Best Email Marketing Software for Restaurants

Most "best of" email marketing software for restaurants articles are written by a company that ranks itself first. Campaigner's list puts Campaigner at #1. Moosend's puts Moosend at #1. Mailmodo's puts Mailmodo at #1. This page is different: eight platforms, the same four criteria for every one, and a disclosure of how we make money. If you want the short answer — if you already run your POS on Toast or Square, stay there; if your list matters more than your POS, go Mailchimp; if you take reservations and depend on regulars, SevenRooms.

The short answer

Most restaurant owners don't need to read a full comparison. Four situations cover almost everyone.

Your POS is Toast

Stay on Toast Marketing

The list builds itself at checkout and nobody has to remember to do anything. The cost of switching is that the list transfer breaks once. Ask Toast for the marketing price directly — it is not published.

Your POS is Square

Stay on Square Marketing

Same logic, plus SMS on the same panel, and for restaurants SMS often outperforms email. $49/month per location includes email, text, loyalty and the customer directory. The most complete package here for a single location, and you can cancel monthly.

You live on regulars

SevenRooms

It records who came, when, and who hasn't been back in three months — the only thing that makes birthday and win-back emails work instead of guess. There is no published price, and email marketing is a paid add-on on top of the platform.

You just want to send email

Mailchimp

Not because it has the most features, but because the free plan covers 250 contacts and 500 sends a month at no cost, and exporting the list later is not painful.

At a glance

Tool	All-in / month	Best for	Biggest gotcha
Toast Marketing	Ask Toast	Already on Toast POS	Email and SMS are a paid add-on on every tier, including the $0 one.
Square Marketing	$49	Already on Square POS	Marketing starts at Plus, not Free.
SevenRooms	Quote only	Takes reservations, depends on regulars	Email marketing is a paid add-on, not part of any plan.
ChowNow Marketing	$229	Runs its own online ordering	Contact caps bind fast: 500 on Launch, 2,000 on Grow ($319), 5,000 on Elevate ($409).
Popmenu	$159	Wants the website and menu upgraded too	12-month prepay, auto-renews for one year, 30 days’ notice to cancel.
Klaviyo	$20	Data-driven, wants fine segmentation	The steepest learning curve, and it captures nothing about your restaurant — you feed it.
Mailchimp	Free	Just starting, budget-sensitive	Sending pauses if you exceed the contact or send limit.
Constant Contact	$12	Wants real human support	No free plan — free trial with no credit card and a 30-day money-back guarantee instead.

Full detail, what each tool does well, and what it does badly, is below.

The eight, one by one

Every entry answers the same four questions: who it is for, the real advantage, the real weakness, and the first thing to do if you pick it.

Toast Marketing

Already on Toast POS

Ask Toast

not published

Price: The marketing price is not published. POS starts at $69/mo (first terminal only); marketing is an add-on on every tier.
List from: Checkout, automatically
Good at: Email + loyalty + gift cards; AI writing assistant; restaurant-specific template library; campaigns triggered by POS order data
Watch: Email and SMS are a paid add-on on every tier, including the $0 one. Hardware and implementation are separate upfront costs. No published cancellation terms

Square Marketing

Already on Square POS

$49

per month

Price: per location, per month (Square Plus). The free tier has no email marketing. Premium is $149/mo
List from: Checkout and online orders, automatically
Good at: Email + SMS + loyalty + customer directory + marketing reports; automatic Google review requests at no extra cost; 30-day free trial
Watch: Marketing starts at Plus, not Free. SMS is metered separately (3¢/text on Plus). Your guest list then lives in Square’s customer directory

SevenRooms

Takes reservations, depends on regulars

Quote only

not published

Price: Three plans (Starter / Growth / Premium), monthly subscription plus a one-time setup fee. It no longer charges per cover
List from: The reservation book and visit history
Good at: The only tool here whose guest record is built around visits, not orders. 4 built-in automations on Starter, advanced segmentation on Growth, custom automations + AI marketing assistant on Premium
Watch: Email marketing is a paid add-on, not part of any plan. No free tier, no trial. Acquired by DoorDash in June 2025

ChowNow Marketing

Runs its own online ordering

$229

per month

Price: per location (annual plan); $249 monthly. Plus $119–$499 one-time setup and 2.95% + $0.29 per transaction
List from: Ordering accounts, plus CSV upload of in-store guest lists
Good at: Converts takeout customers into a list you own. Welcome / Win Back / VIP / Seasonal automations, auto-generated segments, revenue attribution
Watch: Contact caps bind fast: 500 on Launch, 2,000 on Grow ($319), 5,000 on Elevate ($409). No free tier. Cancellation needs a form and a call, with a 30-day paid tail and no prorated refund on annual plans

Popmenu

Wants the website and menu upgraded too

$159

per month

Price: per location (annual prepay); $179 monthly. Plus a flat $1.00 per online order
List from: Website, menu, reservations, OpenTable guest data
Good at: Website + menu + ordering + reservations + marketing in one place. The guest list is fed automatically by its own site and menu
Watch: 12-month prepay, auto-renews for one year, 30 days’ notice to cancel. The pricing page says "No contracts. Cancel anytime" — the terms say otherwise. Starter cannot send mass email campaigns at all; no segmentation until Premier ($449)

Klaviyo

Data-driven, wants fine segmentation

$20

per month

Price: per month at 251–500 contacts. $30 at 501–1,000, $45 at 1,001–1,500. Free up to 250 profiles and 500 sends/month
List from: You connect the data yourself
Good at: The strongest segmentation and automation on this page; 350+ integrations; SMS add-on from $15/mo
Watch: The steepest learning curve, and it captures nothing about your restaurant — you feed it. Toast syncs orders but not consent. A 300-guest restaurant uses a fraction of what it pays for

Mailchimp

Just starting, budget-sensitive

Free

per month

Price: up to 250 contacts and 500 sends/month. Essentials from $13/mo, Standard $20/mo, Premium $350/mo — annual prepay saves 15%
List from: You import the list or connect a POS
Good at: The most templates, a usable free tier, 300+ integrations, and an export that is not painful
Watch: Sending pauses if you exceed the contact or send limit. Generative AI and custom-coded templates are Standard-and-up. The free plan keeps Mailchimp branding on your emails

Constant Contact

Wants real human support

$12

per month

Price: per month, Lite. Standard $35, Premium $80 (annual prepay: $10.20 / $29.75 / $68)
List from: You import the list
Good at: Live phone and chat support on every plan. Subject-line A/B testing, automatic resend to non-openers, and open/click reporting on Standard
Watch: No free plan — free trial with no credit card and a 30-day money-back guarantee instead. Automation depth is behind the rest: 1 automation template on Lite, 3 on Standard

Where your list comes from

This is the section that decides it, and it is the one almost every "best of" list skips.

Every list above answers the same question, whether the vendor admits it or not: can this tool put a name in your list without you doing anything? A restaurant's email list dies at one specific moment — the guest has a great meal and walks out, and nobody asked them for an email. Software that only sends email requires you to already have a list. Software that starts at the point of sale or the reservation book builds it for you.

So the order of the question is not "which tool has the best templates." It is:

Where does a new email address enter my system? Checkout, reservation, QR code, website popup.
Can the tool see what a guest ordered, or when they last visited? If not, every email you send is generic no matter how many templates it has.
What happens to my list if I change tools? Ask this before you pay, not after.

What the vendor blogs leave out

Moving your list breaks once

The automatically populated addresses that come out of the old system usually miss a step — they never get the confirmation email. Send a "please confirm you still want our emails" message to the imported list first, and expect a smaller list afterwards. A smaller, confirmed list beats a bigger, broken one.

Your sending domain needs its own setup

Emails sent from a tool's default domain land in promotions. Setting up SPF, DKIM and DMARC for your own domain matters more to your delivery rate than which tool you picked.

Do not buy a "restaurant email list"

That term searches 170 times a month — the largest number on this site — but the people selling it are selling data to B2B buyers, not a guest list for your restaurant. A bought list damages your sending domain every time you use it.

Check whether an annual contract renews itself

Several of these tools sell on annual contracts. Before you sign, ask what happens at renewal, what the notice period is, and whether there is a cancellation fee. One of them makes you pay the last 30 days even if you cancel, and does not refund the unused part of a prepaid year.

Two of these are restaurant operating systems, not email tools

SevenRooms sells reservations, waitlists and table management. ChowNow sells ordering, a website and a branded app. The email marketing is a module on top. That is not a reason to avoid them — if you need the operations, the marketing comes with it — but it means you are comparing a $229/month restaurant platform against a $20/month email tool, and they are not answering the same question. The right question is: which restaurant data do you already have, and which vendor's graph is bigger?

How we check this page

Checked 22 Oct 2026

Every price above was read from the vendor's own pricing page, and we go back on the first of each month. Where a vendor doesn't publish a price, we say so instead of guessing — two of the eight on this page work that way. Where a marketing page and the terms disagree, we use the terms, because the terms are what bind you.

How we make money: this site runs advertising. It does not accept payment for placement, and no vendor can pay for a better rank. Every tool on this list has a "what's wrong with it" section, including the ones that advertise here. We re-check every price on the first of each month. If a tool stops being worth recommending, we remove it. → Read our full editorial policy →

Questions we actually get

Is Mailchimp good for restaurants?

It is fine for restaurants, and it only solves half the problem: sending. It does not collect. A single-location restaurant with a few hundred guests and no automated list-building will usually get more out of staying on the POS it already uses.

What's the cheapest option for a small restaurant?

If you are on Square, $49/month per location is the most complete package on this page. If you have no POS, a general tool’s free tier will carry you to a few hundred guests at no cost. What you should not do is buy a list, and you should not open an ad-heavy site to advertise other people’s tools.

Do I need restaurant-specific software, or is a general email tool enough?

If you already have a POS or a reservation system, the restaurant-specific tools are usually free upgrades to what you already pay. If you have neither and your list is small, a general tool plus a QR code on the table card is a perfectly good answer.

Toast vs Square for email marketing — which one?

Whichever one your POS already is. The switching cost is the guest list, not the price. The only reason to switch is if your current POS is not collecting emails at all.

Can I switch later without losing my list?

Yes, but export before you cancel, and check that the tool imports in bulk. If your list was built automatically inside the POS, the replacement will start empty and you will have to re-collect — which is the real cost of switching, and the reason to pick the tool that collects emails first.

How much does this normally cost for one location?

It depends on the pricing model, and the models are not comparable: POS- and reservation-based tools charge per location or per cover, general tools charge per contact. A restaurant with 500 guests and a restaurant with 5,000 guests are in different brackets on the general tools and the same bracket on the location-based ones. We publish what each vendor publishes, with the date we checked, rather than a single blended number.

Why isn't HubSpot on this list?

It tops a lot of "best tools for restaurants" lists, and it is a fine general CRM. But it is priced per seat as well as per contact, it is not built around restaurant data — no point-of-sale tie-in, no reservation book, no visit history — and it did not appear among the results for this question. For a multi-location group with a marketing hire, HubSpot is worth a look. For a single-location owner sending birthday and win-back emails, it is a large tool pointed at a small job.

Last checked 22 Oct 2026

Written by the emailforrestaurants.com team. Every price on the comparison page was read from the vendor's own site and re-checked on the first of each month.

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