Whatnot vs Toast POS
Side-by-side comparison of AI visibility scores, market position, and capabilities
Culver City CA livestream shopping marketplace (private, $3.7B valuation); $775M+ raised ($260M Series E DST Global), largest US live auction for collectibles/trading cards/sneakers, 50,000+ shows/week competing with eBay Live.
About
Whatnot is a Culver City, California-based live auction and shopping platform — founded in 2019 by Grant LaFontaine (CEO) and Logan Head (COO, both Y Combinator-backed) — operating the largest livestream shopping marketplace in the United States where sellers host live video auction shows for collectibles, trading cards, vintage clothing, sneakers, anime merchandise, and other enthusiast categories, with buyers bidding in real time through a mobile app and web platform. The company has raised $775 million+ in total funding including a $260 million Series E led by DST Global in March 2024, reaching a $3.7 billion post-money valuation. Whatnot connects hundreds of thousands of verified sellers — ranging from casual collectors to professional resellers with dedicated Pokémon card, sports card, and sneaker inventory — with millions of buyers seeking authenticated collectibles and the entertainment experience of competitive live auction bidding. The platform hosts 50,000+ shows per week across categories including trading cards, vintage apparel, toys, anime figurines, concert memorabilia, and video games — creating a continuous live content ecosystem that generates the engagement density that traditional e-commerce platforms cannot match. The platform operates primarily in the United States but launched in Germany and the United Kingdom in 2023, establishing European market presence ahead of TikTok Shop's European expansion into the same live shopping category.
Q3 2025 $1.63B revenue (+25.1% YoY); 156K locations powered globally; $2.0B+ ARR (+30% YoY); $159.1B GPV FY2024 (+26% YoY); 97.36% customers from US; restaurant POS leader
About
Toast was founded in 2011 in Boston with the mission of building an all-in-one technology platform purpose-built for the restaurant industry. Unlike generic point-of-sale vendors that adapted retail software for food service, Toast designed its hardware, software, and payments stack from the ground up around restaurant workflows — table management, kitchen display systems, online ordering, payroll, and inventory unified in a single cloud platform.\n\nToast's product suite covers the full restaurant operating stack: POS terminals and handheld order devices, kitchen display screens, Toast Go handhelds for tableside payments, online ordering and delivery integrations, catering management, payroll and scheduling, and xtraCHEF for back-of-house food cost analytics. The platform serves independent restaurants, multi-location chains, quick-service concepts, and enterprise groups. Its open API allows integrations with hundreds of third-party tools, and the Toast for Enterprise tier serves national brands with centralized menu and reporting management.\n\nAs of Q3 2025, Toast reported $1.63 billion in quarterly revenue, up 25.1% year-over-year, with annualized recurring revenue exceeding $2 billion and gross payment volume of $159.1 billion for fiscal 2024. The company serves more than 156,000 restaurant locations globally and trades on the NYSE under the ticker TOST. Toast's vertical focus and deep restaurant-specific functionality give it a durable competitive moat against horizontal POS vendors.
AI Visibility Head-to-Head
Capabilities & Ecosystem
Capabilities
Integrations
Also Compare
Track AI Visibility in Real Time
Monitor how your brand performs across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, and Grok daily.