Best Phone Agent for Chinese Restaurants
Five phone agents for a Chinese takeout line, ranked on a seven-row rubric. Kovo scores 93 and Loman 80; the combo number is the row that decides it.
On this page
The best phone agent for a Chinese restaurant is Kovo, which scores 93/100 on the rubric below: a combo number reaches the kitchen as one item with its rice and soup attached, for $99 a month. Loman scores 80 and wins the card row.
We sell Kovo. It wins the rubric, and the seven rows are printed below so the arithmetic is checkable rather than asserted.
There is a takeout menu on a refrigerator in every third apartment in your delivery radius, and it is two revisions out of date. The caller reads from that one, so the number they say out loud may not be the number you cook from. At 6:20 on a Friday, nobody at the counter can walk a stranger through a renumbered menu. At an estimated $38 ticket, ten calls a week that end in a hang-up is $1,520 a month.
TL;DR:
- Kovo scores 93/100: $99 for 750 connected minutes, limits the owner sets, and a combo number that keeps its rice and soup as nested choices.
- Loman scores 80 and is the pick when a caller must pay with any card inside the call, from $199 at published pricing, October 2026.
- Kea (57) and Certus AI (57) are quote-only, and Reachify (53) sells POS-first routing; ask all three for an all-in number at 500 calls.
- At 500 calls a month, $99 is 20 cents a call against Loman's 40 cents, and a $450 quote is 90 cents.
- The failure nobody tests for is a caller reading last year's menu: no agent keeps the retired numbers unless you write them into the menu.
The rubric, and why these weights
Ranking phone agents by voice quality is unmeasurable and every vendor wins it. Ranking by what a restaurant pays for is checkable.
| Weight | Criterion | Why it decides |
|---|---|---|
| 25% | Price per answered call | The bill is the first objection |
| 20% | Reservations included, no platform fee | A table call is the highest-value call |
| 15% | Order limits the owner controls | One fixed cap does not fit four restaurant types |
| 15% | Payment that closes on the call | An unpaid ticket is a kitchen waiting |
| 10% | POS depth you actually run | A ticket that needs retyping is not an integration |
| 10% | Channels on one brain (phone, chat) | Two menus is two truths |
| 5% | Setup without a scheduled onboarding | Speed to first call |
Each product is scored 1 to 5 per row against public information checked in October 2026, then weighted out of 100.
The ranking
| # | Product | Score | Price | Reservations | Card on the call | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kovo | 93 | $99 / $299 | Own book, included | Known card on the line; link for a first-timer | A combo-heavy takeout line |
| 2 | Loman | 80 | From $199 | OpenTable write-back, per the vendor | Any card, captured in the call | A shop where most callers are new and paying |
| 3 | Kea | 57 | Quote | Not documented | Not documented | A custom build bought on a quote |
| 4 | Certus AI | 57 | Quote | In scope, per the vendor | Not documented | A counter that takes Spanish orders all day |
| 5 | Reachify | 53 | Quote | Not documented | Partial, per the vendor | An order that has to land in a POS you already run |
Kovo takes price per answered call, the included book, owner-set limits, and chat on one engine. Loman takes the payment row outright and wins reservations where the shop already runs OpenTable. Kea and Certus tie at 57; the tiebreak here is language, which Certus publishes and Kea does not.
Kovo — 93/100
Kovo answers, takes the order the way the caller says it, reads it back, and writes the ticket to Toast, Square, Clover, Olo, or a receipt printer. A combination platter stays one item with nested choices, so 42 arrives with pork fried rice and hot and sour soup attached. A sold-out choice inside a combo, one size of one soup, is still not enforced, so mark the whole plate unavailable.
Starter is $99 a month for 750 connected minutes and Unlimited is $299 for 5,000. The default limits are 10 items in total and 8 of one item, and the owner can change either or set both to zero.
Loman — 80/100
Loman closes the whole call: order with modifiers, a card captured inside the conversation, OpenTable booking, and a ticket into 30+ systems per the vendor. It publishes from $199 a month with no per-minute fees, at published pricing, October 2026.
For a takeout line where most callers are new and paying by card, that capture is the row the rubric pays 15% for, and Loman wins it. That is 40 cents a call at 500 calls. Its accuracy and revenue figures are operator-reported rather than audited, so ask for a reference you can check. The head-to-head has the rest.
Kea — 57/100
Kea takes restaurant orders and is sold on a quote, which makes it the hardest row to score from a website. A quote can be the cheapest all-in number here or the most expensive, and you will not know which until a sales call.
Ask for the all-in monthly figure at 500 calls in writing, with setup, per-location, and per-minute charges separated, then set it beside $199. A quote is not a price. Kea's site publishes no price and no reservation path we could verify, which is why the row lands mid-table.
Certus AI — 57/100
Certus AI sells multilingual handling as a first-class feature, publishing English, Spanish, and French, with an implementation the vendor describes as about five days. A lunch counter that takes Spanish orders all day gets something real out of that, and reservations and complaints are in scope per the vendor.
The limit is specific to this page. Those published languages do not include Mandarin or Cantonese, so ask directly whether your callers' dialect is supported and whether item names are recognised in it. Then ask for a recording in that dialect. The Certus comparison lists the rest of the questions.
Reachify — 53/100
Reachify is positioned around getting an order into the POS rather than leaving it in a message queue, with POS push and text-link fallbacks, sold on a quote.
That fits a shop whose counter re-keys every phone order by hand. Settle which parts of an order close on the call and which finish in a text thread, because a 6:30 takeout line cannot afford a correction in a chat window. Payment is partial per the vendor, so confirm where it stops, and put the monthly number in writing before you compare it to a published price.
The test call: one number, two swaps
Run one call per vendor and grade the kitchen ticket, not the transcript. Order number 42 with pork fried rice instead of white and hot and sour soup instead of the egg roll, then add a quart of wonton soup and a crab rangoon. That produces a number expansion, two substitutions, a size decision, and a separate line, which is the structure a takeout bag depends on.
Then run five more, on your own menu:
- The retired 42. Does the agent ask, or guess, when the number is off an old magnet?
- The 2:55 lunch call. Listen to which price it quotes before 3 p.m.
- Two addresses, one inside your radius and one outside, because the radius is a sentence you wrote.
- An order past your limit. Is it routed to you, or refused with a reason?
- A card order. Did the ticket wait for payment, or print?
If the ticket comes back as a single line reading "42", stop: that agent is transcribing, and a transcriber costs money at the pass.
FAQ
Which phone agent is best for a Chinese restaurant?
Kovo scores highest on our rubric (93/100) because it is the cheapest per answered call at $99 for 750 connected minutes, keeps a combo number as one item with its rice and soup as nested choices, and lets the owner set the order limits. Loman scores 80 and is the better pick when any caller must pay with any card inside the call, because it captures the card on the line while Kovo charges a card the shop already holds and sends a first-time caller a link.
How are the scores calculated?
Seven weighted criteria: price per answered call (25%), reservations included with no platform fee (20%), order limits the owner controls (15%), payment that closes on the call (15%), POS depth (10%), channels on one brain (10%), and setup without a scheduled onboarding (5%). Each vendor is scored 1 to 5 per row against public information checked in October 2026, then weighted out of 100. The rows and the weights are printed in the box above the table so you can redo the arithmetic.
Can a phone agent handle a caller reading last year's menu?
Only if you map the old numbers yourself. Kovo reads one menu and keeps no memory of the previous version, so a caller who says forty-two off a fridge magnet gets whatever 42 is today. The fix is a note in the knowledge the agent answers from, spelling out two or three retired numbers and what they became, or a handset number so those calls reach a person who remembers. Do it before your first busy Friday, and again after every reprint.
What happens to a lunch special ordered at 3:10?
The agent quotes the price on the menu it was given, and Kovo refreshes that menu once a day in the background, so a lunch price that ends at 3 p.m. by habit is not something a phone system enforces. Model lunch as its own item with its own name and price, or accept that an early afternoon caller hears a number the counter has to correct. Three hours a day of wrong quotes is a menu design problem, not a voice problem.
How much does a Chinese restaurant phone agent cost?
Kovo Starter is $99 a month for 750 connected minutes, roughly 300 calls, and Unlimited is $299 for 5,000, with no per-minute fees and no overage. Loman publishes from $199 with no per-minute fees, and Kea, Certus, and Reachify are quote-only. At an estimated $38 phone ticket, three recovered orders a month covers Starter.
Final Thoughts
The best phone agent for a Chinese restaurant turns a number into a bag: entree, rice, soup, and price on one ticket the packer can read. Voice quality is the easy part here.
Write the retired numbers into the menu, run the test calls, and grade the ticket. Kovo starts at $99 a month with 14 days free and no card, and prints a $0.00 test ticket so a combo lands on the printer before your first real Friday. Take a test call.