Kitchen display systems (KDS): how they work and what to buy

A kitchen display system (KDS) is a screen in the kitchen that shows orders from your POS in place of printed tickets. Each station sees only the items it makes, cooks bump a ticket when it is done, and an expo screen shows the whole order. Buy the KDS that runs on your POS, then test it with a mock rush before a busy night.

Toast, Square, Clover, Lightspeed and Shift4 each sell a KDS for their own POS. Independent apps such as Fresh KDS connect to several POS systems. So the choices are your POS maker's screens or an independent app, how many screens you need, and what each costs per month.

What does a KDS do?

Feature	What it does	What to check
Station routing	Sends each item to the screen that makes it: grill, fry, salad, bar	Can you route by item and by modifier, and send the same item somewhere else for takeout?
Expo screen	Shows the whole order and which stations have finished their part	Can you run one expo, or a second one for runners or the pass?
Bump	Clears a finished ticket with a tap or a bump bar key	Does a bump bar work with the screen, and what does each key do?
Timers and colors	Changes a ticket's color as it ages past times you set	Can you set the times per station?
Recall	Brings back a ticket someone bumped too soon	How many taps, and how far back can you go?
Prep times	Holds quick items so the whole order finishes together	Can a modifier such as "well done" add time?
All-day counts	Totals each item across all open tickets	Is it on the station screen or only in reports?

Toast's kitchen routing guide shows how routing works in practice. You create prep stations, assign screens to them, then assign menus, menu groups, items and modifiers to each station. It also lets you reroute an item by dining option or service area, and gives the example of sending bar items to a bar station and not to the kitchen expo.

Toast's fire-by-prep-time guide uses a simple case: mozzarella sticks that take 60 seconds and a double turkey burger that takes 240 seconds. Without timing, the sticks sit at expo for three minutes. With prep times set, the platform fires the longest item first and holds the others.

Shift4's help center describes the same idea for Shift4 Dine prep times: each item gets a base time, and a modifier can add minutes to it. Its multi-stage fulfillment setting passes a finished ticket from one station to the next, such as a line screen to expo.

How do phone, online, kiosk and drive-thru orders reach the KDS?

The KDS reads from the POS. An order reaches the kitchen only if it enters the POS as a real order, with every item matched to a POS menu item that has a station.

• Counter and handhelds: staff ring the order in and send it.
• Online and delivery apps: Square says orders from the POS, your online ordering page or delivery apps such as Postmates go to the kitchen screen. Clover says its KDS puts on-premise and third-party orders in one place. Check whether a delivery app sends orders straight to your POS or through another service, and whether its modifiers match yours.
• Kiosks: a kiosk that writes into the POS feeds the same stations. Square sells a Kiosk app alongside its KDS app on its restaurant pricing page.
• Drive-thru: Toast says its KDS can sort drive-thru tickets by car order.
• Phone: staff type the order in, or a phone-ordering service writes it into the POS.

Maple Pro takes phone orders into supported POS systems, including Toast, Square, Clover and SkyTab on its pricing page, so those orders reach your kitchen screens through the POS like any other order. Maple's product page suggests a test order with a modifier and a change before checkout, then a check of the final ticket.

An order with a dining option or item your routing does not cover can land on the wrong screen or on none.

What hardware do you need?

• Screens made for kitchens: Toast says its KDS hardware is tested to 120°F, spills and grease. Clover sells a 14-inch and a 24-inch KDS and lists a heat tolerance of 122°F, anti-glare treatment and speakers meant to be heard in a loud kitchen.
• Tablets: Square KDS runs on Android devices. Fresh KDS runs on tablets or touch monitors with iOS 13 or later, or Android 7 or later.
• Mounts: Clover's KDS setup guide lists VESA 100mm mounts and notes the stand is not included. It also covers power over Ethernet, so one cable carries power and network.
• Bump bars: Clover sells the KB9000 bump bar for overhead screens. Shift4's bump bar guide connects it by USB-C and needs KDS version 1.29 or later.

Put a screen where the cook can read it from the station without turning around. An overhead 24-inch screen with a bump bar suits a long line; a counter screen suits a small prep area.

What do the main KDS options cost?

Prices below are copied from each company's own pages. Card processing and hardware are extra unless the cell says otherwise.

Option	Works with	Published price	Start here if
Toast KDS	Toast POS	No KDS price on the KDS page. Toast POS plans: Starter Kit starting at $0/month, Point of Sale starting at $69/month, Build Your Own at custom pricing.	You run Toast and want expo, fire by prep time and drive-thru sorting in one system.
Square KDS	Square POS on Android devices	$30 per month per device with Square Plus ($49/mo. per location) or $20 per month per device with Square Premium ($149/mo. per location). Not available in Square Free.	You use Square and need one to a few screens.
Clover KDS	Clover POS	KDS 14 inch: $799 + $25/mo per device. KDS 24 inch: $899 + $25/mo per device.	You use Clover and want to buy a screen built for the line.
Lightspeed KDS	Lightspeed Restaurant	Kitchen Display System (KDS) $30/screen per month on the Starter, Essential and Premium plans, per the Lightspeed pricing page.	You run Lightspeed and want the KDS on the same bill.
Shift4 Dine KDS (formerly SkyTab)	Shift4 Dine POS	No KDS price in the help center; ask Shift4 for a quote.	You run SkyTab or Shift4 Dine and want prep times by modifier and multi-stage fulfillment.
Fresh KDS	Its own app; lists Square, Clover, Lightspeed K-Series, TouchBistro, SpotOn and others	Essentials $20 per month per screen billed monthly, or $16 billed yearly. Premium $27 or $22. Enterprise: contact sales.	Your POS has no KDS you like, or you want to run it on tablets.

SkyTab became Shift4 Dine on May 12, 2026, according to Shift4's announcement. Fresh KDS publishes its plans on its pricing page and its POS list on its integrations page.

How should you set up a KDS before the first shift?

1. Name the stations. Use the words your cooks use: Grill, Fry, Cold, Bar, Expo.
2. Route every item and modifier. Print the menu and mark each item's station. An item without one shows up on no screen.
3. Make modifiers readable. Allergies and "no" requests should stand out. Toast says it highlights allergens; Fresh KDS styles modifiers by keyword with color.
4. Enter prep times for slow items. Start with the three longest cooks, then add modifiers that change cook time.
5. Set timer colors per station. Base them on the ticket time you want at that station.
6. Route takeout, delivery and drive-thru. Decide which station bags each order and whether off-premise items need a different screen.
7. Decide who bumps. Stations bump their items; expo bumps the order. Write it down.
8. Train recall. Every cook should know how to bring back a ticket.
9. Plan for a dead screen. Clover can print runner tickets from the KDS and Shift4 can assign a fulfillment printer to a station. Know which printer takes over.

How do you test a KDS with a mock rush?

Run this before opening, using test orders you can void. Write 30 tickets that use your real menu, then send them in 15 minutes from as many channels as you use.

Test	How to run it	Pass if
Routing	Send tickets that touch every station	Each item shows on the right screen and nowhere else
Modifiers	Include an allergy, a "no onion" and a substitution	The cook can read each one from the station
Channels	Send one order each from counter, handheld, online, delivery app, kiosk, phone and drive-thru	Every order lands, with its dining option shown
Timing	Order a slow item with a fast one	The fast item appears later and both finish together
Changes	Void one item and add another after sending	The station sees the change clearly
Recall	Bump a ticket by mistake	A cook brings it back in seconds
Failure	Unplug one screen, then drop the internet	Tickets go to the backup and nobody loses an order

Record three numbers for each station: tickets that did not arrive, tickets at the wrong screen, and time from send to bump. Fix the routing, then run the rush again.

Published by Maple. This AI-assisted guide combines vendors' own product pages, pricing pages and help documents with an original setup checklist and mock-rush test. It does not report hands-on testing of any KDS or rank the vendors.