Toast KDS: cost, screens, routing, fire timing and offline limits

Toast KDS is a software module on your Toast account that turns a Toast device into a kitchen screen. Toast prints no price for it: you add the module, and a license for each extra screen, through your Toast sales rep or Customer Success Manager. It runs on the 14-inch Toast Flex for Kitchen, Elo screens, or any Toast terminal switched into KDS mode.

Our kitchen display guide compares Toast with Square, Clover and others and has a mock-rush test. This page stays with Toast: how to get a quote, which screens work, the routing and timing settings Toast documents, what its KDS does in each kind of outage, and the tests to run before service. Square users can read our Square KDS guide.

What does Toast KDS cost?

Toast's KDS page and pricing page print no KDS price. Toast's KDS setup article says the module must be on your account first, and sends you to your sales rep or Customer Success Manager to add it or to license another KDS screen. Screens come from Toast Shop. Every part of the cost is quoted, so ask for each line separately.

Line	Ask Toast for	Why it matters
KDS software module	The monthly fee, and whether it is per location or per screen	Toast's KDS FAQ calls it the Kitchen Display Screen Software product; without it a device cannot enter KDS mode
Extra screen licenses	The fee for each screen after the first	A kitchen with a grill, fry and expo screen needs three
Screens and mounts	The price of each screen and mount, bought or paid through Toast's hardware plans	Wall, counter and universal mounts differ
Bump bar and backup printer	Whether they are needed, and their price	Toast suggests a backup printer for each prep station

Our Toast pricing guide covers the plan prices, card rates and Easy Pay hardware lease that sit around these lines. If a screen shows a "needs a subscription" message on a device you believe is paid for, Toast's KDS FAQ says it usually relates to how the subscription is linked to that device, and to call Toast Customer Care.

Which screens run Toast KDS?

• Toast Flex for Kitchen: a 14-inch screen on a stand or a wall mount. Toast's installation guide lists an IP54 rating for dust and water, and Toast's KDS page says its hardware is tested to 120°F.
• Elo Kitchen Display Screen: any Elo terminal size, on a stand or wall mount, per Toast's hardware guide.
• Any Toast terminal: once the module is on your account, any Toast terminal with the right permissions can switch into KDS mode.
• Screen sizes in Toast Shop: the setup article mentions 22-inch and 14-inch screens for wall, universal or counter mounts.

Toast says to hardwire each KDS with a USB-C or Ethernet cable and turn Wi-Fi off on the device. Its bump bar guidelines allow one Toast-supported bump bar per KDS and none on a Toast Go handheld, and staff still need the touchscreen for settings and the overflow menu.

How do you route tickets to each screen?

1. Create prep stations in Toast Web under Kitchen, then Kitchen stations. Each has a Send to setting: prep station only, prep station and expediter, or expediter only. Toast's prep station guide says to give every prep station one backup printer if you use KDS screens.
2. Assign menus, groups, items and modifiers to stations. Check that every item and routed modifier has one.
3. Set each screen's role as expediter or prep station, and pick its stations in Device Setup.
4. Filter by dining option or course under Ticket Display Options. The KDS FAQ says DoorDash, Uber Eats, Grubhub or Toast Online Ordering tickets go missing when their dining option is left unticked on the screen that should show them.
5. Add item routing rules to send takeout or a service area to another station. Toast's routing rules guide gives a packer station that gets every takeout item as well as the hot, cold and dessert stations.
6. Split one busy station across two screens with load balancing. Toast's load balancing guide says it needs the new KDS view, at least two load-balancing groups and start queue turned on.

How does fire timing work, and where does it stop?

With fire by prep time on, staff send the whole order and Toast holds each item until its start time, so everything finishes together. Toast's fire-by-prep-time guide sets these limits:

• It works only with KDS screens, not kitchen printers, and only on orders or courses with more than one item.
• It needs the setting that shows all items from an order on a single ticket.
• Times are in seconds. A modifier can add or remove time: Toast's burger example sets Rare to -60 and Well Done to 120 against Medium. A total below zero counts as 0. Pre-modifiers cannot carry a time.
• Voiding a fired item does not move the start times of the rest of the order.
• Each course has its own timeline, and the pickup time quoted to an online guest does not change with prep times.

Coursing adds its own rules. In Toast's course pacing example, held courses show only on the expediter screen, and the next course fires once expo fulfills the one before it.

What happens when the internet or network drops?

Toast KDS uses offline mode with local sync. One hardwired Toast device acts as the local hub and passes orders between devices on the same network. Toast's local sync guide says the hub cannot be a handheld or an Elo V1 device, must be hardwired, and must have been in contact with Toast within the last three minutes. Toast picks the hub.

Outage	What Toast says the KDS does
Internet or Toast service down, eligible hub in place	In-store orders from the same local network still show on KDS screens. Online orders do not arrive until the connection returns.
Local network down	Devices cannot pass orders to each other, including to backup and kitchen printers.
No eligible hub, or the KDS detects missing tickets	Devices fall back to plain offline mode, where POS and kiosk orders do not show on KDS screens. Tickets print at backup printers if you set them up.

Toast's offline KDS page adds that courses fired from expo, set to print once fired, do not print during local sync. The local sync guide also warns against restarting your router during an outage, since tickets stop reaching the KDS until the local network returns. Our POS offline mode guide covers what Toast's payments do in the same outage.

How should you test Toast KDS before service?

1. Ring one item from every menu group and one modifier with its own station. Check each lands on the right screen and nowhere else.
2. Send one test order from every source you use: terminal, Toast Go, kiosk, Toast Online Ordering and each delivery app. Check each appears on every screen whose Ticket Display Options include its dining option.
3. Send a takeout order and check any routing rule, such as a packer station.
4. Order a slow item with a fast one and a Well Done modifier. Check start times on the expediter.
5. Void a fired item and watch the rest of the order keep its original times.
6. Fulfill a ticket by mistake, then recall it. Recall brings back the last ticket fulfilled on that screen.
7. In a quiet hour, unplug the modem, keep the router on, and ring an order from a terminal. Check it reaches the KDS. Then agree what staff do if the router itself fails: Toast says devices cannot reach any printer then, so practice writing tickets by hand.

If phone orders reach your kitchen through a service, add one to the test. Maple Pro writes phone orders into Toast, and the Toast integration page suggests following a test phone order through to the ticket your kitchen receives.

Published by Maple. This AI-assisted guide combines Toast's KDS and pricing pages, Toast support articles and Toast's platform guide with an original quote worksheet and test list. It does not report hands-on testing of Toast KDS or a price quote from Toast.