Tableside vs Arryved: True Cost Comparison for Restaurants (2026)
Arryved won over craft beverage makers by building the POS around the taproom instead of retrofitting a generic register: brewery-first workflows, production-side inventory, online and QR ordering, and loyalty that understands flights, crowlers, and mug clubs. For a taproom pouring its own beer, software that speaks brewhouse feels like found fit. For a full-service restaurant or bar that also needs table management, gift cards, review responses, and back-office automation, the taproom fit is the starting point — the working setup with the platform tier you will actually run, per-transaction charges, hardware per station, and loyalty and online-ordering modules lives above it.
The Numbers That Matter: Base Fee Plus a Cut of Every Pour
Arryved economics live in three lines most shoppers price separately and feel together:
- **Platform SaaS priced per venue, quoted not published** — Arryved does not publish fixed rate-card pricing; expect a tiered structure with a base platform fee per location that scales with the modules you switch on. The quote that covers POS alone is not the quote that covers POS plus loyalty plus online ordering — and every additional room or patio station adds hardware to the same bill.
- **Per-transaction charges on top of SaaS** — the tiered model commonly pairs the base fee with per-transaction charges that ride on processing, so busy Friday nights cost more in software than quiet Tuesdays. At restaurant order volumes the transaction line quietly outgrows the platform line — you pay rent on the software and a toll on the tickets.
- **Hardware per station, onboarding, and the payment rails underneath** — purpose-built terminals, printers, cash drawers, and menu builds arrive as setup costs, and card processing runs through the bundle's rails. The quote assumes the setup work underneath it — and none of it markets to a single guest after the order.
Ask any vendor for three numbers in writing: the all-in monthly platform total at your real location and station count with every module you will actually switch on (not the core quote alone), the per-transaction schedule at your real order mix, and the all-in Year 1 figure including hardware and onboarding. Compare those — not the taproom headline alone.
Starter Tier: Side by Side
Single location, 3 terminals, 250 orders/month, $10K monthly card revenue, annual billing:
- **Tableside Starter + Ordering — $325/mo, ~$1,350 setup, Year 1 ~$5,250.** Published pricing, no per-cover fee, no per-order fee, no mandatory processing markup.
- **Arryved realistic all-in — base platform fee per location plus per-transaction charges at restaurant volumes plus per-station hardware and onboarding, Year 1 commonly ~$4,000–$9,000+** once every line is counted — before table management, gift cards, review responses, or multi-unit reporting enter the picture, and rising with every busy month you run.
So the working Arryved line lands at roughly the same as — or near — the entire Tableside stack — while the guest relationship beyond the taproom wall still needs separate tools. And the platform that felt purpose-built at signing gets more expensive in exactly the months the room is full.
What Else to Weigh
Taproom-first vs. one stack. Arryved covers the pour-to-close moments beautifully, including production-side thinking no generic POS has; the table-management, gift-card, and review-response moments arrive as modules or separate vendors with separate bills. Tableside pairs ordering with the whole operation: POS, ordering, loyalty, gift cards, review responses, and an AI assistant that acts on all of it — you approve, it publishes — backed by a 90-day guarantee. Software that only covers the bar side leaves the dining room on your team's plate.
Per-transaction tolls vs. flat rate. A base-fee-plus-transaction model bills you more in exactly the months volume is highest — the moments your kitchen is thinnest. Tableside's flat monthly rate stays put whether you run 200 orders or 2,000, so busy seasons grow revenue, not software bills.
The Year 2 picture. Platform fees renew every month at every location, and the per-transaction schedule that felt acceptable at signing compounds with every order in Year 2. Tableside keeps updates done-for-you at the same flat rate, with direct ordering that keeps the guest relationship — and the margin — yours.
Who Should Pick Which?
- **Pick Arryved** if a brewery-first platform is the whole job — taproom POS plus production-side inventory plus craft-friendly ordering and loyalty in one bundle — and you have budgeted the full Year 1 line: the platform tier you will actually need plus per-transaction charges at your real order mix plus per-station hardware, not the base quote alone.
- **Pick Tableside** if you want one stack — POS, ordering, loyalty, gift cards, review responses, and AI updates — with published pricing at $325/month flat, where one saved Friday-night rush a week pays for it.
Next Steps
Add up your monthly Arryved platform fee at your real station count plus per-transaction charges at your real order mix — then ask what restaurant software actually costs all-in. If the total surprises you, request a demo and we will walk through the Tableside equivalent line by line — no per-cover fee, no per-order fee, no mandatory processing markup.
