Toast is adding a new consumer-facing $0.99-cent surcharge to all online orders, without giving restaurants the option to opt out of the new fee, in an unpopular move that has caused restaurant operators to post letters and tweets of protest on social media. As first reported by The Boston Globe, the fee will be added to all online orders over $10 and will be beta-tested with a small group of restaurants before being rolled out nationwide on July 10.
According to a mockup of Toast’s interface, the .99-cent fee will not show up separately and will be instead part of a combined line called “taxes & fees” that already regularly shows up when customers place online orders. Unless consumers expand the “taxes and fees” subsection, they won’t see the new “order processing fee,” which, according to Toast, is intended to “help fund product investments” like SEO menus, customization, and chargeback coverage.
