Loman AI vs Maple: compare restaurant phone answering and ordering (2026)

Start with Maple if you want a published price for phone answering or ordering. Get a quote from Loman for the same work, then compare both on your menu, payment steps, and staff handoff. Choose the plan that fits the calls your restaurant needs to handle.

Maple publishes this comparison and is one of the providers discussed. Plan details come from the providers’ own pages; we have not independently tested their relative performance.

Which Loman and Maple plans cover the same work?

Plan details come from Maple pricing and Loman pricing, and Loman's card payment from Loman's homepage. Published features describe scope; they do not establish relative accuracy.

Plan	Published scope	Card payment in the call	Published subscription price
Maple Voice	Phone answering, hours and FAQs, call transfer, analytics and multilingual voice. Ordering and reservations are not included.	Not included; Voice takes no orders.	$150/month with monthly billing, or $85/month with annual billing.
Maple Pro	Voice features plus phone ordering, reservations, supported POS integrations, card payment during the call and order confirmation texts.	Yes: Pro takes the card during the call.	$350/month with monthly billing, or $220/month with annual billing.
Loman Starter	Basic call management. The pricing page lists customer inquiries, call transfer and a customer dashboard.	Not listed on the Starter plan.	Request a quote; the pricing page shows no monthly dollar amount.
Loman Premium	Starter features plus takeout and delivery ordering, phone reservations, POS integration and payment over the phone.	Yes: Premium lists secure payment over the phone, and loman.ai says Loman securely takes credit card payments over the phone.	Request a quote; the pricing page states no per-minute fees.

Compare the same billing interval, location count and workflow. Maple Voice is an answering plan; use Pro when comparing phone ordering or reservation features.

Which plan covers which call?

Most mistakes in this comparison come from setting an answering plan against an ordering plan. Start from the calls your restaurant gets and see which plan on each side handles them, using only what each vendor prints.

The call	Maple	Loman
"What time do you close?" or "Do you have gluten-free?"	Voice and Pro (hours and FAQ answers)	Starter and Premium (customer inquiries)
"Can I speak to a manager?"	Voice and Pro (automated call transfer)	Starter and Premium (automated call transfer)
"I want two large pizzas for pickup."	Pro only (phone orders into the POS)	Premium only (takeout and delivery ordering)
"Can I pay now?"	Pro (secure payment over the phone)	Premium (secure payment over the phone)
"Table for four on Friday."	Pro (book, change and cancel; reservations on OpenTable)	Premium (automated phone reservations; OpenTable and Resy are named in the page header)
A text after the order	Pro (order confirmation texts)	Starter lists outbound SMS; Premium lists intelligent SMS updates
A caller who spoke Spanish	Voice and Pro (multilingual voice)	Not itemised on the pricing page; ask

How have the two prices moved?

Maple's published prices on its pricing page are $150 a month (Voice) and $350 a month (Pro) on monthly billing, and $85 and $220 a month on annual billing. Loman's pricing page printed dollar figures until June 2026 and prints none now. Dated captures show Starter between $199 and $295 and Premium between $299 and $549 from June 2024 to June 2026, with a $149 setup fee between August 2025 and June 2026. The full table, with a link to each capture, is in our Loman pricing guide, along with the monthly Premium price at which Loman matches Maple Pro over a year.

For a restaurant on a single location, the plan comparison that matters is Loman Premium against Maple Pro, because both take phone orders. A Loman quote near $399 a month with a $149 setup fee comes to $4,937 in year one. Maple Pro is $4,200 on monthly billing and $2,640 on annual billing. A quote near $299 a month with the same setup fee comes to $3,737. Those are sums on old printed prices, so replace them with your quote.

How should you compare prices?

Loman’s comparison article advertises a starting price of $199/month, while its main pricing page asks readers to request pricing. The pricing page does not assign that amount to Starter or Premium. Ask for a written quote covering the plan and workflow you need.

Use the Loman pricing and quote checklist to compare subscription, setup, usage conditions and cancellation terms. Do not compare an answering-only entry price with an ordering plan.

Which POS systems does each vendor name?

Loman's pricing page header names Toast, SpotOn, OpenTable, Resy, Clover, Shift4, Square, Aloha by NCR, Olo and Stream. Maple's integrations list names Toast, Square, Clover, SpotOn, SkyTab and its successor Shift4 Dine, Genius, Lightspeed, NCR Aloha, NCR Voyix, Oracle Simphony, Linga and Chowbus for taking orders, plus OpenTable for reservations. Names on a list say a connection exists. They do not say how deep it goes.

System	Named by Maple	Named by Loman
Toast, Square, Clover, SpotOn, Shift4 or SkyTab, NCR Aloha	Yes	Yes
OpenTable	Yes	Yes
Resy	Not on the list	Yes
Olo	Not on the list	Yes
Stream	Yes (Stream Orders)	Yes
Lightspeed, Genius, Linga, Chowbus, NCR Voyix, Oracle Simphony	Yes	Not on the page header

The practical reading: if you book tables on Resy or take orders through Olo, Loman names it and Maple does not. If you run Lightspeed, Genius, Linga, Chowbus, NCR Voyix or Oracle Simphony, Maple names it and Loman's header does not, though Loman's Premium plan says "complete POS integration" and a quote may cover more than the header. Ask each vendor to name your POS and version in writing.

What does Loman claim, and how do you check it?

Loman's pricing page says it has 99.6% order accuracy ("industry best"), handles up to 50 calls at once on Starter, trained its AI on more than 20 million restaurant calls, onboards in 24 to 48 hours and has human-level interruption handling. These are Loman's claims. Nothing in this guide tests them, and Maple does not publish a matching accuracy figure here, so do not read the absence of one as a result.

1. Accuracy: ask Loman how it counts an accurate order, over which stores and months, and whether staff corrections count as errors. Then run your own 20-order test and count tickets that needed a fix.
2. Simultaneous calls: ask a friend or two staff to call at the same moment during the trial. Check each caller reaches the agent and each order lands as its own ticket.
3. Interruptions: change your mind in the middle of a sentence ("two larges, no, make one a medium"). Check the final ticket.
4. Onboarding time: ask what has to be ready on your side (menu, POS access, phone forwarding) before the clock starts, and when go-live counts as done.

How do you test the POS integration you will use?

Check your POS version, location, menu, modifiers, item availability, payment flow, and how the order reaches staff. Ask each provider to show the full workflow, from the card taken on the call to the ticket staff receive. A logo or an integration count does not establish that a particular workflow works for your restaurant.

Start with Maple’s integration directory. For either provider, use the same sample orders and questions so the comparison is fair. Include a changed order, an unavailable item, an interruption, and a request to speak to staff.

Which should you pick for your restaurant?

• A pizza shop or counter-service restaurant on Toast, Square, Clover or Shift4 Dine: both vendors name your system, so decide on a written all-in price, how each handles modifiers and sold-out items, and how many of your own test calls end without staff. Pro is the Maple plan to price.
• A restaurant that books on Resy: Loman names Resy and Maple's reservation connection is OpenTable. Start with Loman, or test another way to take reservations.
• A restaurant on Lightspeed, Genius, Linga, Chowbus, NCR Voyix or Oracle Simphony: Maple names it. Ask Loman whether a quote covers it.
• A restaurant that only wants calls answered and FAQs handled: price Maple Voice against Loman Starter. Maple Voice has a printed price, $150 a month on monthly billing or $85 a month billed yearly. Loman Starter has none now.
• A restaurant that wants one agent to answer up to 50 calls at once on the cheapest plan: Loman lists that on Starter. Maple's published plans do not give a simultaneous-call figure here, so ask Maple and test.

What does Loman's hiring tell you?

Loman's careers page, read November 11, 2026, lists ten open roles, including Forward Deployed Engineer, GTM Engineer, Account Executive, Senior BDR, Customer Success Manager and a customer service representative. Read it only as a prompt for questions. A forward deployed engineer role suggests hands-on integration work, so ask who sets up your POS connection. A customer success role suggests an account contact, so ask whether you get a named one. A customer service role suggests a support desk, so ask for its hours and your time to first response.

Which scorecard should you fill in after the trial?

Score each row 0, 1 or 2 for each vendor after the same calls. Zero means staff had to fix it, one means it worked with a workaround, two means it worked as the vendor showed it. A total difference of fewer than four points out of 24 is a tie, so decide on price and support.

Row	What a 2 looks like
1. Hours and FAQ answers	Correct on all five questions you asked, including one you changed this week.
2. Order with modifiers	Ticket in the POS matches what you said, modifiers on the kitchen printer.
3. Sold-out item	Caller told before payment; item not sent to the kitchen.
4. Change of mind	Final ticket reflects the last instruction.
5. Card on the call	Payment taken, order marked paid in the POS.
6. Declined card	Caller offered another way to pay; order marked unpaid or not sent.
7. Hang-up at payment	No paid order created; staff told or the order held.
8. Transfer to staff	Phone rings through in under 15 seconds with the caller's request available to staff.
9. Two calls at once	Both answered, two separate tickets.
10. Reservation, if you use it	Booking appears in the reservation system with the right party size and time.
11. Language, if you need it	Order taken correctly in the language your guests use.
12. Written price and terms	One document with the monthly price, setup fee, term and cancellation.

What should you do when a test fails?

These are general causes that apply to any phone agent. Use them to ask each vendor a sharper question, not as a verdict on either.

Symptom	Likely cause	Fix to ask for
A modifier is missing from the kitchen ticket.	The menu in the agent does not map that modifier to the POS item.	Ask the vendor to show the mapping for that item and correct it, then repeat the call.
The order shows unpaid in the POS after a card payment.	The payment step did not write back, or the order was sent before payment.	Ask which event marks the order paid and test a declined card as well.
A sold-out item was accepted.	Availability is not synced, or it syncs on a delay.	Ask how often availability updates and what the agent says when it cannot check.
Transfer to staff rings out.	The transfer number is wrong or forwarding loops back to the agent.	Check forwarding with our call forwarding checklist and give the vendor the number that should ring.
Prices in the order are out of date.	The menu was copied once and not refreshed.	Ask how a menu change reaches the agent and how long it takes.
A caller with an accent is misheard.	The speech model struggles on that voice or in that noise.	Record the call, share it with the vendor and ask what they changed before the next one.

How long should a trial run, and what should you measure?

A week that includes a weekend gives the fairest view, because Friday and Saturday evenings are when phones are busiest and when a mistake costs most. Before it starts, agree with each vendor in writing what counts as a failure, who fixes it and how fast. During the week, keep one tally sheet per vendor with four numbers: calls answered, orders completed without staff help, tickets staff had to fix, and calls handed to a person. At the end, divide tickets fixed by orders completed. A rate of 5 fixes in 100 orders is 5%, and a rate of 2 in 100 is 2%, so a gap that looks small is a 2.5 times difference in staff time. Check each ticket against the POS, not against what the vendor's dashboard says happened.

Also note the weak spots that do not show up in a tally: a long pause before the agent answers, a greeting that talks over the caller, and a voice that regulars notice. Ask two regular customers to place a test order and tell you how it felt. Their answer is part of the decision.

What do buyers ask when choosing between Loman and Maple?

Accuracy, phone numbers, trials, price and menu updates. No public source here settles accuracy or Loman's price, so the answers point you to a test you can run yourself.

Is Loman or Maple more accurate?

No public source in this guide settles that. Loman publishes a 99.6% accuracy figure of its own. Run the same orders through each and count the tickets staff fixed.

Does either product need a new phone number?

Maple answers on your existing number through call forwarding to a Maple number, and works with landline, cable, mobile and business VoIP or cloud PBX systems. Loman's pricing page does not say, so ask how it connects to your line.

Can I try either before I commit?

Loman's page offers a demo call from a sample pizza shop and a demo booking. For Maple, listen to call recordings and book a demo with your own menu.

Which is cheaper for one location?

Only a quote can answer for Loman. Maple's printed prices are $150 (Voice) or $350 (Pro) a month on monthly billing, and $85 or $220 on annual billing.

Can both read my menu changes?

Loman lists automatic menu updates and out-of-stock menu updates. Maple takes orders into your POS menu. Ask each how a change reaches the agent and how long it takes, and test it with a price change on the day of the trial.

What would make a useful demo?

• Use your real menu structure, including modifiers and sold-out items.
• Check the order, payment, and staff handoff at the end of each test.
• Pay by card on the call with each provider, then try a declined card and a caller who hangs up at payment. Check that the POS marks the order paid or unpaid.
• Ask about call forwarding, transfers, rollout, support, and cancellation terms.
• Agree on how to measure errors and staff intervention during the trial.

Read Maple customer stories and listen to available call examples, then book a demo for your own setup.