Sona AI review and alternatives for restaurants

Quo's Sona suits a restaurant that wants calls answered, common questions handled and messages taken inside Quo's business phone app, paying by the call. If you want phone orders sent to your POS or tables booked during the call, compare restaurant phone agents such as Maple, Certus, Loman, Kea and Slang AI first.

Two companies use the name. Sona at sona.ai sells workforce software (forecasting, scheduling, HR and payroll) to large restaurant groups, hotels and QSR brands. Two sections near the end cover that Sona. Everything below comes from each company's own site. We have not tested these products.

Which phone agents compare with Quo's Sona?

Vendor	What its site says it does on a call	Price on its site	Start here if
Sona (Quo)	Answers inbound calls around the clock, answers questions from what you add, takes messages, transfers calls and texts links during the call; English, Spanish or French	Sona tiers from $0/mo for 10 calls to $199/mo for 600 calls, on top of a paid Quo plan	You use Quo, or will move your number to it, and mostly need questions answered and messages taken
Maple	Voice answers calls, answers questions on hours and FAQs, and transfers calls; Pro adds phone orders into the POS, OpenTable reservations and payment over the phone	Voice $150/month billed monthly or $85/month billed yearly; Pro $350/month billed monthly or $220/month billed yearly	You want phone orders in Toast, Square, Clover or another POS on Maple's list at a flat printed price
Certus (certus-ai.com)	Phone orders sent to the POS; says it works with Toast, Square, Clover, Skytab and Aloha NCR	Its home page table lists $250/mo with ordering, billed monthly	You want a printed ordering price on one of those systems
Loman AI (loman.ai)	Starter handles questions, texts and call transfer; Premium adds takeout and delivery ordering, reservations, POS integration and payment by phone	Request pricing; the page says no per-minute fees	You want an ordering agent and will get a quote
Kea (kea.ai)	Voice ordering into the POS, payments, delivery, and reservation and waitlist handling	Submit a form to get your price	Takeout and delivery calls are most of your volume
Slang AI (slang.ai)	Reservation calls with OpenTable, SevenRooms, Yelp and Fishbowl; texts guests confirmations and ordering links	Core from $399 and Premium from $599 per location; Enterprise custom	Most of your calls are about tables

Sources: Quo's Sona page and pricing page, Maple pricing, the Certus home page, Loman pricing, the Kea home page and Slang AI pricing.

What does Quo's Sona do?

Quo, the company formerly called OpenPhone, sells a business phone app priced per user. Sona is its AI agent. You drag a Sona step into your call flow, then fill in your business name, hours, products, prices and FAQs. The Sona page lists what it can do on a call:

• Answer questions such as hours, availability and prices, from the details you added.
• Take a message when you are busy, and ask callers the questions you choose.
• Transfer the call to a teammate or department, or route it by your rules.
• Text during the call, for example a link, a form or directions.
• Log every call with a recording and a summary in the Quo app.
• Follow up by text with new leads, a feature Quo marks as beta and free on every plan.

You can add several Sona steps, for example one greeting for open hours and another after close, and hear its answers before you go live. Quo's FAQ sets the limits: Sona speaks English, Spanish and French, with no switching mid-call, it answers inbound calls only, and it works only inside Quo.

Sona's page does not mention food orders, a POS or a restaurant reservation system. It describes messages, transfers and texted links, so a caller who wants to order could be transferred to staff or sent a link. Ask Quo directly if you need more.

What does Sona cost?

Sona needs a paid Quo plan. With yearly billing selected, Quo's pricing page shows Starter billed at $180 per user a year, Business at $276 and Scale at $420. Every plan includes 1,000 automation credits a month, and one Sona call uses 100 credits. The Sona help article says higher Sona tiers are billed on top of the Quo plan, and a 7-day free trial converts to paid unless you cancel.

Sona tier	Price per month	Calls included	Each extra call
Tier 1	Tier 1 price: $0	10	Tier 1 extra call: $1.00
Tier 2	Tier 2 price: $25	40	Tier 2 extra call: $0.75
Tier 3	Tier 3 price: $49	100	Tier 3 extra call: $0.65
Tier 4	Tier 4 price: $99	250	Tier 4 extra call: $0.55
Tier 5	Tier 5 price: $199	600	Tier 5 extra call: $0.45

Which Sona tier fits your call count? A worked example

The figures are made up. A pizza shop sends 300 calls a month to Sona, mostly after close and when the line is busy. Here is that month on each tier, from the prices above:

• Tier 1: 290 extra calls at $1.00 is $290.
• Tier 2: $25 plus 260 extra calls at $0.75 is $220.
• Tier 3: $49 plus 200 extra calls at $0.65 is $179.
• Tier 4: $99 plus 50 extra calls at $0.55 is $126.50.
• Tier 5: $199, with 300 of its 600 calls unused.

Tier 4 is cheapest for this shop. Add one Starter user at $180 a year, or $15 a month, and the phone line and agent come to $141.50 a month. Working the same sums at other counts, Tier 1 is cheapest up to 35 calls a month, Tier 2 from 36 to 72, Tier 3 from 73 to 176, Tier 4 from 177 to 431 and Tier 5 from 432 up. Count your calls for a month before you pick, and set a usage cap, which Quo's FAQ says you can do.

For comparison, Maple prints flat monthly prices with no per-minute fees on its pricing page. Maple Voice, which answers calls, answers FAQs and transfers calls, is $150/month billed monthly or $85/month billed yearly. Put your own call count into both before you decide.

What if callers want to order or book a table?

Then compare agents built for restaurants. Maple Pro takes phone orders into the POS and books on OpenTable; its integrations page lists Toast, Square, Clover, SpotOn, Lightspeed, SkyTab (now Shift4 Dine) and others. Certus, Loman and Kea also describe ordering into a POS, and Slang AI centers on reservations.

Give each vendor the same test calls from your own menu with our shared-menu demo checklist. For head-to-head pages, see Certus vs Maple and Loman vs Maple. If you are moving your number between services, the answering-service switch guide covers forwarding versus porting, and our restaurant phone system guide covers lines and handsets.

What does Sona at sona.ai do for restaurants?

This Sona sells workforce software. Its hospitality page says it helps large restaurant groups, hotel operators and QSR brands make workforce decisions across every location. It lists demand forecasting, auto-scheduling, time and attendance, HR, onboarding and payroll, plus an AI assistant called Raffy that explains what is happening and suggests what to do next.

Its pricing page prints no price. It offers a consultation and a custom quote, and says Sona sells a different product range in the US and the UK.

What are the alternatives to Sona's workforce software?

Start with what your POS already includes. Toast's pricing page lists Toast Scheduling Pro in its Team Management Essentials suite. Square's restaurant pricing page lists shift scheduling and attendance tracking under Staff management on Square Plus. Our restaurant management software guide compares separate scheduling tools and the order to buy them in.

What should you ask before you choose?

1. How many calls a month will the agent answer, and what does that cost on each tier or plan?
2. Does it put orders into my POS, or does it take messages and send links?
3. Can it book, change and cancel tables in my reservation system?
4. Which languages does it speak, and can a caller switch mid-call?
5. Do I have to move my phone number to the vendor's phone system?
6. Where do my staff see the calls it handled, and who calls the guest back?

Published by Maple, which sells restaurant phone answering and ordering and is one of the vendors listed. This AI-assisted guide combines the Sona, pricing and help pages of Quo, the pages of Sona at sona.ai, and each alternative's own site, with an original tier worked example using made-up call counts. It does not rank vendors, include a quote or report a Maple test of these products.