Kovo vs Certus AI: Which Fits Your Restaurant?
Kovo sells a ticket from $99: the order is read back and printed with its modifiers. Certus AI sells multilingual order taking on a quote. Where each one fits.
On this page
A caller opens in English and switches three words in: "dos órdenes de alitas, salsa aparte". The person on the phone translates in her head, finds the item, and punches it in. That works — until the night nobody who speaks Spanish is on the line, and the order becomes a message under the till.
Kovo sells the ticket that call should leave behind: it takes the order, reads it back, and prints it with the modifiers attached to the right line. Certus AI sells the language part as a feature, publishing multilingual handling in English, Spanish, and French for orders, deliveries, reservations, upselling, and complaints.
At 900 calls a month with one in five switching language, 180 calls a month ride on which product you bought — $6,840 of order volume at a $38 ticket.
TL;DR
- Kovo publishes a ticket and a price: the order is read back, modifiers print as modifier groups, and the ticket goes to Toast, Square, Clover, Olo, or a receipt printer, from $99 a month.
- Kovo charges a card the shop already holds while the caller is on the line, books tables in its own reservation book, and answers a website chat on the same engine.
- Certus AI publishes multilingual order taking in English, Spanish, and French, sold on a quote, with implementation publicly described as around 5 days.
- At 900 calls a month, Kovo Unlimited is $299. The quote from Certus has to be measured against that number plus setup, not against the $99 starter.
- If language is your bottleneck, test Certus with a recording of your own caller. If the ticket is, Kovo starts at $99 with 14 days free.
What each product is
On Kovo, the call ends with a printed ticket. It picks up, the caller hears their order spoken back before anything is placed, and the finished ticket goes to Toast, Square, Clover, Olo, or an Epson or Star receipt printer. Modifiers print as modifier groups attached to the right line, not as a sentence in a notes field.
The menu comes from the shop's own POS catalog or a menu page, refreshes once a day, and a three-way merge keeps your edits when the source changes. When the shop already holds a card for that caller, Kovo charges it off-session while the caller is on the line. A first-time caller gets a Stripe Checkout link by text with the line held open, so no card number touches the call or the transcript. A table request goes into Kovo's own reservation book, built from the shop's hours and holiday exceptions.
The Starter plan is $99 and covers 750 connected minutes, about 300 calls. Unlimited is $299 for 5,000. Anything under 10 seconds is never billed, a single call cannot bill past 12 minutes, and when the minutes run out, calls forward to your own phone instead of being answered. One store, one line, one subscription.
Certus AI is restaurant voice AI built around language. It handles orders, deliveries, reservations, upselling, and complaints in English, Spanish, and French, and the vendor treats multilingual coverage as a first-class feature rather than an add-on. Pricing is quote-based.
Its natural market is the shop where the caller and the kitchen do not share a language, or the multi-unit group where one store's calls arrive in two. Drive-thru operators appear in the same conversations, because a lane fails the same way a phone does. Two things to pin down. Implementation is publicly described as about five days, so ask who does the menu work. POS depth is not publicly documented, so ask for a ticket on your own POS rather than a screenshot of someone else's.
The 30-second comparison
Published information, October 2026. Where a vendor has not documented something, the cell says so, because that blank is part of what you are buying.
| Kovo | Certus AI | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | $99/mo, 750 connected minutes | Quote-based; no published number |
| Languages | No published language list — test your own calls | English, Spanish, French, per the vendor |
| What the call ends with | Order read back and ticketed | Orders, deliveries, reservations, upselling, complaints, per the vendor |
| Where the ticket lands | Toast, Square, Clover, Olo, Epson, Star | POS depth not publicly listed — confirm |
| Card handling | A card the shop already holds, charged on the call; a link for a first-time caller | Not publicly listed — confirm |
| Reservations | Kovo's own book; reads and texts a page for OpenTable or Resy | Reservation handling advertised |
| Setup | Self-serve; live the same day | Around five days, publicly described |
The language row is the reason this page exists. Every other row is the reason it is not the only row: an agent that understands the caller and cannot produce the ticket has moved the problem, not solved it.
The two-language ticket problem
Here is the failure nobody puts in a multilingual demo. A spoken order has to exist twice: once in the language the caller used, and once in the language the kitchen reads. The second version is not a translation. It is your POS item name, your modifier group, your 86 list.
What the caller says
"Media orden de alitas, salsa aparte, y una pizza mitad champiñón." A person understands that instantly, including the fact that the pizza is half mushroom only. An agent that translates at the sentence level will say it back beautifully and still print the wrong thing.
What the kitchen prints
The ticket has to read Wings — half order — sauce on side and Pizza — half mushroom, with the modifier attached to the right line, because that is what your cook and your inventory system recognise. Ask for the printed ticket in both languages on the same call. If the answer is a translated summary a manager retypes, the multilingual feature stopped one step short of the kitchen.
That test separates products fast. The Toast walkthrough shows the ticket shape to hold them to, whatever language the caller spoke.
What a quote costs at your volume
Certus is quoted, so the useful arithmetic is the number the quote has to beat. Take 900 calls a month at a two-and-a-half-minute average, on top of the roughly 150 calls the average restaurant misses, according to a QSR Magazine analysis.
- 900 calls × 2.5 minutes = 2,250 connected minutes, which is Kovo Unlimited at $299.
- 300 calls × 2.5 minutes = 750 minutes, which is the $99 Starter plan exactly.
Kovo's pricing page shows the minute arithmetic in full. No pricing page can show a competitor's quote, so ask Certus for three things in writing: the monthly number at 900 calls, whether it is per location, and what implementation costs on top.
Line the total up against one recovered Friday, not the entry price. If a recovered order averages $38, a $100 monthly gap is three orders.
The decision, in three rows
Most of these decisions are one of three shops. Find your row.
| Your situation | Pick | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Mixed-language callers at volume, a drive-thru lane, or several units where the phone has to answer in Spanish or French as well as English | Certus AI | Multilingual handling is the product's published strength, and no plan tier buys you that on an order line |
| Takeout or counter shop where the call should end as a POS ticket with modifiers, and you want to be live today | Kovo | Order read-back and a ticket to Toast, Square, Clover, Olo, or a printer, from $99 for 750 minutes |
| One language, one store, and the real problem is the calls going unanswered during the rush | Kovo | Published entry price, self-serve setup, and calls that forward to your own line instead of billing overage |
Two questions to ask on either demo
"Play back a recording of my own caller, not your demo script." A scripted demo is a single accent on a clean line. Your calls have a name, a street, and a modifier the agent has never heard. Ask to test with 10 real calls, and score how many printed correctly.
"Show me the item name on the ticket, in both languages." This is where an order line and a language layer separate. Kovo's answer is a printed ticket with nested modifiers; Certus's answer should be the same ticket in a second language. Anything less is a transcript with a translation attached.
Who should pick Certus AI
Pick Certus AI if language is the bottleneck rather than the ticket: callers who switch mid-order at volume, or a group where one location's calls arrive in two.
Who should pick Kovo
Pick Kovo if your callers speak one language and the problem is that the order never reaches the kitchen intact: pizza, deli, QSR, a counter shop where the call is "large pepperoni, no onion, extra crispy" and the ticket has to carry all three. Pick it if you want self-serve setup and a price that does not arrive as a PDF.
Pick it too if you would rather pay for connected minutes than for a language tier. The Kovo vs Loman comparison covers the case where the card has to be charged inside the call, and the rest of the comparison index covers the others.
FAQ
Does Kovo take orders in Spanish?
Kovo does not publish a language list, so the honest answer is that you should hear it handle your own callers before you buy it. Certus AI publishes multilingual handling in English, Spanish, and French, which is the reason to look at it at all. If a meaningful share of your calls switch language, test both with a recording of a real caller, and use the 750 minutes on Kovo's $99 plan to do it.
Is Certus AI cheaper than Kovo?
Certus is quote-based, so there is no published number to compare against Kovo's $99 for 750 connected minutes or $299 for 5,000. Ask for a written monthly price at 900 calls, per location, with setup and any per-call component itemised. At 900 calls of two and a half minutes, Kovo Unlimited is $299, which is the figure the quote has to beat.
How long does setup take on each product?
Kovo needs no implementation call: a shop signs up, connects ordering, imports a menu, and takes a test call, usually inside a day, with 14 days free and no card. Certus publicly describes implementation time around 5 days, which is longer and usually means someone is building it with you. Ask what happens on day six.
Can either product charge the card during the call?
Not the same way, and that difference decides some sales. Kovo charges a card the shop already holds, off-session, while the caller is still on the line; a first-time caller gets a Stripe Checkout link by text with the line held open. Kovo never takes a card number spoken over the phone. Certus does not publicly list a payment path at all, so ask how a card is taken and what releases the ticket. No single call bills past 12 minutes, and the decline path is the thing to test on both.
What does Kovo refuse to order?
The limit belongs to the shop: defaults of 10 items in total and 8 of one item, both changeable, plus an optional value limit. Above it the call rings the handset if the owner turned on large-party routing; otherwise the agent says the order is too large and keeps taking what fits. That matters more in a multilingual shop, because a large party order in a second language is exactly the call a person should hear.
Final Thoughts
Certus AI answers the language question that most of this category skips, and a shop with mixed-language callers should take that seriously — a demo recording of your own customer will tell you more than any pricing page. Kovo answers a different question: what printed in the kitchen, and what it cost.
If your calls arrive in two languages at volume, buy the multilingual product and pay for the five days. If they arrive in one and the ticket is what breaks, run the half-and-half test on Kovo: $99 for 750 connected minutes, 14 days free, no card at signup. Take a test call with your own menu.