Kea AI vs Maple for Restaurant Phone Ordering (2026)

If you want to know the price before you talk to anyone, start with Maple. Kea keeps its number behind a contact form; Maple prints $150 and $350 a month on the page. Both take orders into the point-of-sale, both name Toast, Square and Clover, and both publish a setup time. Price is the first thing you can actually compare, so start there.

That is the honest short version, and the price half of it matters more than it sounds. A phone agent is a fixed monthly cost sitting next to your card fees and your delivery commissions. If you cannot see the number without booking a call, you cannot compare it to the orders you are currently missing, which is the only arithmetic that decides whether any of this is worth doing.

The rest of this is what each company says about itself on its own site, so you can check it in a browser rather than take a vendor's word for it.

Kea AI and Maple at a glance

What you are comparing	Maple	Kea AI	Start here if
Published price	$150 a month for Voice, $350 for Pro; $85 and $220 billed yearly	Not on the site — a calculator behind a contact form	You want to budget before a sales call: Maple
Per-minute fees	None, stated on the pricing page	Not on the site	Your rush is your busiest hour and you do not want the bill to follow it: Maple
Integrations named publicly	17, each with its own page — 16 ordering and POS systems plus OpenTable	Four named — Toast, Square, Clover, Olo — with "11+ direct POS integrations" claimed	You run something outside the big four: Maple
Published setup time	"Setup takes minutes, not weeks" on the integration pages; most restaurants live within 24 hours	"Activate in 30 minutes or less"; a day, not eight to twelve weeks, for multi-location	Either — both publish one, so get yours in writing rather than off a page
Reservations over the phone	Book, modify and cancel; OpenTable on the Pro plan	Not on the site	You take bookings by phone: Maple
Card payment on the call	On the Pro plan	Not on the site	You want the card taken before they hang up: Maple
Public numbers	A million customer phone interactions, published as research	846,157 AI calls handled; restaurants save an average of $677 a month in missed order revenue	Either — both publish something you can read

What does Kea AI actually do?

Kea sells voice AI for restaurants. Its site says the agent answers every call, takes orders, handles unlimited calls at once, and connects to the point-of-sale with modifiers intact. It names Toast, Square, Clover and Olo, and says there are more than eleven direct integrations behind those four. It runs named customer testimonials and publishes two running totals: 846,157 calls handled and just over two million dollars in phone order revenue tracked.

That is a real product doing the same job Maple does. Anyone telling you otherwise is selling you something.

Which is cheaper, Kea AI or Maple?

Nobody can answer that for Kea, including Kea's website. There is a pricing calculator, but it asks for your contact details before it shows you anything, so the number arrives attached to a salesperson.

Maple publishes both plans. Voice is $150 a month, or $85 a month billed yearly, and covers answering, hours and menu questions, call transfers and multilingual calls. Pro is $350 a month, or $220 billed yearly, and adds order taking into the POS, reservations, upselling, card payment on the call and order confirmation texts. There are no per-minute fees on either, which is the part that decides what a Friday night costs.

Watch that last point when you compare any two vendors. A per-minute rate charges you most on the nights you are busiest, which is backwards for something you are buying as a fixed cost.

Do both write orders into the POS?

Yes, and this is the feature to interrogate rather than accept. "Integration" covers everything from a proper ticket landing on the line to an email somebody has to re-key while the make table is buried.

Kea names four POS systems on its site. Maple publishes seventeen integration pages: Toast, Square, Clover, SkyTab, Lightspeed, Linga, Chowbus, NCR Aloha, NCR Voyix, Oracle Simphony, OrderCounter, Quantic, SpotOn, Smile, Stream Orders and Tray for ordering, plus OpenTable for reservations. If you run one of the big four, both vendors have an answer for you. If you run Linga or Quantic or a SkyTab terminal from Shift4, only one of them names your system in public.

Ask either vendor to demo the write-back on your own menu, with your own modifiers. A half-and-half pizza or a well-done steak with a substitution finds the limits faster than any feature list.

Which one handles reservations?

Maple does, on the Pro plan: booking, changing and cancelling over the phone, with OpenTable connected. Kea's site does not mention reservations at all — it is a phone-ordering product, and it describes itself that way.

If you are a takeout shop, this row does not matter and you should ignore it. If you run a dining room and the host stand is the phone, it decides the comparison on its own.

How fast can each one go live?

Both publish a number, and the numbers are close enough that it should not decide anything. Kea says activate in thirty minutes or less, and a day rather than eight to twelve weeks for a multi-location group. Maple's integration pages say setup takes minutes rather than weeks, and the site says most restaurants are live within twenty-four hours.

What actually sets the date is your menu and your POS, not the vendor's marketing. A shop with a short menu on Toast is a different job from a group with five thousand items across three systems. Ask each vendor for a date in writing against your own setup before you weigh this row at all.

Which should a multi-location group pick?

Both sell to groups. Kea leads with the speed of the rollout. Maple has a named Enterprise plan with multi-location management, custom integrations, custom voice training and a dedicated success manager, but the price is quoted rather than published, so on that tier both vendors put you on a call.

For a group, the deciding question is usually neither price nor setup. It is whether the agent handles every one of your POS systems, because groups rarely run one. Count the named systems on both sites against your own estimate before anything else.

Frequently asked questions

Kea AI vs Maple — which is better for restaurant phone ordering?

Maple, if you want published pricing, reservations, card payment on the call, or a POS outside Toast, Square, Clover and Olo. Kea is a fair shortlist entry if you run one of those four and take no bookings by phone — but you will have to ask them what it costs.

What are the best Kea.ai alternatives for restaurants?

Maple is the closest like-for-like: it answers every call, takes orders into the POS with modifiers, and adds reservations and phone payment that Kea does not list. The wider field includes Loman, Slang.ai, Hostie, Bitebuddy and Certus. Compare them on the same four things — published price, per-minute fees, the POS systems each one names, and whether reservations are in scope.

How much does Kea AI cost?

Kea does not publish a price. The calculator on its site asks for your details first. Anyone quoting you a Kea price from a roundup is guessing, so get it from Kea.

Does Kea AI work with Toast?

Yes — Toast is one of the four systems Kea names. Maple works with Toast as well, and publishes a page describing how orders and reservations reach it.

Which AI phone agent works with Square or Clover?

Both companies name Square and Clover. Maple also covers Lightspeed, Linga, Chowbus, SkyTab, NCR Aloha, NCR Voyix, Oracle Simphony, OrderCounter, Quantic, SpotOn, Smile, Stream Orders and Tray.

How do I check any of this?

Open both pricing pages and both integration pages side by side, then ask each vendor to run your own menu through a live call. Maple publishes recorded calls and its phone research so you can hear and read the evidence before you book anything.

Maple's plans are at maple.inc/pricing, the POS list is at maple.inc/integrations, the Toast write-up is at maple.inc/integrations/toast, real recorded calls are at maple.inc/call-recordings, and the phone research is at maple.inc/research.