Best Phone Agent for Ghost Kitchens
Several brands, one ringing line, nobody at a counter. Six voice agents scored on the rubric, priced October 2026, with Kovo first at 93 out of 100.
On this page
The best phone agent for a ghost kitchen answers one brand at a time and prints the ticket at the pass. Kovo wins this rubric at 93/100. Loman is second at 80 and is the pick when every call must close with nobody at a counter.
We sell one of them. It wins, and the rubric is printed below so the ranking can be checked rather than trusted.
TL;DR:
- Kovo scores 93/100: one brand per number and menu, $99 for 750 connected minutes per store, a ticket printed at the pass.
- Loman scores 80 and wins the payment row: any card charged during the call, from $199 a month at published pricing, October 2026.
- Certus AI and Kea tie at 57, Synq3 is 55, Reachify 53, and all four are quote-only, so the monthly number is a sales call away.
- One subscription is one store: three brands is three numbers, three menus, and $297 a month on Starter, with nothing pooled.
- Sixty missed calls across two brands, at roughly 60% ordering and $32 a ticket, is $1,152 of food against $198 of phone coverage.
The rubric, and why these weights
We sell Kovo. The weights and the inputs are printed so the ranking can be checked.
"AI quality" is unmeasurable and every vendor on this list claims it. What a kitchen pays for is checkable: the brand that answers, the ticket at the pass, the money collected, and the bill.
| Weight | Criterion | What it measures |
|---|---|---|
| 25% | Price per answered call | Published plan divided by included minutes |
| 20% | Reservations included | A book the phone can write to, at no platform fee |
| 15% | Owner-controlled order limits | Items, per-item, optional value, routing |
| 15% | Payment that closes on the call | Card charged before the caller hangs up |
| 10% | POS depth | The systems a shop actually runs |
| 10% | Channels on one brain | Phone and website chat sharing one menu |
| 5% | Setup | Live without a scheduled onboarding |
Each vendor is scored 1–5 per row against public information checked in October 2026, then weighted. A published price is worth more than a quote on the price row, which is why the quoted products cluster mid-table.
The ranking
| # | Product | Score | Price | Reservations | Card on the call | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kovo | 93 | $99 / $299 per store | Own book, included | Known card on the line; link for a first-timer | One brand, one number, one fixed price |
| 2 | Loman | 80 | From $199 | OpenTable write-back | Any card, charged during the call | Calls that close with nobody at a counter |
| 3 | Certus AI | 57 | Quote | Not documented | Not documented | Kitchens hiring across languages |
| 4 | Kea | 57 | Quote | Limited | Not documented | A custom build, priced on a call |
| 5 | Synq3 | 55 | Quote | Not documented | Not documented | Groups that want a long-established vendor |
| 6 | Reachify | 53 | Quote | Not documented | Partial, per the vendor | Feeding a till you already run per brand |
Kovo wins on price per answered call, an included book, limits the owner sets, and one menu behind both the phone and the chat. Loman wins the payment row outright and takes OpenTable bookings.
The rest is arithmetic at a kitchen's volume. Sixty missed calls across two brands, roughly 60% of them someone ordering, is 36 orders, and at $32 a ticket that is $1,152 of food. Two Kovo lines on Starter are $198 a month.
Kovo — 93/100
Kovo answers one number as one brand, takes the order the way the caller says it, reads it back, and writes the ticket into Toast, Square, Clover, or Olo, or out to an Epson or Star printer at the pass. Starter is $99 for 750 connected minutes per store and Unlimited $299 for 5,000.
Payment is the row that is not perfect, at 4 and not 5. A card the shop already holds is charged off-session while the caller is on the line; a first-time caller gets a Stripe link with the line held open.
The unit is the limit: one subscription is one store, so a second brand is a second number and a second menu.
Loman — 80/100
Loman closes the call with nobody at a counter: order with modifiers, card charged during the conversation, ticket into one of nine published POS integrations. It starts at $199 a month with no per-minute fees at published pricing, October 2026 (loman.ai/pricing).
The limit is how you count it. Every brand is its own menu and its own till, so ask whether the quote is per brand or per building before you set it against a per-store price. Its revenue and labor figures are operator-reported rather than audited. The head-to-head is in Kovo vs Loman.
Certus AI — 57/100
Certus AI is a multilingual restaurant voice product covering English, Spanish, and French, with orders, deliveries, reservations, and complaints in scope on its published pages. In a kitchen where the only person free to pick up may not speak the caller's language, that is a real difference rather than a line on a feature list.
The limit is the calendar. Implementation is described as around five days, per the vendor, longer than the sub-24-hour claims elsewhere in this category, and test calls come after that.
Kea — 57/100
Kea is a restaurant voice AI with order taking, sold on a quote, and it scores level with Certus AI on every row of the rubric. That makes it the hardest option here to price: the quote can land under Kovo or above nearly everything else, and a website will not tell you which.
Ask for the all-in monthly number at 600 calls across two brands in writing, including per-brand, per-minute, and setup components. Then compare it with $198 rather than with a first-month discount. The comparison is in Kovo vs Kea.
Synq3 — 55/100
Synq3 is a long-established restaurant voice ordering vendor with enterprise deployments, sold on a quote. Tenure counts in a category where vendors appear and disappear, and a group evaluating a phone layer for three brands will already have it on a shortlist.
The limit is scope and term. Ask whether you are buying order taking or a broader guest platform, how long the contract runs, and what two brands cost per unit rather than per building. Then get the per-brand line in writing. The comparison is in Kovo vs Synq3.
Reachify — 53/100
Reachify is built around the ticket rather than the conversation: an order pushed into the POS you already run, with a text link as the fallback when the push cannot close (reachify.com). For a kitchen printing to one till per brand, that framing describes the purchase honestly.
The limit is where the call ends. Some parts close on the call and some finish by text, so ask which, then test it with a caller ordering a brand's best seller by its exact name. Compare it in Kovo vs Reachify.
The test call, one number per brand
Do this with every vendor that quotes you, and print a ticket for each brand rather than a transcript.
- Call brand A's number and order an item only brand B sells.
- Call brand B's number and check which menu gets read.
- Order two items with one substitution, then ask for the ticket.
- Ask to pay, and confirm whether it is a card charged on the line, a texted link, or nothing.
- Ask what happens at 3 a.m. when the kitchen is closed.
Step one is the one that fails quietly. With no front of house, nobody reads the bag before it leaves. A ticket that prints a summary of the call instead of an order is a message, and messages need a person. The comparison hub has the brand-by-brand pages, and the menu sync problem explains why three menus that change weekly are three things to keep current.
FAQ
Which phone agent is best for a ghost kitchen?
Kovo scores 93/100 on our rubric: one brand per number and per menu, $99 for 750 connected minutes per store, a ticket written into Toast, Square, Clover, or Olo or printed at the pass, order limits the owner sets, and a website chat on the same menu. Loman is second at 80 and is the pick when every call has to close with nobody at a counter, because it charges any card during the call while Kovo charges a card the shop already holds and texts a link to a first-time caller.
How are the scores calculated?
Seven weighted criteria: price per answered call (25%), reservations included with no platform fee (20%), owner-controlled order limits (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 its own published information, checked in October 2026, then weighted out of 100. The weights sit in the box above the table, so the arithmetic can be re-run against your own priorities.
Can one phone agent answer for three ghost kitchen brands?
It can answer, but the brands have to be separated somewhere. Kovo is one store per subscription, so three brands means three numbers, three menus, and $297 a month on Starter rather than $99. Shared products are sold per location, which is cheaper on paper, so ask a shared-line vendor how the agent knows which brand the caller dialed before you compare prices. On Kovo the answer is the number itself: each line has one menu and answers as that brand only.
Do any of these bring in DoorDash or Uber Eats orders?
No, and the phone is not the pipe for them. Kovo writes direct tickets and delivers with the shop's own driver; it does not dispatch to DoorDash, Uber Eats, or Grubhub. Marketplace orders arrive through the marketplace. If you want one screen for three delivery brands, that is middleware such as OrderOut, Otter, or Stream, and it is a separate purchase from the phone line this page is about.
What does phone coverage cost across several brands?
Published October 2026 prices run from $99 a month per Kovo store to $450–$600 per location at the top of this category, with Loman from $199 and Certus AI, Kea, Synq3, and Reachify quoted. At two brands and 600 calls a month, Kovo Starter is $198 and its 1,500 minutes cover the volume, with calls forwarding to your own phone at the cap instead of billing an overage. A shared per-location quote covers the building as one line; a per-brand quote covers one brand, so double it before you set it against two Kovo lines.
Final Thoughts
The question for a ghost kitchen is not which voice sounds best. It is which brand answers the phone at 7:20, and whether the bag that leaves carries the right ticket. A product that gets the first right and the second wrong costs a customer and a refund.
On the rubric above that is Kovo: $99 a month per store, a printed ticket with the order on it, limits you set, and two weeks free with no card. Start with your busiest brand and print one ticket before you add the second. Take a test call.