by Matt Rej
Toast and Adyen have been working together internationally since 2021. But on August 10, 2026, Adyen announced that their partnership with Toast is expanding into the United States.
It’s a meaningful move for these two companies because the vast majority of Toast’s market share is here in the US.
And for restaurants using Toast for payment processing, the announcement raises two interesting questions:
- Can you now use Adyen instead of Toast Payments? No.
- Will you pay less for credit card processing? Not necessarily and not automatically.
That said, this is still a story worth paying attention to. It gives you a useful look at how Toast Payments actually works behind the scenes, and how you can leverage this information to negotiate better rates with Toast.
You Still Can’t Choose Your Own Payment Processor on Toast
This is probably the biggest source of confusion surrounding the announcement.
Toast operates as a closed-loop PayFac. Which means if you want to have payment processing integrated with your Toast software and Toast POS, you need to use Toast Payments.
Restaurants can’t bring their own processor or choose which processor their transactions get routed through behind the scenes of their Toast account.
Your contract is with Toast. And you don’t have any control over the backend acquirer.
Adyen being added to Toast’s US payments infrastructure doesn’t change that.
Toast Uses Multiple Acquirers to Process Payments
As a payment facilitator, Toast relies on third-party acquiring banks to actually process restaurant payments.
They primarily use Wells Fargo and Fifth Third Bank (which is typically Worldpay), among others. But they’re free to establish additional processors and have full discretion over which acquirers get used on different accounts.
That’s where Adyen comes in.
Adyen is simply providing additional infrastructure underneath Toast Payments.
The merchant-facing product is still Toast. But it’s possible your transactions may be processed by Adyen now (though you don’t have a say in this).
Could Adyen Lower Toast’s Own Processing Costs?
Potentially. Neither company said that Toast selected Adyen because they’re getting a better price. But I doubt Toast would do something that would increase their costs.
Here’s how this could work:
Toast is on the hook for paying the acquirers, issuing banks, card networks, and other financial institutions involved in facilitating card transactions. Then Toast determines what they want to charge restaurants for Toast Payments.
Those are two different numbers.
If Toast can negotiate better economics with its processing partners, improve routing, and ultimately make their operations more efficient, the margin widens between Toast’s costs and what the restaurants ultimately pay.
And at Toast’s volume, even a few basis points on billions of dollars is a lot of money.
Even if Adyen isn’t directly giving Toast a better rate. Adding them to the mix can give Toast more negotiating leverage with their other partners. Anytime competition increases in payments it helps keep costs lower.
But whether those savings trickle-down to any restaurants remains to be seen.
Lower Costs for Toast Don’t Automatically Translate to Lower Rates for Restaurants
This is the most important takeaway from the Toast/Adyen announcement.
Even if the US partnership does make payment processing less expensive for Toast, there’s no guarantee that Toast passes those savings to merchants.
They certainly aren’t going to contact you out of the blue and say they’re dropping your rates by 10-20 basis points or anything like that. I’ve been doing this for a decade, and automatic rate decrease notifications simply don’t exist.
The only way for restaurants to save money on credit card processing via Toast Payments is to ask Toast directly.
Does This Mean It’s a Good Time to Negotiate Your Toast Rates?
Yes, but with one important caveat. It’s always a good time to be working to improve your payment economics.
That’s exactly what Toast did by bringing Adyen to its US payment infrastructure. So you can and should be doing the same.
Though I don’t think I’d call Toast and say, “I know you’re using Adyen now, so I want a lower rate.”
It’s unlikely that Toast has seen a major cost reduction on their side yet from something so new. But there’s no harm in mentioning to Toast that you know they have multiple options to route your transactions in a way that’s most cost-effective for everyone. And you’d like to share those savings.
This is a better opportunity for high-volume restaurants, multi-location groups, and chains that generate real revenue for Toast. They’re more likely to want to keep your business and work with you on pricing compared to say a small coffee truck doing $60k per year.
The key takeaway is that: Toast’s payment processing rates ARE negotiable.
Even though they advertise certain rates publicly and even though you can’t choose your own processor, you always have the freedom to contact Toast and negotiate better terms.
Final Thoughts
The Toast/Adyen partnership announcement was somewhat of a tease for restaurateurs keeping an eye on payments news.
Adyen has long been known as a top processor offering competitive rates. So the initial headlines may have given you a bit of false hope that you could use Adyen directly with Toast or that your rates would automatically drop. But neither is true.
That’s the tradeoff you get with PayFacs. Yes, it’s convenient to get POS, restaurant ops software, marketing tools, and payment processing all from a single provider. But the more you rely on Toast for different business categories, the less leverage you have overall in terms of your rates.
And with Toast Payments always sitting between you and the backend acquirer, you’ll never pay rock-bottom pricing because your rates need to be set high enough to ensure everyone is profitable.
But that doesn’t mean your hands are completely tied.
Some restaurants definitely have a legitimate case to negotiate lower rates with Toast. This holds true with or without the Adyen deal.
Though the Adyen partnership can be your motivation to pick up the phone and contact Toast now.