Toast, Inc. (TOST) has undergone a remarkable financial transformation over the past several years — growing from a restaurant technology startup burning through cash to a business that is now generating meaningful profit. Revenue has compounded at exceptional rates, gross margins have expanded steadily from the high teens into the mid-to-upper twenties (percentage-wise), and the company swung from deeply negative EBITDA to positive territory in 2024 and meaningfully more so in 2025. The most recent quarter (ending June 2026) shows this momentum continuing, with operating and net margins both approaching 8%. The balance sheet is solid with no debt-to-equity concern and a healthy current ratio. Capital expenditures remain very lean relative to revenue, which is characteristic of a software-driven platform business. In short: Toast has crossed the profitability threshold, is growing fast, and is doing so without heavy reinvestment demands — a compelling combination for investors watching the restaurant tech space.
Snapshot & Big Picture
Toast is a cloud-based restaurant management platform offering point-of-sale hardware and software, payment processing, payroll, marketing tools, and more — all purpose-built for the food service industry. The company went public in 2021 and has been on an aggressive growth path ever since, expanding its customer base across independent restaurants and enterprise chains alike. Its revenue model blends recurring SaaS-like subscription fees with payments processing volume, meaning top-line growth is directly tied to both restaurant count and restaurant sales activity.
| Fiscal Year | Revenue | Gross Margin | EBITDA | Operating Margin | Net Margin |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | $665M | 9.3% | -$206M | -32.0% | -31.4% |
| 2020 | $823M | 17.0% | -$193M | -26.7% | -30.1% |
| 2021 | $1,705M | 18.4% | -$207M | -13.4% | -28.6% |
| 2022 | $2,731M | 18.7% | -$360M | -14.1% | -10.1% |
| 2023 | $3,865M | 21.6% | -$255M | -7.4% | -6.4% |
| 2024 | $4,960M | 24.0% | $62M | 0.3% | 0.4% |
| 2025 | $6,153M | 25.9% | $356M | 4.7% | 5.6% |
Latest Quarter Snapshot (Q2 2026)
The most recent data — from the 10-Q filed August 5, 2026 for the quarter ending June 30, 2026 — is more current than the annual figures and offers the clearest picture of where Toast stands today. The quarter posted $1.908 billion in revenue, with a gross margin of 27.0%, an operating margin of 8.0%, and a net margin of 8.1%. EBITDA came in at $162 million for the quarter alone. The current ratio stood at 2.40, and the debt-to-equity ratio was reported as zero, indicating no net debt burden. Capital expenditures for the quarter were $17 million, representing a capex-to-revenue ratio of 0.89% — consistent with the lean, asset-light character of the business. If this quarterly run rate holds, Toast is on pace for roughly $7.6 billion in annualized revenue, well above the 2025 full-year figure.
Profitability
Toast's profitability journey is one of the defining stories in the data. As recently as 2019, gross margins were below 10% — partly a function of the mix of low-margin hardware sales and payment processing volume in the early days. From 2020 onward, gross margins expanded every single year: 17.0% → 18.4% → 18.7% → 21.6% → 24.0% → 25.9%, and now 27.0% in Q2 2026. This reflects a maturing software and payments mix and improving unit economics as the platform scales.
EBITDA turned positive for the first time in 2024 ($62M) and accelerated sharply to $356M in 2025 — a meaningful inflection. Operating and net margins followed the same trajectory, going from deeply negative (as low as -32% operating margin in 2019) to modestly positive in 2024 and approaching 5–6% in 2025. The Q2 2026 data suggests that improvement is continuing into 2026, with both operating and net margins now near 8%.
Financial Health
Toast's balance sheet shows no debt-to-equity concern in the most recent filings — the ratio was reported as zero in the Q2 2026 10-Q and was also zero or not applicable in prior annual periods (debt-to-equity was null in 2022–2025 filings, zero in 2021, and slightly negative in 2020, suggesting minimal or net-negative debt positioning). The current ratio has remained comfortably above 2.0x throughout the history shown, indicating the company has no near-term liquidity stress.
Capital Expenditures: Toast is a notably capital-light business. Capex figures were not available in the 2019 and 2020 10-K filings. From 2021 onward, capex has been modest and remarkably stable as a share of revenue:
| Period | Capital Expenditures | Capex / Revenue |
|---|---|---|
| FY2019 | Not available in filing | Not available in filing |
| FY2020 | Not available in filing | Not available in filing |
| FY2021 | $19M | 1.11% |
| FY2022 | $33M | 1.21% |
| FY2023 | $42M | 1.09% |
| FY2024 | $54M | 1.09% |
| FY2025 | $53M | 0.86% |
| Q2 2026 (quarter) | $17M | 0.89% |
The capex-to-revenue ratio has actually been trending slightly downward — from around 1.1–1.2% in 2021–2024 to below 0.9% in 2025 and Q2 2026. In absolute dollar terms, capex has grown only modestly even as revenue has more than tripled since 2021. This is a hallmark of a software and payments platform: growth does not require proportionally heavy physical investment, which frees cash flow for operations and potential shareholder returns.
Growth
Toast's revenue growth over the available history has been exceptional by any measure. The table below shows trailing compound annual growth rates for the windows for which data is available:
| CAGR Window | Start Year (Revenue) | End Year (Revenue) | CAGR |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3-Year (FY2022–FY2025) | FY2022: $2,731M | FY2025: $6,153M | 31.1% |
| 5-Year (FY2020–FY2025) | FY2020: $823M | FY2025: $6,153M | 49.5% |
| 10-Year | Not available — Toast does not have 10 years of SEC filing history as a public company. | N/A | |
A 3-year revenue CAGR of 31% and a 5-year CAGR of nearly 50% are extraordinary growth rates, especially for a company operating at multi-billion dollar revenue scale. Even if growth moderates — as it naturally must at this size — the trajectory suggests Toast still has substantial runway ahead, particularly as it deepens penetration in enterprise dining, expands internationally, and layers in higher-margin software products on top of its payments foundation.
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