How Toast Capital decides your number
Toast Capital is an embedded lending product built into the Toast POS, with loans issued by WebBank. As of 2026 standard loans run from about $1,000 to $300,000 per location, and newer accounts see a smaller introductory tier closer to $5,000 up to $100,000. You repay automatically as a fixed percentage of your daily card sales, so the payment flexes with how busy you are.
Toast is not judging your business as risky. It can only see the card sales that cross its own POS, and it sizes your offer to that slice, not your real revenue.
The offer surfaces in your dashboard as a pre-qualified number based on the actual and projected card payments you process through Toast. You can only request up to that number. There is no place to show the rest of your revenue.
16%
of consumer payments are still made in cash, and none of it counts toward your Toast Capital offer.
Federal Reserve 2024 Diary of Consumer Payment Choice
Why you are capped, even with a healthy restaurant
Several things quietly hold your number down, and none of them mean your business is weak.
- Cash and off-Toast sales do not count. Cash tips and tickets, catering paid by check or wire, and any card volume on a second terminal are invisible to the algorithm.
- The holdback has a ceiling. There is a maximum combined daily holdback so most of your revenue still reaches you, and that cap on holdback is the real cap on how much you can borrow.
- Seasonality shrinks the offer. Offers track projected card sales, so an off-season trough pulls your number down right when you may need capital most.
- Newer Toast accounts get less. Less time on the platform means thinner data and the smaller introductory tier.
- A loan past halfway must be refinanced. Once a loan is about 50% repaid you cannot simply add to it, which is another wall when you want more now.
How to get more than Toast will give
The fix is to be funded on your whole business rather than your Toast card volume. Funding can be sized to total business revenue, the full picture of deposits across your bank statements, which captures cash, catering, and any sales running outside Toast. Bank-statement and revenue-based lenders typically look at several months of deposits, so a restaurant doing strong total revenue is no longer limited to the slice that happens to flow through one POS.
Independent lenders also do not require you to stay on Toast, and they do not lock the decision to one processor's rails. If you want to add capital on top of an existing Toast advance, that is workable too, though it is usually structured as a revenue or deposit-based product rather than a competing claim on your card sales, since Toast's terms restrict pledging future card sales elsewhere. Our restaurant funding guide covers what works for restaurants specifically, and you can see real options by starting an application.
For scale, the National Restaurant Association projected industry sales around $1.55 trillion in 2026. The capital is out there. The task is matching your full revenue to a lender who will size to it.
Frequently asked questions
Why is my Toast Capital offer smaller than my actual revenue?
Toast sizes your offer on the card payments processed through your Toast POS, not your total revenue. Cash sales, catering paid outside Toast, and any card volume on another terminal are not counted, so the offer reflects only the slice Toast sees.
Does Toast Capital count my cash sales?
No. The offer is based on Toast-processed card volume. Cash, checks, and off-platform payments are invisible to it, which is a big reason a busy restaurant can get a smaller-than-expected number.
I’ve hit the maximum Toast will lend me. How do I get more?
Get funded on your whole business instead of your Toast volume. Bank-statement and revenue-based lenders size to your total deposits across several months, which captures the cash and off-Toast revenue Toast Capital ignores.
Can I get funding based on my total bank deposits instead of my Toast card sales?
Yes. That is exactly how bank-statement and revenue-based lenders work. They review your full deposit history rather than one processor’s volume, so your true revenue sets the amount.
Can I take additional financing on top of an existing Toast Capital loan?
Often yes, usually as a revenue or deposit-based product rather than a competing claim on your card sales, since Toast restricts pledging future card sales to another lender. It should be structured carefully to keep payments manageable.
My Toast offer dropped during my slow season. Can I get funding sized to my full year?
Yes. Lenders that underwrite on a multi-month average of deposits look past a single slow stretch, so your offer reflects your full-year revenue rather than your current trough.
