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Toast Reports Net Adds Surge in Q2: Is the Momentum Sustainable?

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Key Takeaways

  • Toast grew to 148,000 locations in Q2 2025, up 24% year over year with 8,500 net new additions.
  • Management expects record net adds in 2025 to surpass 2024's full-year additions.
  • New products and expansion into newer territories like Australia are expected to drive Toast's growth.

Toast, Inc. (TOST - Free Report) delivered strong customer growth, with 8,500 net new locations added in the second quarter of 2025 and ending the quarter with 148,000 total locations (up 24% year over year). This particular metric remains at the core of TOST’s investment narrative as each new location expands its operational footprint and strengthens the recurring revenue base. Management expects to post record net adds in the current quarter and 2025 is now expected to top 2024’s full-year net additions. But can it sustain this pace?

Toast is deepening its presence in the core U.S. SMB restaurant market to drive new location growth. The company continues to grow market share in nearly every SMB market it operates in. Even in large and small metro areas where penetration exceeds 30%, underscoring that its local go-to-market strategy is paying off.

Further, new product features and focus on international expansion are likely to aid in driving net new locations. Toast collectively surpassed 10,000 live locations across enterprise, international and food & beverage retail segments in the second quarter and is on track to top $100 million in ARR by year-end. Wins such as Firehouse Subs highlight traction among large QSR brands. This will boost upselling and platform expansion. Toast also ventured into Australia, its fourth international market after the United Kingdom, Ireland and Canada.

However, expanding beyond the U.S. market will require TOST to navigate regional complexities, increasing execution risks. Additionally, the prevailing uncertainty in the macro environment due to escalating trade tensions, with tariff issues raising fears of higher costs and reducing consumer purchasing power, remains a concern. A consumer slowdown or rising costs could lower restaurant spending on technology. This could impact TOST’s performance, as it remains heavily dependent on the restaurant industry.

The competitive landscape introduces additional risks. Rivals like Block’s (XYZ - Free Report) Square and Lightspeed (LSPD - Free Report) continue to improve their offerings and remain focused on new client acquisition. Due to these challenges and risks, Toast may experience slower net additions or higher acquisition costs.

Taking a Look at Block and Lightspeed’s Strategic Efforts

Block provides financial and marketing solutions through a comprehensive commerce ecosystem that enables sellers to launch, manage and expand their businesses. Within this ecosystem is Square for Restaurants, a dedicated vertical software offering that competes directly with TOST’s platform. Tailored for both quick-service and full-service restaurants, it features table, order and course management, a kitchen display system, along with tools for revenue tracking and cost reporting.

It remains focused on new product launches to drive revenues for Square. XYZ launched Square AI, which uses AI agent, codenamed goose and is powered by Square data. It is designed to give sellers quick, data-driven insights into their businesses. Integrated directly into the Square Dashboard, it allows sellers to work smarter and faster by using a conversational interface to uncover sales trends, identify top-selling items by time of day, analyze customer spending behaviors and more. This feature highlights Block’s efforts to bring advanced AI capabilities to its sellers. In May, TOST launched Square Handheld in the United States and is now is introducing it in international territories.

Lightspeed’s strategic pivot toward North America’s Retail and Europe’s Hospitality, two verticals with high potential, bodes well. In the last reported quarter, customer locations in these two verticals rose 5% year over year to 90,000. At the quarter-end, the total customer locations of approximately 145,000. Lightspeed is heavily investing in innovation to enhance its platforms.

It recently launched an AI-driven Benchmarks & Trends tool for hospitality in Europe. This solution offers restaurant owners the inputs required to accelerate sales growth and streamline operations. It also launched Mobile Tap on Lightspeed Tableside in the United Kingdom, Netherlands and Belgium. This solution aids in boosting table turnover and service speed.

TOST’s Price Performance, Valuation and Estimates

Shares of TOST have lost 11% in the past month against the the Internet-Software industry’s growth of 0.5%.

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Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

In terms of price/book, TOST’s shares are trading at 11.62X, up from the Internet-Software industry’s ratio of 6.1X.

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Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for TOST’s earnings for 2025 has been revised upwards over the past 60 days.

Zacks Investment Research
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

TOST currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.


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