How Big an Order Your Phone Will Take
Ten items and eight of one is where your shop starts, not where it has to stay. You set the size your kitchen builds, and whether a party order rings you.
On this page
At 6:05 on a Friday, a caller wants twelve large pies for a party at seven. Your line can build that, if somebody knew at four.
Whether that order gets taken, refused, or rings your counter is not a decision a phone should make on its own. It is yours. It is three numbers on your shop page, and where a new shop starts is 10 items and 8 of one item.
TL;DR:
- The defaults are 10 items on a ticket and 8 of one item, and they are where your shop starts, not a rule about your kitchen.
- You can raise either, lower either, add an optional dollar limit, or set any of them to zero to drop it.
- Over a limit, one switch decides: the call rings your handset, or the phone says the order is too large and keeps taking what fits.
- A dollar limit is a guardrail, not a till count, because a market-price dish or a late side can move the total.
- Kovo is $99 a month for roughly 300 calls, and those three numbers are yours to set on your own shop page.
A phone has to answer with your kitchen in mind
Some phone products ship one order cap and call that safety. The cap is real, but it is a vendor's guess about your kitchen, not a fact about it.
A pizzeria can build twelve pies, which is the world the pizzeria guide describes. A deli cannot build a platter for twenty at 6:05. A bakery wants every cake order to reach a person. A ghost kitchen wants the office lunch to ring whoever is running the line. One number cannot serve four kitchens.
So the limit belongs to you, and whether a big order rings the phone is a second, separate switch.
The three numbers you set
Two of them have defaults. One starts empty.
| What you set | Where it starts | Zero means | What it does not catch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Items on a ticket | 10 | no total limit | — |
| Of one item | 8 | no per-item limit | — |
| Order value | empty | no dollar limit | a market-price dish, or a side added after the total is read |
Those defaults are what Kovo ships with, kept for a shop that never opens the card. They are deliberately careful: ten items covers most household orders, and eight of one stops the nine-pizzas-the-same-kind order that usually means a party nobody planned for.
A high-volume pizza line can raise both. A small kitchen that builds in one oven can lower them.
What happens when a caller goes over
One switch decides it, and it is worth knowing before a Friday.
It rings you. With large-party routing on and a handset number set, an over-limit call rings your shop. The caller talks to a person about timing, the deposit, and whether the fryer has room, and the phone stays out of the way.
It tells them and keeps going. With routing off, the phone says the order is too large to send through, stays on the call, and keeps taking what fits. That last part is the one that saves the ticket: somebody who wanted twelve pies and hears "I can send ten" often takes ten.
What it never does is drop the order quietly, print a ticket your kitchen cannot build, or promise a callback it cannot make.
A limit is not a cap on spending
The three numbers are about what your kitchen can build, not what the caller can afford. A four-item order at $240 is a normal catering tray. A twelve-item order at $60 is a party nobody planned for. Counting items catches both, which is why the item numbers are on from the start and the dollar one is not.
That is also why the dollar limit is the one you set on purpose. A shop selling $200 platters should not have a $150 ceiling by accident. A shop that wants one should say so, and the number to pick is the one where you would want to talk to the caller before the food goes on.
The same logic runs through the rest of the product. The pricing plans cap minutes, not orders, and the Toast ticket is the same whether the order was four items or ten.
Setting it before service, not during
On your shop page, open the limits card. Three numbers:
- Items on a ticket. Leave the default unless your kitchen has taken bigger orders without anyone ringing you about them.
- Of one item. This is the party tripwire: eight pies is a party, two is dinner.
- Order value. Leave it empty unless you have a reason, and if you do set one, pick the number where you would want to be on the phone yourself.
Then pick your routing. If a manager is reachable during service, send the big orders to the handset. If nobody is, refusing is more honest than ringing a phone nobody picks up.
The party order to try before you trust it
- Ten items. It goes through.
- Eleven items. It hits the limit: refused, or rings you, depending on the switch.
- Nine of one item. It hits the per-item number.
- A big order with routing on. The handset should ring and the caller should be told what is happening.
- The same order in your website chat. It should behave the same, because it is the same engine.
- A dollar limit, if you set one. A $200 order should be caught. Then try a market-price dish and watch the gap in the table above.
When a limit is the wrong tool
If every order you take is a party order, a limit mostly interrupts you. Drop it and route the big ones to a person instead.
If you are on the line yourself all service, the switch you want is routing, not a number, because a limit that refuses orders just moves them to the shop down the road.
And if the real problem is that nobody can answer at 7:40, a limit does not touch it. That is a phone nobody picks up, and it is a different problem.
FAQ
What are the default order limits?
Ten items on a ticket and eight of a single item. Those are the numbers your shop keeps if you never open the limits card, not a rule about your kitchen. You can raise them, lower them, or drop either one by setting it to zero.
Can I put a dollar limit on a phone order?
Yes. There is an optional order-value limit and it is empty by default, so a shop that wants a $150 ceiling can set one, and zero means no value limit at all. Treat it as a guardrail rather than a till count: it is not checked against a market-price dish, or against a side added after the total was read back to the caller.
What happens when a caller goes over the limit?
It depends on one switch. If you turned on large-party routing and set a handset number, the call rings your shop instead of refusing. Otherwise the phone says the order is too large to send through, stays on the call, and keeps taking what fits. It never drops the order quietly.
Why not just refuse every large order?
Because a large order is often the best call of your week and the worst one to lose to a busy signal. Routing it to a person keeps the ticket; refusing it keeps your kitchen sane. The switch is there so you pick which risk you prefer, per shop.
Does the website chat follow the same limits?
Yes. Your chat runs on the same engine as the phone, so it inherits the same numbers and the same routing decision. A twelve-item order typed into the widget is treated exactly like twelve items spoken on the phone, so a caller cannot get around your kitchen by typing instead of calling.
Final Thoughts
A limit is not a restriction on your business. It is the line between an order your kitchen can build and a promise it cannot keep. The defaults are a starting point, and you are the one who knows where the line actually sits.
Set the three numbers, decide whether a big order rings your phone or gets refused, then try it with the party order your kitchen hates. Take a test call with your own menu and send it eleven items.