Best Voice AI for Restaurants (2026)

Pick Maple if you need the monthly price and the POS list in writing before you talk to sales. Pick Loman if you want to hear a cuisine demo on the homepage first. Pick Slang if the phone is mostly reservations, not takeout tickets. Best voice AI for restaurants means best fit for that job, not a trophy.

You are shopping for Friday night in the POS — the extra ranch, the card, the table — without pulling a cook off the line. A speech API and a restaurant phone agent are different products. This page compares the restaurant agents operators actually shortlist.

Best voice AI for restaurants at a glance

	Maple	Loman	Kea	Slang	Certus	Start here if
Published monthly price	Voice $150, or $85 yearly. Pro $350, or $220 yearly.	Not on the site.	Not on the site.	Not on the site.	Not on the site.	You need the number in a spreadsheet this week — Maple.
POS named on the live site	Toast, Square, Clover, SkyTab, Lightspeed, Chowbus, SpotOn, NCR Aloha, Oracle Simphony, and more on maple.inc/integrations.	Square, Toast, SpotOn, and Clover on loman.ai.	Kea names POS write-in; the public list is thinner than Maple's.	Reservation-first; POS write-in is not the homepage pitch.	Toast, Square, and Clover on certus-ai.com.	You run Lightspeed, Chowbus, SkyTab, NCR, or Simphony — Maple. You run one of the shared four — demo both Maple and Loman.
What the phone does	Answers, takes orders into the POS, reservations, payments, upsells.	Answers, takes orders and reservations, payments, FAQs.	Answers and takes phone orders; delivery and pay tools on kea.ai.	Answers inquiries and manages reservations 24/7.	Answers, takes orders, manages reservations, POS write-in.	Missed call equals missed ticket — Maple, Loman, Kea, or Certus. Reservations only — Slang.
Minutes and fees	Unlimited minutes and call volume. No per-minute fee. No contract.	Unlimited simultaneous calls. Minutes and per-minute fees are not printed.	Not printed as a flat monthly plan on the homepage.	Not printed.	Not printed as a flat monthly plan on the homepage.	You want unlimited minutes in writing — Maple.
Try it from the homepage	Book a demo at maple.inc/get-started.	Cuisine picker and a live demo call on loman.ai.	Interactive builder on kea.ai.	Book a demo on slang.ai.	Live demo on certus-ai.com.	You want to hear the voice tonight — Loman.

What is the best voice AI for restaurants?

The best voice AI for a restaurant is one that answers every inbound call, handles the real menu with modifiers, and writes the ticket into your point-of-sale — not a generic speech engine bolted onto a phone tree. Maple is built for that phone-to-POS path, with unlimited minutes and no per-minute fee, so a busy Friday costs the same as a quiet Tuesday.

Maple's public research at the restaurant phone audit found 19% of restaurant calls arrive after hours and 40% of callers want to order (one million interactions). A message-taker is a different job from an order-taker.

How should you compare restaurant voice AI vendors?

Score four things on your own menu, not on a sample one:

• POS write-back. Does the order land in Toast, Square, or your system, or arrive as an email someone re-keys mid-rush?
• Published price. A quote is fine later. A spreadsheet this week needs a number on the site.
• Billing model. Per-minute and per-order meters charge you most on the nights you are busiest. Maple prints unlimited minutes and no per-minute fee.
• Your POS name. Maple lists SkyTab, Chowbus, Lightspeed, NCR Aloha, and Oracle Simphony in public. Several rivals name only four brands on the homepage.

Maple vs Loman vs Kea vs Slang vs Certus

Maple Voice is $150 a month, or $85 a month billed yearly, for answering and FAQs. Maple Pro is $350 a month, or $220 a month yearly, for orders into the POS, OpenTable reservations, payment, and upsells. Minutes and volume are unlimited. There is no contract. The full POS list is on maple.inc/integrations.

Loman is a live restaurant phone agent with a cuisine demo on the homepage and four named POS brands (Square, Toast, SpotOn, Clover). Monthly price is not on the site. Do not copy a third-party roundup number until they print one.

Kea markets itself as restaurant voice AI with order and delivery tools on kea.ai. It publishes its own comparison posts. A monthly plan price is not on the homepage we checked for this page.

Slang calls itself an AI superhost. The homepage pitch is reservations and guest inquiries, with a claim of setup in as little as thirty minutes. Price is not on the site. If takeout tickets are the job, ask whether orders write into your POS before you treat it as an ordering agent.

Certus is an AI phone agent for restaurants that takes orders and reservations and names Toast, Square, and Clover. Monthly price is not printed as a flat plan on the homepage.

When is Maple the better pick?

Start with Maple when you need the monthly cost in writing, when you already run a POS Maple lists that the others do not name on the homepage, or when you want unlimited minutes and no per-minute fee in the contract you can read today. Start with Loman when you want to hear the voice on a cuisine demo before a sales call and can wait for a quote. Start with Slang when the phone is mostly the book, not the ticket.

For a named head-to-head, see Loman vs Maple and Kea vs Maple.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best voice AI for restaurants in 2026?

If you need a public price and a long POS list, start with Maple Pro. If you want a live cuisine demo tonight and can wait for a quote, start with Loman. If the phone is mostly reservations, start with Slang.

Is a speech API the same as a restaurant voice AI?

No. Deepgram and ElevenLabs are building blocks. Maple, Loman, Kea, Slang, and Certus are products that answer the restaurant phone. Operators comparing "best voice AI for restaurants" usually mean the latter.

How much does restaurant voice AI cost?

Maple Voice is $150 a month ($85 yearly). Maple Pro is $350 a month ($220 yearly). Several rivals do not print a monthly number. Ask for yours in writing and weigh it against missed tickets, not against a homepage adjective.

Which voice AI writes orders into Toast?

Maple has a Toast page at maple.inc/integrations/toast. Loman and Certus name Toast on their sites. Confirm modifiers and kitchen routing on your own menu before you sign.

Do these agents charge per minute?

Maple does not. Unlimited minutes are on the pricing page. Ask every other vendor the same question for your busiest Friday, because that is when a meter hurts.

Where to go next

See pricing, check your system on the integrations list, or listen to real Maple calls. For answering-service framing, see best restaurant phone answering service.