PolyAI Alternatives for Restaurants
PolyAI sells enterprise voice assistants on an enterprise contract. If you run one restaurant or three, here are six alternatives and the ten-minute test.
On this page
The demo request form asks how many locations you operate. The dropdown starts at 50, and you type 2 into the box marked other.
Nothing about that screen is accidental. PolyAI sells voice assistants to large brands and contact centers, and its published strength is conversational quality at scale with deep customization. A two-shop operator is not who that was priced for.
So the question is not which product is better. It is whether a single location can buy PolyAI at all, and what to do when the answer arrives with a legal review attached.
TL;DR
- PolyAI sells enterprise voice assistants on an enterprise contract, built for large brands and contact centers rather than for one restaurant.
- Its real strength is conversational quality at scale and deep customization, both of which arrive with a timeline somebody has to staff.
- The first ten minutes of a replacement demo should answer one question: can I buy this for one location, and what is the all-in at 400 calls a month?
- Published alternatives cluster between $99 and $199 a month: Kovo at $99 for 750 connected minutes, Loman from $199 with no per-minute fees, Hostie $199 base (October 2026).
- Kovo is the self-serve end of that list: $99 or $299 a month (plans), ticket to Toast, Square, Clover, Olo or a printer, and 14 days free.
What PolyAI is for
PolyAI is a conversational voice platform sold to enterprises. Its reputation is genuine: the assistants handle long, branching conversations and the vendor builds custom flows rather than shipping one template.
That is a different product from a phone line that takes a pepperoni order. Custom flows are built by people, on a schedule, with a statement of work: value for a brand with a contact center, overhead for a shop with one line and one menu.
The tell is on the pricing page. Published per-location pricing is the signal that a restaurant can buy on a Tuesday.
Who should stay on PolyAI
Stay if the phone line is part of a larger guest platform. A group with a contact center, several brands, and a team that already writes conversation flows will use the customization and feel the cost as an investment. Stay too if your call mix is genuinely complex: deposits, event holds, multi-language service, and a booking system that needs custom logic.
One honest sentence: on conversational depth at scale, PolyAI is stronger than a self-serve product, and no monthly saving fixes a conversation that cannot finish.
Who should leave, and the sentence that tells you
Leave when the vendor cannot quote a monthly number for one location without a scoping call, a security review and a legal pass. That is not obstruction; it is a different sales motion, and the wrong shape for a takeout line that needs an answer this month.
Leave too if nobody can tell you who maintains the flows after launch. Menus change, prices move, hours shift on holidays. If the answer is a change request, price that in before you sign, because the next section does the arithmetic with your numbers.
Six options for one shop or a small group
Published information, October 2026. Where a name is a platform rather than a restaurant product, the table says so.
| Option | Best for | Published price | Order on the call | POS path | Card handling | Setup |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PolyAI | Enterprise voice platforms | Enterprise contract | Custom flows, built per deal | Per implementation | Not publicly listed — confirm | Per implementation |
| SoundHound | Brands wanting a platform vendor | Quote | Restaurant ordering is one vertical | Confirm which POS on the demo | Not publicly listed — confirm | Not publicly listed — confirm |
| ConverseNow | QSR and drive-thru volume | Quote | Drive-thru and QSR first | Confirm on the demo | Not publicly listed — confirm | Not publicly listed — confirm |
| Loman | Closing the whole call | From $199/mo, no per-minute fees | Yes, with modifiers | Toast, Square, Clover, SpotOn, SkyTab, Aloha, Olo | Card taken during the call, per the vendor | Live in under 24 hours, per the vendor |
| Hostie | Guest line and one inbox | $199 base; $399 with order taking | On the $399 tier | OpenTable, Resy, Toast, Square documented | Not publicly listed — confirm | Not publicly listed — confirm |
| Kovo | Takeout lines | $99/mo or $299/mo | Yes, with modifiers and a read-back | Toast, Square, Clover, Olo, Epson, Star | A card the shop already holds, charged on the line; link for a first-time caller | Self-serve; test call the same day |
Kovo is one of these rows and it is ours. Every other row is written from the vendor's public pages, which is also why three of them read "quote" instead of a number; the Certus alternatives list covers the multilingual case.
The six options, one at a time
PolyAI
PolyAI is the incumbent and the reason this page exists: assistants sold to enterprises, with conversational range that a packaged restaurant product does not match. If your group has a contact center and a team to run custom flows, it is a serious product. The caveat is fit: ask for the minimum contract, the implementation timeline, and whether a single location can buy at all. Kovo vs PolyAI covers the side-by-side.
SoundHound
SoundHound is a voice platform with restaurant ordering among its verticals: deep underlying technology and a famous name behind it. A brand that wants one vendor for everything voice will find the platform argument persuasive. The caveat is packaging: ask whether the restaurant product is a packaged offering with a published scope, and which POS systems it writes to. The SoundHound alternatives page and Kovo vs SoundHound go further.
ConverseNow
ConverseNow is voice AI for QSR and drive-thru, built around throughput in a lane where every second counts. The caveat is the channel: ask whether phone is a first-class channel or an extension of the drive-thru build. The Kovo vs ConverseNow comparison takes the question apart.
Loman
Loman is the closest like-for-like alternative with a published price: from $199 a month with no per-minute fees (published pricing, October 2026), the widest POS list of this group, card taken inside the call, two-way OpenTable booking documented. It publishes 99.6% order accuracy on a 20M+ call corpus, a vendor claim rather than an audit. The caveat is volume: a flat fee is generous at 900 calls and expensive at 250.
Hostie
Hostie is a guest communications product that takes orders on its top tier, $399 against a $199 base (published pricing, October 2026), with OpenTable, Resy, Toast and Square documented. The inbox is the buy: calls, texts and email read in one place. The caveat is what happens to an order after the call, which is a question for its demo. Hostie alternatives lists the shortlist if that is your problem.
Kovo
Kovo is ours, and it is the smallest thing here. It answers, takes the order the way the caller says it, reads it back, and writes the ticket to Toast, Square, Clover, Olo, or an Epson Server Direct Print or Star CloudPRNT printer. Starter is $99 for 750 connected minutes, Unlimited is $299 for 5,000, one store per subscription, no overage: at the cap, calls forward to your own phone. It books tables in its own reservation book, built from your hours and holiday exceptions with one seat written per slot, answers a website chat on the same engine, and does not write into OpenTable or Resy. With a card on file it charges it while the caller is still on the line; a first-time caller gets a texted link with the line held open. If your calls need a custom flow, buy the platform instead.
The first ten minutes of a replacement demo
Ten minutes, three questions, one call.
- What is the all-in monthly at 400 calls, with every component listed in writing?
- If the plan meters minutes, what does a five-minute call cost me at that volume?
- Who maintains the menu mapping and the hours after launch, and how do I request a change?
- Order two items with modifiers on my menu and correct one mid-order.
- Send the ticket to my POS now, and tell me what happens if it fails.
Questions one and three are the enterprise test: a vendor that answers both without a scoping document can sell to one shop, and one that cannot has told you who its customer is.
What an enterprise contract costs a two-shop group
Enterprise pricing is not published, so the arithmetic here is the visible side of the ledger.
Two locations on Kovo Unlimited is $598 a month, $7,176 a year, because one subscription covers one store and nothing is pooled. On Starter, the same two shops are $198 a month. An enterprise contract has to beat that not on the headline but on what it replaces: a phone line, a person answering it, and the calls nobody picks up.
That last item is the only big number. If each shop gives up 150 calls a month at $35 to $85 a call, that is $5,250 to $12,750 per location, the range the missed-call arithmetic lays out. A platform costing several times $299 can still be the right buy at that scale. It is the wrong buy on the strength of a demo.
Who this is wrong for
If you have one location and a menu that fits on one page, an enterprise platform is a procurement project standing where a phone line should be. Start at the fixed-price end of this list and move up only when a specific call type fails.
The reverse is also true. If you run forty units and need one contract and pooled capacity, comparing the platforms beats buying a $99 plan forty times.
FAQ
Why would a restaurant leave PolyAI?
Usually because the contract was built for a bigger buyer. PolyAI sells enterprise voice assistants on an enterprise contract, aimed at large brands and contact centers rather than single restaurants. When the minimum is built for 100 units and you run 2 locations, the phone problem is still unsolved on the day a $99 plan would have gone live.
Can a single restaurant buy PolyAI at all?
That is the question to ask on the first call, and the vendor is the only source. Public information describes enterprise contracts rather than published per-location pricing, so ask for the minimum contract, the implementation timeline, and whether one location can buy without a group deal. If the answer needs a legal review, you already know the fit, and a $99 plan does not ask the question.
What should I check in the first ten minutes of a replacement demo?
Two numbers and one mechanism. The all-in monthly at 400 calls, with every component listed. What a five-minute call costs if the plan meters minutes. Then an order with two modifiers on your own menu, followed by the kitchen ticket on your own POS. Ten minutes is enough to see whether the order closes or becomes a summary somebody re-types.
What do the alternatives cost compared with an enterprise contract?
The published ones are visible: Kovo is $99 for 750 connected minutes or $299 for 5,000, Loman publishes from $199 a month with no per-minute fees, and Hostie is $199 base with order taking on a $399 tier (published pricing, October 2026). An enterprise contract is not published, which is why the minimum belongs in the first email rather than the fourth meeting.
Does Kovo work for a multi-location group?
One subscription covers one store, and that does not change with volume: a second location is a second line, a second number, a second menu and a second subscription, with nothing pooled between them. Two shops at Unlimited are $598 a month. If you want one vendor, one contract and pooled capacity across eight sites, that is the case where an enterprise product fits.
Final Thoughts
PolyAI is a strong enterprise product answering a question a single restaurant rarely asks: how do I run thousands of conversations with a custom flow and a team behind them. If that is your question, stay. If the question is who picks up the handset on a Friday night, this is the wrong shelf.
Kovo is the narrow answer: $99 a month for 750 connected minutes, $299 for 5,000, self-serve, no overage, and any booking it takes stays in its own book rather than your OpenTable or Resy one. Take the test call with your own menu before you talk to anybody with a scoping document. Take a test call with your own menu.