SoundHound for restaurants: review and alternatives

SoundHound suits a restaurant chain or franchise group that wants one voice AI vendor for the phone, the drive-thru and a kiosk, and that buys through a sales team. An independent restaurant that mainly needs phone orders should look at vendors that print a monthly price, such as Maple or Certus. For the lane alone, compare Presto, Hi Auto and Omilia.

SoundHound is a public company (Nasdaq: SOUN) that sells voice AI to carmakers, banks, TV makers and health care providers as well as restaurants. Its restaurant product runs on OASYS, the agent platform it launched in May 2026. It shows no price on its restaurant, drive-thru or small-business pages. Everything below comes from SoundHound's own site, newsroom and earnings release, and from other vendors' own pages. We have not tested these products.

How does SoundHound compare with other restaurant voice AI vendors?

Vendor	Channels on its site	Price on its site	Systems it names	Start here if
SoundHound	Phone, drive-thru and kiosk, plus SMS, apps and in-car ordering	None. Book a demo.	Toast, Square, PAR's Brink, Qu, Oracle Simphony and Olo on its partners page	You are a chain buying for phone, lane and kiosk at once
Maple	Phone answering and ordering (live); drive-thru and kiosk in early access	Pro, with phone ordering: $350/month billed monthly or $220/month billed yearly. Drive-thru and kiosk priced per unit, no public price.	Toast, Square, Clover, SkyTab (now Shift4 Dine), Lightspeed and others	You want a printed price for phone orders into a POS on Maple's list
ConverseNow	Phone, drive-thru, SMS, and an order API for apps and kiosks	None. Book a consultation.	Brink, NCR Aloha, Olo, PAR, Qu and Xpient logos	You run a pizza or QSR brand and want phone and lane from one vendor
Presto	Drive-thru; a phone ordering unit launched in April 2025	None. Contact its team.	PAR, Oracle, Qu and Toast logos as official POS partners	You want to choose how much remote agent help sits behind the AI
Hi Auto	Drive-thru	None. Book a consult.	HME, PAR and Xenial for audio and POS	You want a trained remote supervisor behind the AI at the lane
Omilia	Drive-thru; also contact-center voice AI	None. Book a demo.	Says it connects to POS, headset and kitchen systems	You run a large brand and want to study its Taco Bell rollout
Incept AI	Drive-thru and phone	None. Book a demo.	An AI voice partner in Toast Drive-Thru; Toast, HME, PAR and Square logos	You are a Toast brand looking at Toast Drive-Thru

Phone-first vendors that do print prices, such as Certus and Slang, appear with their prices in our ConverseNow alternatives table. For lane hardware and each drive-thru vendor's own results, see the AI drive-thru vendor comparison.

What does SoundHound sell to restaurants?

SoundHound's restaurant page describes voice ordering over the phone, SMS, apps, the drive-thru and in-car assistants. Its FAQ says the same agents handle phone ordering, the drive-thru and self-service kiosks from one platform. The page also lists:

• POS link: OASYS connects to your POS and menu systems so orders flow into existing operations, without replacing the POS or kitchen systems.
• Languages: the voice AI switches languages mid-conversation.
• Upsells: agents suggest add-ons and promotions during the order.
• Employee Assist: answers staff questions through the headset or a tablet, drawn from your own handbook.
• Speech recognition: its Polaris model, which SoundHound says is built for engine noise, accents and several voices.

The drive-thru page says crew members stay looped in to support only when needed, and that a handoff feature passes a request to a team member when it needs one. Voice Insights reports where the lane slows down. SoundHound's product names for phone service are Smart Answering and Smart Ordering.

For smaller operators, the small-business page describes a "light" OASYS voice agent for small businesses and franchises. It answers calls, takes orders and books appointments, and connects with OpenTable, Square Appointments and other tools. That page prints no price either.

How did SoundHound build its restaurant business?

When	What SoundHound announced
August 2023	Expanded its drive-thru partnership with White Castle to more locations nationwide.
December 2023	Agreed to buy SYNQ3, a restaurant voice AI company, for about $25 million. SoundHound said the deal would take it to more than 10,000 signed restaurant locations.
June 2024	Bought Allset, an online ordering platform, bringing more restaurant relationships.
February 2025	Launched a new restaurant platform that adds call, text, scan and in-car ordering to its Dynamic Drive-Thru. It said it powered well over 10,000 locations, naming Chipotle, Church's Texas Chicken, Jersey Mike's and White Castle.
August 2026	Its second-quarter 2026 results listed new restaurant deals, including a seafood QSR for the drive-thru and Ruby Tuesday for Smart Answering and Smart Ordering, plus renewals with Habit Burger, Red Lobster and Torchy's Tacos.

The restaurant page quotes executives from Casey's, Jersey Mike's, White Castle, Torchy's Tacos, Beef 'O' Brady's, Church's Texas Chicken and Five Guys. Most are chains. Beef 'O' Brady's is quoted on phone calls.

What figures does SoundHound publish, and what do they mean?

These are SoundHound's own figures. Its pages do not say how it measured them.

• An 11% revenue increase, which the restaurant page says customers report over locations without OASYS.
• Service times 85% faster, and errors cut by up to 32%.
• $58k in turnover cost savings per location per year, which it says restaurants using OASYS report.
• A 90% AI order completion rate, shown beside a White Castle quote on the drive-thru page.

Its February 2025 release describes the drive-thru AI as working without a human in the loop, with backup support for escalations. Ask SoundHound what counts as a completed order, over which stores and dates, and whether orders a person finished count. Our one-lane pilot checklist shows how to record your own baseline so you can check any vendor's figure at your store.

When does an alternative make more sense?

1. You run one or a few restaurants and want a printed price. Maple prints its phone plans. SoundHound prints no price.
2. You only need the lane. Hi Auto's product pages describe drive-thru ordering with a remote supervisor. Read our Hi Auto review. Presto lets you pick how much agent help sits behind the AI.
3. You want phone and lane, with phone first. ConverseNow's site leads with phone ordering and lists pizza and QSR brands.
4. You run Toast and have 15 or more stores. Toast named Incept AI as a voice partner in its April 2026 Toast Drive-Thru launch. SoundHound and Presto both list Toast too.

What should you ask SoundHound and each alternative?

1. Is the phone, lane and kiosk agent one product with one menu, or separate setups?
2. Which POS versions do you write into, and can I see a ticket from a store on my POS?
3. Who steps in when the AI is unsure: your staff or my crew? What does the guest hear?
4. How do price changes, sold-out items and limited-time offers reach the AI?
5. How is it priced: per location, per channel, per order or per minute? What are the setup fees, term and exit terms?
6. Which restaurants like mine, with my menu and POS, can I call?

Test every vendor on the same orders from your own menu with the shared-menu demo checklist.

Maple Pro takes phone orders into supported POS systems at the price on the pricing page. Check your POS on the integrations page. Maple's drive-thru unit and voice kiosk are in early access with a small number of restaurants, priced per unit with no public price.

Published by Maple, which sells restaurant phone ordering and early-access drive-thru and kiosk products. This AI-assisted guide combines SoundHound's site, newsroom and earnings release with other vendors' own pages. It does not rank vendors, verify any vendor's figures or report a Maple test of these products.