Slang AI vs Maple: review, pricing and alternatives

Pick Slang AI if most of your calls are about tables and you book through OpenTable, SevenRooms or Yelp. Its Core plan starts at $399 per location. Pick Maple if you want phone orders written into your POS, or a lower printed price: Maple Voice is $150 a month and Pro $350 a month on monthly billing.

The two products start from different calls. A steakhouse or a group of dining rooms gets calls about availability, party size, private events and parking. A pizza shop or a busy counter gets calls that end in a ticket. Both products answer the phone, and both can book on OpenTable. The difference is what else each one does once the guest says what they want.

Question	Slang AI (slang.ai)	Maple	Start here if
Main job	Answers calls, handles guest questions and manages reservations, 24/7.	Voice answers calls, FAQs and transfers. Pro adds phone orders into the POS and reservations.	Reservations are the job: Slang AI. Takeout tickets are the job: Maple Pro.
Printed price	Core from $399 per location; Premium from $599 per location; Enterprise custom. Billing period not printed beside the price.	Voice $150/month billed monthly or $85/month billed yearly. Pro $350/month billed monthly or $220/month billed yearly.	You need a known monthly number this week: compare both on the same billing term.
Reservation systems	OpenTable, SevenRooms, Yelp and Fishbowl; Tripleseat for private events as an add-on.	OpenTable, on Pro.	You book on SevenRooms or Yelp, or sell private events through Tripleseat: Slang AI.
Phone orders into the POS	Not described on slang.ai. Slang texts guests links, including ordering links.	Pro, into Toast, Square, Clover, SkyTab (now Shift4 Dine) and others on the integrations list.	You want the order to reach the kitchen without staff keying it: Maple Pro.
Languages	Spanish on Premium, or as an add-on.	Multilingual voice on Voice and Pro.	Test the languages your guests speak on either product.
When the agent cannot help	Forwards to staff or texts the guest contact details. VIP callers can go straight to staff.	Automated call transfer.	Test transfer on a busy night with either product.

What does Slang AI do?

Slang AI's homepage calls it an AI superhost for restaurants: it answers every inbound call, responds to guest questions and manages reservations around the clock. It lists features built for groups with more than one dining room. If one location is full, Slang suggests openings at a sister restaurant. VIP callers can skip the agent and reach staff. Staff get alerts for private dining, complaints and lost items.

Slang says more than 2,000 full-service restaurants use it, and its site quotes operators at Texas de Brazil, Bluegrass Hospitality Group and The Fireman Hospitality Group. Setup, it says, takes less than 30 minutes of your time. Slang gives you a new phone number for your website and Google profile; keeping your existing number is possible but is agreed with its onboarding team.

How much does Slang AI cost?

Slang's pricing page prints US dollar starting prices per location. The page does not say beside the figure whether it is monthly, so confirm the billing term in your quote.

• Core, from $399 per location: reservation flows, text links and confirmations, call recordings and summaries, reservation integrations, VIP call handling, guest satisfaction scores.
• Premium, from $599 per location: Core plus custom branding, cross-selling to sister restaurants, real-time alerts, AI texting, multi-location insights and Spanish.
• Enterprise, custom pricing: custom workflows and integrations, dashboards, SSO and a dedicated team.
• Add-ons for any plan: private events with Tripleseat, and Spanish.

Here is a worked example for a group with three locations. It uses printed starting prices, assumes one plan per location for both vendors, and assumes Slang's figure is monthly, which you should confirm. Slang Core would start at $1,197 a month, Premium at $1,797. Maple Pro would be $1,050 a month on monthly billing or $660 a month billed yearly, and Maple Voice $450 or $255. Quotes, setup and add-ons can change every figure, so line them up on the same term.

How should you check Slang AI's claims?

Slang's homepage says restaurants see up to 50% more phone covers and 96% guest satisfaction, and save up to 200 hours a month. These are Slang's own figures. Use them as questions for the demo.

1. Ask Slang for a reference restaurant with your seat count, reservation system and call volume.
2. Ask how it counts a phone cover and over which period.
3. Ask what a caller hears when they want takeout, and where that order ends up.
4. Ask for the price in writing: plan, per-location figure, billing term, add-ons and cancellation terms.

Which should you pick for your restaurant?

• Fine dining or a reservation-led group: Slang's cross-selling, VIP routing and SevenRooms, Yelp and Tripleseat links fit this room. Maple Pro's reservation integration is OpenTable.
• Pizza, takeout or quick service: start with Maple Pro, which takes phone orders and payment into supported POS systems. Check your system on the integrations list.
• A dining room that also sells takeout: test both. Place a reservation and a takeout order on each, and see which one leaves less for staff.
• Calls you only want answered: Maple Voice covers hours, FAQs and transfer at the lowest printed price of the two.

What other Slang AI alternatives should you shortlist?

For phone ordering into the POS, Loman sells a Premium plan with ordering, reservations and POS integration, priced on request. Kea sells voice and text ordering with reservation and waitlist handling, and gives a price after a form. Certus names Toast, Square, Clover, SkyTab and OpenTable. For groups that want one agent across many locations and channels, Revmo prices per agent plus usage from a call audit.

We compare several of these with Maple in more depth: Loman vs Maple, Kea vs Maple and Certus vs Maple.

What should you test in a demo?

1. Book a table for a large party on a busy night, then change it. Check the booking in your reservation system.
2. Order takeout with a modifier and a sold-out item. Check what reaches the kitchen.
3. Ask about allergies, parking and a private event. Check what staff hear about each.
4. Ask for a person and time how long the transfer takes.
5. Call from a number you want treated as a VIP, if the product offers it.

Our voice agent demo checklist has more tests, and the Maple product page shows the call-to-kitchen trial we suggest.

Published by Maple, which sells one of the two products compared here. This AI-assisted comparison combines Slang AI's and Maple's own websites and pricing pages with an original worked cost example. It does not report a test of either product or a quote, and it repeats Slang's performance figures only as Slang's own claims.