Last updated: Mar 25, 2026, 1:53 PM
Toast Benchmarking is provided for informational purposes only, and insights are not to be construed as recommendations or professional advice of any kind. Toast does not warrant the accuracy or completeness of any information, text, graphics, links, or other items contained in Toast Benchmarking.
Toast Benchmarking is built to conquer complex operations with features that work better together (learn more: Toast Suites Overview). Benchmarking data leverages aggregated metrics across Toast merchants to help give you insights on how your business is performing.
To access the Benchmarking reports, navigate to the Reports page in Toast Web and open the Benchmarking drop-down. You will need the 4.20 Benchmarking Access permission in order to see the data on this report.
The Toast Benchmarking reports include:
Note: You can opt out of having data from your restaurant included in the Toast Benchmarking feature by emailing . Opt-out requests take approximately 30 days to process. By opting out, you will lose access to Toast Benchmarking. Learn more about how aggregated data is leveraged with Toast Benchmarking in this Support Center article: .
Benchmarking Lite is available to all Toast customers who have the POS & Restaurant Operations suite, and offers basic functionality for comparing performance within a geographic area over a specific time period.
The Restaurant Management suite delivers a more comprehensive set of features with Benchmarking Essentials, including longer-term comparisons, detailed performance insights, and broader analytical capabilities
| Feature | Benchmarking Lite | Benchmarking Essentials |
| Reporting time period | Compare sales and operational metrics with peers within your geographic area over a 30-day period. | Compare sales and operational metrics with peers across any time period, including comprehensive year-over-year comparisons. |
| Sales insights | View and analyze sales across all channels or specific ones, with a breakdown by order channel. Toggle between sales, item count, and effective pricing data. | View and analyze sales across all channels or specific ones, with detailed breakdowns by order channel. Toggle between sales, item count, and effective pricing data. |
| Year-over-year comparison | Limited capability | Available for various time periods and at restaurant, regional, state, and national levels. |
| Service performance | Not available | Includes charts showing average table turn times and hourly sales performance against peers. |
| Menu insights | Item-level menu insights are not available. | Provides detailed analysis of sales by menu category and item-level insights. Review how menu items are tagged and make adjustments if desired. |
| Peer group selection | Limited to location and service selection. | Can select peer group based on location (including by ZIP Code), service, cuisine/type, price range, and their alcohol sales
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| Group overview | Not Available | See for more information. |
At the top of any of the Benchmarking reports, you’ll see your comparison group filter, which allows you to select which type of restaurants you’d like to compare to.
Your filter selections will apply to all of the Benchmarking reports, and you can make changes at any time by reopening the filter and selecting Edit peer group.
Select the traits of the restaurants you would like to be compared to:
Select Verify peer group size to save your parameters. Benchmarking insights are available only when there are enough restaurants in the comparison group selected. If there isn’t enough data for your selected city or state, we will provide a list of suggested cities to expand your data set.
If you’d like to keep your selection for the next time you view your Benchmarking reports, you can also select Save as default filter.
Note: The model that is used to categorize restaurants leverages an AI-based classification tool to help assign restaurant categories. Please note that while we aim to continuously improve this model, insights are provided for general informational purposes only and may be incomplete or inaccurate.
The Restaurant overview tab will show you how you compare to other restaurants in your selected peer group.
The Overview Stats cards show a summarized data comparison for Net sales, Sales per labor hour, Total orders, and Average check size.
The Performance Over Time section of the Benchmarking Restaurant overview shows a highly customizable chart with detailed data for your location compared to your selected peer group.
At the top of the chart are toggles which allow you to view All menu items, Food only, Alcohol only, or Non-alcohol beverages only.
You can toggle Also compare to last year to the on position to add data from the previous year to the chart.
Hover over any data point to see more details:
Below the chart you’ll see summary cards for total sales, food sales, alcohol sales, and non-alcohol beverage slaes for your business and your selected peers for the chosen time period.
The Effective Pricing Benchmarking section of the Benchmarking Restaurant overview shows you how your top sellers measure up to your selected peers in the previous month. This can include:
You can select View full item performance to visit the Menu insights tab for more detailed information.
The Menu insights tab provides data about how your menu item categories compare to the average restaurant in the filters you selected. Item-level menu insights are exclusive to users of Toast Benchmarking Essentials.
The Service performance report can help you understand how your sales and speed of service compare to other Toast restaurants.
At the top, you’ll see data for Average hourly sales and Average table turnover for your restaurant and your selected peer group. The date range for this report is filtered to the last 7 days and cannot be changed. You’ll also see how your data compares to the average industry benchmark.
Next is the Hourly Trends table. The date range for this chart is the last 35 days (five weeks) and cannot be changed. Choose to view Net sales, Order volume, Menu items sold, or Average check size, and select your desired ordering channels. Use the toggle on the top right corner of the chart to view hourly trends for different days of the week.
This report also contains a Tables Turnover Performance chart, which is also set to the last 35 days (five weeks). This will show your average table turnover time in minutes, every hour, compared to your selected peer group.