests who have added their email through an order via Online Ordering, Local by Toast app, Toast Mobile Order and Pay, Digital Payments, Kiosk, and Digital Receipts.
From the Guestbook, you can learn a lot about your guests, including how much they order, their average spend, tipping habits, who your regulars are, and which guests have not been in a while.
When you first start with email marketing, Toast imports guests who have given their email addresses and visited your restaurant group within the last six months. This initial group is limited because older email addresses may be inaccurate, or guests may mark your message as spam if they forgot they gave you their email address.
If you are migrating from another platform, you can use the Manage Contacts tool to add guest emails from a previous service to your email marketing database.
Core Features of Toast Email Marketing
Audience Segmentation
Toast lets you use auto-generated segments or create custom segments to target guests based on their previous orders at your restaurant. Users can build custom email lists for different customer types, such as VIP guests, birthdays this month, catering customers, and more.
Custom segments allow you to identify guests by their spending and order habits to personalize offers, promotions, and campaigns. This is significantly more precise than demographic-only segmentation, because it is grounded in actual purchase behavior from your POS.
For a deeper look at why segmentation matters to revenue, see our guide on email list segmentation strategies that boost ROI by 760%.
Automated Campaigns
The ability to schedule automated emails is a significant advantage of Toast's email marketing feature. Restaurants can set up workflows that trigger promotional emails based on specific customer actions or anniversaries, ensuring they stay engaged without manual effort.
Common automated campaign types include welcome emails for new guests, re-engagement campaigns for lapsed visitors, birthday offers, and repeat-guest rewards. With automated email marketing, you can reward your regular customers, bring back guests who have not visited recently, and send welcome emails to new customers to build loyal fans.
A/B Testing
Toast offers A/B tests to refine campaigns and send the most effective message. You can explore the effectiveness of your campaigns through A/B testing, audience segmentation, and comprehensive analytics tracking open rates and click-through rates.
Campaign Attribution and Reporting
Estimated sales per campaign are displayed in the Sales column on your email marketing dashboard three days after the campaign has been sent. Toast attributes a guest's order to your marketing campaign if the guest places an order within fourteen days of receiving your email and provides their email address with the order.
This 14-day attribution window is a practical signal of downstream revenue, though it is worth understanding that the model does not distinguish direct-response behavior from incidental visits.
Pricing: What Toast Email Marketing Costs
Toast Marketing costs $75 per month, covering email campaigns, targeted promotions, and automated marketing tools that help restaurants keep customers coming back.
That $75 sits on top of your existing Toast POS subscription. Most restaurants quickly find that the base software subscription is not enough to fully meet their operational needs, and key features typically require several optional add-ons. If you also want loyalty and gift card features, those are separate add-ons at $50 per month each according to Toast's published pricing.
For a restaurant sending consistent monthly campaigns and driving even a modest number of incremental covers per month, the $75 cost is easy to justify given the ROI potential of the channel. The math only works, however, if your list is healthy and your campaigns are relevant.
Best Practices for Toast Email Campaigns
Toast's own support documentation and independent research point to a consistent set of practices that separate effective restaurant email campaigns from ignored ones.
Subject lines are the first decision point. Your diners do not want to read another generic email urging them to return without a clear reason. They will not open that email unless that reason is in the subject line. For a detailed breakdown of what works, see our guide on email subject line best practices that boost open rates.
Personalize based on order history. Toast recommends targeted and personalized marketing content using automated campaign types that send ongoing messages tailored to individual guest behaviors, with audiences segmented based on specific criteria such as ordering history, preferences, or behaviors. Tailored emails can increase customer lifetime value by up to 15%.
Keep mobile layout front and center. Keep the email body concise and avoid large blocks of text, especially considering many recipients view emails on mobile devices. Incorporate images of menu items to break up text and enhance visual appeal.
Send at the right time. The best days for sending restaurant emails are Monday and Tuesday, and it is best to send campaigns in the morning between 8 and 9 AM when recipients are most likely to check their inboxes. Based on Toast's own research, monthly updates tend to be well-received by most customers, so maintain a regular rhythm without overwhelming subscribers.
Include a clear call to action. Include a clear and compelling call to action directing recipients to take desired actions, such as visiting your website, making reservations, or ordering online.
Monitor performance and adjust. Monitor campaign performance metrics such as opens, clicks, and orders. Use Toast's reporting tools to compare campaign effectiveness and identify trends. Adjust your campaign strategies based on insights from performance analysis.
Limitations of Toast Email Marketing
Understanding where Toast email marketing falls short helps you decide whether to supplement it with additional tools or choose a different platform entirely.
It only works for Toast POS users. The native data advantage disappears entirely if you are not on Toast. There is no standalone version of the marketing tool for restaurants using Square, Lightspeed, or other POS systems.
Multi-location operators face integration gaps. Toast Marketing works best for single-location Toast POS users. Multi-location operators and those using non-Toast POS systems face integration gaps, and the SMS capabilities remain limited compared to dedicated platforms.
DKIM signing is not supported. DKIM signing is not supported for Toast Email Marketing at this time. This is a meaningful deliverability concern. Without DKIM authentication, your emails are more vulnerable to spam filtering. According to the 2024 Email Deliverability Report, the average deliverability rate is 83.1%, meaning nearly one in five emails never reach the inbox. For any restaurant that wants to maximize inbox placement, this technical gap warrants attention.
You cannot change the sender email address. The option to change the sender's email address is not available at this time. This limits brand control and can affect how professional your emails appear in a subscriber's inbox.
Template and workflow depth is limited. Compared to dedicated platforms like Klaviyo or Mailchimp, Toast's email builder and automation workflow options are more constrained. Restaurants that need complex drip sequences, conditional logic, or deep behavioral triggers will find the toolset restrictive.
For restaurant operators who want more from their email strategy than Toast's native tools offer, exploring dedicated platforms alongside your POS data is worth considering. See our full breakdown of restaurant email marketing examples that drive sales to understand what high-performing campaigns look like across platforms.
When Toast Email Marketing Makes Sense (and When It Does Not)
Toast email marketing is a strong fit if you meet these criteria:
- You are already on Toast POS and have no plans to switch.
- You run one to three locations in a single management group.
- You want a low-effort entry point into email marketing with automatic list building.
- Your primary goals are driving repeat visits and reactivating lapsed guests.
It is a weaker fit if you need:
- Advanced deliverability controls, including custom DKIM and domain authentication.
- Complex multi-step behavioral automation beyond basic triggered campaigns.
- Deep integration with reservation systems, third-party delivery platforms, or non-Toast data sources.
- Full ownership of sender identity and email domain.
Restaurants using automated email campaigns generate 15 to 25% more repeat visits and achieve 3 to 5 times higher ROI than manual promotional outreach. Whether that automation comes from Toast or a third-party tool matters less than whether the platform you choose actually gets used consistently. The best email marketing setup is the one your team will run every month, not the one with the most features sitting idle.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Toast email marketing work without a Toast POS subscription?
No. Toast Marketing is a native email marketing product offered by Toast, and it is only available to restaurants that use Toast's point of sale platform. It cannot be purchased or used as a standalone tool.
How does Toast collect guest email addresses automatically?
Guest emails are collected automatically through a variety of sources in Toast, including Online Ordering, the Local by Toast app, Loyalty, Online Gift Card purchases and eGift Cards, and Digital Receipts. Guests who provide their email through any of these channels and consent to marketing communications are added to your list.
Can I import an existing email list into Toast email marketing?
Yes. If you have guest emails from a previous service, you can use the Manage Contacts tool to add them to your email marketing database. You can upload a CSV or TSV file with your existing contacts.
How does Toast attribute sales to email campaigns?
Toast attributes a guest's order to your marketing campaign if the guest places an order within fourteen days of receiving your email and provides their email address with the order. Estimated campaign sales appear in your dashboard at least 72 hours after sending.
What are the main limitations of Toast email marketing to watch for?
The most significant practical limitations are the lack of DKIM authentication, the inability to customize the sender email address, and reduced capability for multi-location operators. Multi-location operators and those using non-Toast POS systems face integration gaps, and SMS capabilities remain limited compared to dedicated platforms. Restaurants with complex automation needs or deliverability requirements should evaluate dedicated email platforms alongside or instead of Toast's native tools.
