Toast Order Ready Texts From the POS App: Pick One Trigger

Quick answer: Toast's product update dated September 17, 2026 says guests can now get an order-ready text for takeout and curbside orders created on the Toast POS app when staff select Order Ready on the Orders Hub or Payment Terminal screens. Before this, those POS-created orders only texted when the kitchen fulfilled the ticket on a kitchen display system (KDS). The feature is off by default, it is listed as "Rollout In Progress" for United States locations starting September 17, and Toast warns that if your location also sends a text when the kitchen fulfills a ticket on a KDS, the guest gets two messages. Toast Support recommends one method or the other. So the job is not "turn it on." The job is to decide which moment should mean "ready" at your counter, confirm with Toast which settings your location actually has, turn on that one trigger, and prove it with your own phone before a guest sees it.

This is a workflow guide built from Toast's announcement and its support articles as they read on September 21, 2026. We did not run it on a live Toast system, and it does not involve any AI feature. One caution up front: on the same date as the announcement, Toast's Orders Hub FAQ was updated and still says order-ready texts are not sent for in-store POS orders, and two other Orders Hub articles say the same. We cannot tell you which one describes your location today. Treat the two as conflicting, ask Toast Support to confirm the rollout status and scope for your location, and do not change production settings on the strength of this post alone.

Who this is for

Owners and managers of a US Toast location that takes phone or walk-up takeout orders on the POS and either has a KDS or is thinking about texting guests. Staff who take those orders need the consent step in the staff section, because Toast requires a specific statement to be read before a phone number is collected for order-status texts.

Two triggers, and what you decide they mean

Toast documents two separate events that can send an order-ready text. The event is what the system does. What that event means to your guest is an operating decision you make on top of it.

The difference between "kitchen finished" and "packed and ready" is the whole decision. If your takeout orders go from the KDS straight into a bag on the counter, the KDS text is honest. If there is a packing, labeling or sauce-and-napkins step between the bump and the shelf, a text at the bump brings the guest in early, and the Orders Hub trigger matches reality better. Check both manual actions and automatic status changes in your setup before deciding which event should tell a guest the order is ready.

Before you turn anything on

• Rollout. The announcement covers United States locations and says the change is rolling out starting September 17, 2026. Toast's Orders Hub articles, one of them updated the same day, still exclude in-store POS orders. Ask Toast Support whether your location has the POS-created-order path before you plan around it.
• Permission. Setting up Order Ready Messaging needs the 6.6 Restaurant Operations Setup permission.
• Which orders. Third-party orders (Toast lists Deliveroo, DoorDash, Uber Eats, Just Eat, Skip and Grubhub) never get an Orders Hub text; those guests are notified by the app they ordered on. The order also needs a phone number on it.
• Fulfillment. Toast's Orders Hub overview says the order must be fulfilled at a prep station or expediter for the text to send, and an item set to label-only, "No Print," or routed only to a printer with no kitchen display is never marked fulfilled. If your takeout items print to a ticket printer only, ask Toast whether the new POS-created-order path changes that; the announcement does not say.
• Eligibility limits. Toast publishes a list of area codes and other conditions under which the text will not send. Check the current list in Toast's Orders Hub texting article rather than a copy.
• Consent. Toast requires staff to read a specific statement before a guest gives a phone number for order-status texts. It is quoted in that same article. Train it, do not paraphrase it.

What Toast documents for the Orders Hub path

These are Toast's documented controls for the Orders Hub trigger, condensed. Nothing here sends a message by itself, and none of it is a recipe for every location; it is what to look at with Toast on the line.

1. In Toast Web, go to Takeout & delivery > Orders Hub > Order ready guest messaging. Turn on Takeout, Curbside, or both. Keep the default text or write your own; "$Restaurant" inserts your restaurant name.
2. Decide whether the KDS should move orders to Order Ready for you. The setting is Takeout & delivery > Orders Hub > Kitchen Display System (KDS). On, an order fulfilled at the expediter KDS moves to Order Ready without a counter tap, which collapses "packed" back into "kitchen finished." Off, a person taps Order Ready. If you chose this path because packing takes time, leave it off. Save, then Publish all changes.
3. Make sure only one message goes out. The announcement says to use one method or the other. Ask Toast which kitchen-side text setting at your location would also fire for these orders and turn that one off, rather than guessing from a settings page written for a different region.

If you prefer the kitchen trigger

Leave Order ready guest messaging off in the Orders Hub settings and keep the kitchen fulfillment text. The Toast article that walks through the kitchen text settings step by step opens by scoping itself to phone numbers in Canada, the UK and Ireland, so we are not reproducing its steps here for a US location. Ask Toast to confirm the US setup for your kitchen trigger, including which fulfillment stage sends the text if you run more than one expediter level.

The staff side: taking the phone order

Whichever trigger you pick, the order needs a guest phone number attached and the consent statement read first. How your POS prompts for the number depends on your dining-option setup; if it does not prompt on a takeout order, ask Toast how to attach a number at your location rather than changing global dining-option defaults on a hunch. A fictional shop, Elm Street Deli, uses this three-line script:

1. "Would you like a text when your order is ready?"
2. Read the Toast consent statement shown on the POS, word for word.
3. Repeat the number back, then confirm the pickup time.

Then the ready step depends on the path. Under the Orders Hub path the counter person taps Order Ready when the bag is sealed and on the shelf, not when the kitchen bumps it. Under the kitchen path, the kitchen's fulfillment action on the KDS is what sends the text, so the kitchen needs to know that bumping the ticket is also telling the guest to come in.

Prove it with your own number before a guest sees it

Toast's own troubleshooting suggests creating a test order with a known phone number. Here is a fictional version for Elm Street Deli. Use your own phone, tell the kitchen and counter staff before you start, follow whatever test-order procedure your restaurant has already approved for creating and closing test orders, and do not use a guest's number.

1. Create a takeout order on the POS app for one item under your approved test procedure and enter your own mobile number.
2. If you chose the Orders Hub path: let the kitchen handle the ticket exactly as they normally would, then have the counter tap Order Ready in Orders Hub when it would really be packed. Note the time each text arrives, if any.
3. If you chose the kitchen path: let the kitchen fulfill the ticket on the KDS and have nobody tap Order Ready. Note the time each text arrives, if any.
4. Close the test order the way your approved procedure says.
5. Read the results. One text at the moment you chose is a pass for that order. More than one text does not by itself prove both triggers are on: an order moved back to Active and marked ready again sends again, and Toast documents other paths; open both settings pages and the order's history before changing anything. No text can mean the rollout has not reached your location, the order type is not eligible, the item never counted as fulfilled, the number is not eligible, or something else; Toast's FAQ lists the documented checks and the list is not exhaustive. Toast's FAQ also notes that moving an order back to Active and then to Order Ready again sends the text again, which is the documented way to resend.

Record the date, the device, the settings and the outcome in your manager log. A test that passed on one register on one day is proof for that day; it does not prove every carrier will deliver every text.

What this post does not cover

• Whether the rollout has reached any given location. Toast lists it as in progress and its support articles still conflict with the announcement as read.
• Step-by-step kitchen-side text settings for a US location. The article that documents them scopes itself to other countries.
• Delivery. The Orders Hub articles say first-party delivery orders do not get the text.
• Curbside arrival flows, Order Ready Board displays, or Toast Mobile Order & Pay texting, which have their own articles.
• Any AI. Nothing in this feature drafts, decides or predicts; it is a status text.

Related reading on this site: whether to hire your own delivery driver and choosing a POS by total cost.

Sources

• Toast product updates, Send order ready text messages for orders created on the Toast POS app, September 17, 2026, CPPL-589, Rollout In Progress, United States. Read September 21, 2026.
• Toast Support, Manage Order Ready Texts From the Orders Hub, last updated September 2, 2026. Read September 21, 2026.
• Toast Support, Send Text Message When Order is Fulfilled, last updated September 17, 2026; scoped to Canada, UK and Ireland phone numbers, so not used for US steps. Read September 21, 2026.
• Toast Support, Get Started With Orders Hub, last updated August 20, 2026; Manage Off-Premise Orders With Orders Hub, last updated September 17, 2026; Get Help With Orders Hub, last updated September 17, 2026; Orders Hub: Status Breakdown, last updated June 1, 2026. All read September 21, 2026.