Kovo vs 11x: Which Fits Your Restaurant?
Kovo answers a restaurant line from $99 and ends the call with a kitchen ticket. 11x sells digital workers for sales and support. Two jobs, and which you have.
On this page
Two jobs get called an AI agent and they have nothing in common. One picks up when a caller rings, works out what they want, and puts a ticket in front of a cook. The other dials out, works a list, and is measured by how many people it reaches.
Kovo does the first, for one restaurant, at $99 or $299 a month. 11x is positioned as digital workers for sales and support, sold on a subscription, which is the second kind of job. The trade is the direction of the call: one product receives them, the other places them.
TL;DR:
- Kovo answers an inbound restaurant line and reads the order back. The call ends with a ticket in the POS the kitchen already reads, from $99 for 750 connected minutes or $299 for 5,000.
- It charges a card the shop already holds while the caller is still on the line, books tables in its own reservation book, and answers a website chat on the same engine.
- 11x sells digital workers for sales and support on a subscription, positioned for teams with a follow-up and support workload (vendor positioning, October 2026).
- An answering agent is judged by tickets printed. A sales or support worker is judged by conversations worked, and that is the line to price before either contract.
- If the leak is the ringing phone, start there: $99 a month, 14 days free, and a test call on your own menu.
What each product is
Kovo answers a ringing restaurant phone. It takes the order in the caller's words, reads it back before anything is placed, and writes the ticket to Toast, Square, Clover, or Olo. An Epson or Star receipt printer works too. Menu questions, greetings, complaints, and order-status calls stay on the call. A person takes over when the caller presses 0 or clearly asks for one, and only if the shop set a handset number.
Two more mechanisms decide what a call can end with. Where the shop already holds a card for that caller, Kovo charges it off-session while the caller is still on the line. The ticket reaches the kitchen during the call. A first-time caller gets a Stripe link by text, and the line is held open. The same engine answers a website chat, and a table request is taken in Kovo's own reservation book, built from the shop's hours and holiday exceptions.
The limit on a ticket belongs to the shop: defaults of 10 items in total and 8 of one item, both changeable, plus an optional value limit. Starter is $99 for 750 connected minutes, roughly 300 calls at a two-and-a-half-minute average. Unlimited is $299 for 5,000, a call under 10 seconds is never billed, and at the cap calls forward to your own phone instead of becoming an overage.
11x is the other shape of purchase: digital workers for sales and support, on a subscription (vendor positioning, October 2026). That is a work-shape product, built for a team with a queue of people to reach, appointments to set, or support conversations to work through. It is measured on how much of that queue moves. Flexibility, model choice, and API control show up in how the work can be shaped. A team that wants its own logic in the loop gets something a packaged product will not give it.
What to verify before signing is the total cost at your own volume, per location. Ask for telephony, speech, text, and voice itemised separately rather than hidden inside a seat.
The 30-second facts
Published positioning, October 2026. A cell that reads "not publicly listed" is a genuine blank, and it is the thing to put in the email you send the vendor.
| Kovo | 11x | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | $99/mo for 750 connected minutes; $299 for 5,000 | Subscription; no per-location list price published — ask for a quote |
| What the call ends with | Order read back, then ticketed to the kitchen | Not publicly listed for restaurant orders — confirm on a demo |
| Where the ticket lands | Toast, Square, Clover, Olo, Epson Server Direct Print, Star CloudPRNT | Not publicly listed — ask which POS by name |
| Direction of the calls | Inbound only; no outbound campaigns | Positioned around sales and support work, not an inbound order line |
| Reservations | Books in Kovo's own book; reads and texts a page for OpenTable or Resy | Not publicly listed — confirm |
| Card handling | A card the shop already holds, charged on the call; a Stripe link for a first-time caller | Not publicly listed — confirm |
| Setup | Self-serve: menu source, test call, same day for a supported POS | Subscription onboarding; confirm the launch date in writing |
The fourth row carries most of this decision. A phone line is judged at 7 p.m. by whether the order printed. A sales or support worker is judged at the end of the month by a pipeline number, and those two reports do not read the same way.
The part of your phone log that is not orders
Play back one hour of your own line and tally it. Industry estimates put around 60% of missed restaurant calls as someone trying to order or book. That leaves two in five as something else: the hours question, the "where is my delivery" call, the complaint about a hair in the fries, the recruiter, the linen rep.
That split is why this comparison exists. Kovo answers the inbound half, including order status and complaints, and the outbound half is a different product. If your log is mostly people trying to place an order and nobody picking up, the second shape of product has nothing to work on.
Now put money against the queue. A QSR Magazine analysis estimates the average restaurant misses about 150 calls a month. Industry estimates put a lost call at $35 to $85:
- 150 × $35 = $5,250 a month.
- 150 × $85 = $12,750 a month.
- Kovo at $99 or $299 sits under both.
Neither figure is your P&L, and your own call log is a better input than either. The missed-call walkthrough runs the same arithmetic on different assumptions, and the conclusion does not move: the ringing phone is usually the cheaper gap to close first.
The decision, by situation
Three buyers, three answers.
| Your situation | Pick | Why |
|---|---|---|
| A shop or small group where the line rings through dinner and the calls are orders, hours, and complaints | Kovo | $99 or $299 a month, self-serve, and a ticket in the POS the kitchen already reads |
| A group with a follow-up or support workload and engineers who want their own logic in it | 11x | The product is shaped around sales and support work, which an inbound order line is not |
| A brand that needs outbound reach and inbound ordering | Kovo, plus a staffer or a second tool | The inbound line is one purchase; outbound work is a separate queue with its own owner |
Two questions to ask either vendor
"On a live call with two modifiers and a substitution, where does the ticket physically print?" Not "what integrations do you have". The name of the POS, and whether the ticket reaches the kitchen display or a browser dashboard. The Toast walkthrough shows what the correct output looks like.
"What does a month cost at my volume, per location?" Kovo answers with $99 and $299 and the forward-at-the-cap rule, and the pricing page shows the minutes behind both. A subscription answers with a quote, which is fine, provided it arrives in writing with every component on it.
Ask both before a contract, not after a pilot. The comparison hub has the rest of the shortlist if neither answer fits.
Who should pick 11x
Pick 11x if the buyer is a sales or support leader with a queue of people to reach rather than an operator with a dinner service.
Who should pick Kovo
Pick Kovo if the leak is the ringing phone and the calls are orders. Pizza, deli, QSR, a counter spot with a queue at noon. The fit is a shop where the number is printed on every menu and rings through the dinner rush while two people work the line.
Pick it too if the price has to be a fixed number and setup has to be a same-day job. If the booking has to land in the OpenTable book the shop already runs, read the Kovo vs Loman comparison.
FAQ
Does 11x answer restaurant phone calls?
Its public positioning is digital workers for sales and support, sold on a subscription, not a restaurant ordering product (vendor positioning, October 2026). Whether it can take a pepperoni pizza with two modifiers and write the ticket into Toast is not something its pages document, so ask for that demonstration in writing. Kovo does exactly that job for one store at $99 or $299 a month.
What does 11x cost compared with Kovo?
The vendor sells on a subscription and no per-location list price is published that we could confirm, so the comparison needs a quote in writing. Kovo publishes two numbers: $99 for 750 connected minutes and $299 for 5,000. At 400 calls of three minutes, that is 1,200 minutes and the $299 plan, which is 75 cents an answered call against whatever the subscription asks for.
Which one should a restaurant buy first?
Answer the inbound line first, because that is where the money leaks. A QSR Magazine analysis estimates the average U.S. restaurant misses about 150 calls a month, and industry estimates price a lost call at $35 to $85, so the range is $5,250 to $12,750 a month. Kovo at $99 or $299 is priced under both ends of that range, and outbound follow-up can wait a quarter.
Can Kovo call a guest back or run follow-up?
Kovo answers the line; it does not dial out, and outbound campaigns, callback queues, and post-order follow-up belong to a second tool or a person. On the inbound side it reads the order back, charges a card the shop already holds while the caller is still on the line, and takes a table in its own reservation book. A shop whose problem is reaching people rather than receiving them is buying a different job.
What should I ask before signing either contract?
Ask for the ticket, not the transcript. On a live call with two modifiers and a substitution, where does the order physically print, and which POS by name receives it. Then ask the price at your own volume in writing, per location, with any per-minute or per-seat component itemised. Kovo's test connection prints a $0.00 ticket so the path can be proven before a real order uses it.
Final Thoughts
11x and Kovo are separated by the direction of the call. One reaches people, the other receives them, and a restaurant usually has more of the second and less money to spend on the first. That is the whole decision, minus the word "agent" that put both names in the same search.
Count your calls before you count your features. If most of the log is orders and nobody answers it, buy the answering. $99 covers 750 connected minutes, the trial runs 14 days without a card, and a test call tells you what your own menu sounds like coming back. Take a test call with your own menu.