MarginEdge records what you paid after the invoice is processed. RestaurantMate checks your website vendors' prices overnight on your own logins, before you order. It then fills each vendor's online cart and checks every line so you can review and check out, and it reads every invoice too.
This page is for owners who use MarginEdge today or are pricing it. MarginEdge facts come from its own website and help center unless marked third-party. They are as of October 2026, and the links are at the end.
The two tools side by side
| RestaurantMate | MarginEdge | |
|---|---|---|
| When you see a vendor's price | Before you order, checked overnight on your own login | After the invoice is processed; order guides show your most recent purchase price |
| Same-unit comparison (per lb, per each) | Across your vendors, before you buy | Purchase Report compares what you paid, from invoices |
| Vendors it works with | Website vendors by login, email-only vendors by inbox, paper receipts by photo | Any vendor whose invoices you upload; direct invoice feeds (EDI) from listed distributors |
| Ordering | One cart split by vendor, minimums shown. RestaurantMate fills each vendor's online cart and checks every line; you review and check out. | Orders emailed to each vendor. Its help center says direct (EDI) ordering covers one vendor. |
| Invoices | Reads every invoice; mark items damaged, short or wrong | Unlimited invoice processing, its core product |
| Counts and recipes | Yes, at prices paid; recipes sent in any format | Yes, with menu analysis |
| Register (POS) sales and labor | Toast and SpotOn today; we add your POS on request. Labor from 7shifts and Homebase. | 50+ POS partners (third-party count); daily profit and loss (P&L) report |
| Bill pay and accounting | Not offered | Unlimited US bill pay, statement reconciliation, accounting integrations |
| Customers | Live in 10+ restaurants | 11,000+ clients (its own claim) |
| Price per location | Free for 60 days, then $99 a month; $300 refundable device deposit, one device covers up to two locations; setup $0 | $350 a month ($500 with its Freepour liquor add-on), 10% off annual; onboarding packages, price not listed |
What MarginEdge does well
MarginEdge is a mature invoice and bill pay tool with accounting integrations and a large customer base. If you need bill pay or your accountant needs a sync, it does that and RestaurantMate does not.
- Its team processes every invoice you send, with no cap. You photograph it in the app, forward the email, or upload a file.
- It pays your US vendor bills and reconciles vendor statements (checks the vendor's monthly statement against your invoices).
- It sends invoices to your accounting software and gives you a daily profit and loss (P&L) report.
- It connects to far more point-of-sale (POS) systems than we do.
- Its home page claims over 11,000 clients and more than 5 million invoices processed.
- The monthly plan has no contract, and 1:1 training is included.
Most of what follows is about the part of buying that happens before the invoice exists.
You see the price before you order
MarginEdge learns a price when it processes your invoice. When you order, its order guide shows "most recent purchase price" for each item. That is a useful record of what you paid last time.
RestaurantMate looks at the price the night before you buy. A small box in your restaurant, the RestaurantMate device, signs in to each vendor website with your own login between midnight and 5:30 am. It reads the current price of every item on your lists. It runs on your restaurant's own internet because vendor sites block logins from cloud servers.
Then it puts every vendor on the same unit, using each vendor's own pack size:
| Yellow onions | Pack | Case price | Price per lb |
|---|---|---|---|
| Heartland Foodservice | 40 lb case | $58.00 | $1.45 |
| Club Wholesale | 25 lb bag | $34.50 | $1.38 |
| Valley Fresh Produce | 6 x 5 lb | $39.60 | $1.32 |
If your kitchen goes through 120 lb of onions a week, the gap between the top and bottom rows is $15.60 a week on one item. You can do this math by hand (here's the method). Redoing it every week for every item takes a lot of time, and RestaurantMate redoes it every night. When a vendor doesn't list the pack size, the price shows "Missing unit" and you type the amount once. It never guesses.
It works with the vendors you already buy from
Your vendors don't have to sign up for anything.
- Vendors with a website connect with your own login. Logins are stored privately, used only to sign in to that vendor, and never shown again after you save them.
- Email-only vendors send invoices, price sheets and bills to your RestaurantMate inbox (an address like yourname@mail.rmate.ai), or you connect Gmail or Outlook read-only.
- For paper and walk-in vendors, photograph the receipt or upload up to 20 files at a time. Our AI fills in the vendor, date, number and total.
We connect to any vendor you buy from. If we haven't connected one yet, we build it for you, usually within days.
MarginEdge also works with any vendor whose invoices you send it. Some distributors can send invoice data straight to MarginEdge by EDI (electronic data interchange, a direct feed from the vendor's system). Its help center puts EDI setup at about 1 to 8 weeks, depending on the vendor, and MarginEdge will not process EDI data until an invoice image is uploaded.
Ordering: email orders vs filled online carts
In MarginEdge, a vendor appears for ordering once one of its invoices has been processed. You set up the vendor's order email and an order guide, and the order goes out as an email. Its help center says it supports EDI ordering for only one vendor and that "All other vendors will need to be setup via email."
In RestaurantMate, one cart holds the order for every vendor, split by vendor, with each vendor's minimum shown. Staff can build the cart. Only people you give full ordering access can send it. When they press Send, the device signs in to each vendor's website, fills that vendor's online cart and reads it back to check every line. You open the vendor's cart, review it and check out.
You order from vendors without a website the way you do today, and their invoices still come in. Orders are tracked from placed to delivered for vendors that share order status, and every purchase is tracked from the invoice on.
Both read your invoices
Here the tools overlap. Both read every invoice, value your counts at what you paid, and cost your recipes from real prices. A few differences show up day to day.
- Past invoices. When you connect a website vendor, RestaurantMate pulls up to six months of its past invoices. MarginEdge processes one week of past invoices when you start and charges a fee for more.
- Problems on delivery. In RestaurantMate you mark an item damaged, short or wrong on its invoice line and track each issue.
- Recipes. Send your recipes in any format (a photo, a PDF, a spreadsheet) to your agent or our team. RestaurantMate sets them up, clears the obvious ones and asks you only about the unclear ones. Cost per plate goes down to POS modifiers, the add-ons like extra cheese that ring in at the register.
MarginEdge covers more on sales, labor and accounting
MarginEdge pays your bills, posts to your accounting software and connects to many more POS systems. A third-party review counts over 50 POS partners. RestaurantMate syncs sales from Toast and SpotOn today, and we add your POS on request. Labor comes from 7shifts and Homebase. RestaurantMate does not pay bills or post to an accounting system. If your bookkeeper works inside MarginEdge every week, weigh that.
The buying side of RestaurantMate (prices, cart, invoices, counts) works without any POS connection.
What each costs in the first year
RestaurantMate. 60 days free with no card, then $99 per location per month. The RestaurantMate device has a $300 refundable deposit, and one device covers up to two locations. Setup is $0 and done with you. Leave whenever.
MarginEdge. $350 per location per month, or $500 with Freepour, its liquor-counting add-on. Billing annually takes 10% off and means a 12-month term; the monthly plan has no contract. MarginEdge says it charges no traditional setup fees. Its pricing page describes onboarding packages without listing their prices. A third-party review (Forbes Advisor) says it has no free trial. Toast users also pay a pass-through fee, listed as $50 per location per month for Toast's Restaurant Management Suite.
| First year | RestaurantMate | MarginEdge, billed monthly | MarginEdge, billed annually |
|---|---|---|---|
| One location | About $990, plus $300 refundable deposit | $4,200 | $3,780 |
| Two locations | About $1,980, plus one $300 refundable deposit | $8,400 | $7,560 |
RestaurantMate's figure is 60 free days, then 10 paid months at $99. The MarginEdge figures leave out onboarding packages (no listed price) and the Toast fee (Toast users only).
Who should pick which
Pick MarginEdge if you want invoices, bill pay and accounting in one place and you already know which vendor to buy from. It also fits if you need sales data from a POS other than Toast or SpotOn today, or if your bookkeeper already runs your books through it.
Pick RestaurantMate if you buy from several vendors with websites, say a broadline distributor, a club store and a local produce company, and you want to know who is cheaper before you order. It fits owners who place most orders themselves or through one manager and want the carts filled and checked for them.
Run both if you rely on MarginEdge for bill pay or your accounting sync and also want prices before you order. At list prices that is $449 per location a month.
Switching from MarginEdge, or running both
Keep MarginEdge for bill pay if you need it, and use RestaurantMate for buying. If you move over completely:
- Check your MarginEdge term. If you pay annually you are on a 12-month term, so check the end date before you cancel.
- Fill in the RestaurantMate welcome screen: your vendors, how you order from each, logins for website vendors, and the addresses invoices come from. Send your order guide or inventory sheet, and your recipes, in any format.
- Our team connects your vendors, which the welcome screen says usually takes a few days. The RestaurantMate device goes in your restaurant, and up to six months of past invoices come in from each website vendor.
- Use the 60 free days to compare both tools on your own invoices before you cancel anything.
One owner's numbers
Miguel runs two restaurants in Los Angeles. RestaurantMate has cut his food purchases by about 10%, and by 20 to 30% on some items where he switched vendors, and his manager gets back 4 to 5 hours a week.
When he asked us to set up his second location, we asked him to wait three weeks for a new version. He wrote back: "No, it would be great if you could onboard me today. I cannot imagine running my second location without RestaurantMate anymore."
RestaurantMate is live in 10+ restaurants across Columbia (Missouri), Kansas City, Los Angeles and Boston.
Questions MarginEdge users ask
Is RestaurantMate a MarginEdge alternative? For invoices, counts, recipes, food cost, price comparison and ordering, yes. For bill pay and an accounting sync, no. Keep MarginEdge or another tool for those.
How much does MarginEdge cost? As of October 9, 2026: $350 per location per month, $500 with Freepour, and 10% off with annual billing on a 12-month term. Check marginedge.com/pricing for the current price.
What do MarginEdge reviews say? We haven't quoted reviews because we couldn't check their full text and dates ourselves. Read them on G2 and Capterra, and look for restaurants your size.
MarginEdge already tracks my prices. What would RestaurantMate add? The price at each of your vendors before you choose. It reads the invoice afterward too, so you keep the history.
Will RestaurantMate order without me? No. Nothing goes to a vendor until someone with full ordering access presses Send. RestaurantMate then fills each vendor's online cart and checks every line, and you review and check out.
Why do I need a device in my restaurant? Vendor websites block logins from cloud servers, so the RestaurantMate device does the overnight logins from your restaurant's own internet. The deposit is $300, refundable, and one device covers up to two locations.
MarginEdge has 11,000 clients. Why try a smaller company? MarginEdge is far larger. We are live in 10+ restaurants. You can try RestaurantMate for 60 days with no card, keep MarginEdge running alongside it, and judge both on your own invoices.
Get started. 60 days free, then $99 per location a month. No card required.
Try the live demo to see price comparison, the cart and invoices for a sample restaurant.
Prices and features as of October 2026, from each company's public website and help center. Product names are trademarks of their owners. RestaurantMate is not affiliated with MarginEdge. If something here is out of date, email us and we'll fix it.
Sources (as of 2026-10-09)
- MarginEdge pricing (price, Freepour, annual term, onboarding packages, Toast fee, bill pay, no contract on monthly)
- MarginEdge home page (11,000+ clients, 5.0M+ invoices processed)
- MarginEdge help center, Ordering and Order Guides section
- Intro to Placing Orders through MarginEdge (orders by email, EDI ordering for one vendor, vendors created from processed invoices)
- How to Place an Order with a Vendor through MarginEdge (order guide shows most recent purchase price)
- Invoice FAQs (processing time of 1 to 2 days, one week of past invoices, more for a fee)
- Request Your Digital (EDI) Invoices (setup times by distributor, closed invoice required first)
- Dig Into Your Spend with the Purchase Report (compares pricing across vendors and locations from invoices)
- Forbes Advisor review, third-party (no free trial)
- SoftwareConnect review, third-party ("over 50 different POS partners")