Quick answer
Yes — Menuly is a one-time-purchase alternative to Toast QR menus. It costs $24 once, while Toast QR menus runs $29+/mo — about $348 per year, every year. Self-hosted QR digital menu builder for restaurants and cafes with printable table tents. It is for people who want the job done on their own hardware without a renewal date — not for teams that live inside Toast QR menus's ecosystem.
The verdict
Switch to Menuly if you are an individual or small team paying Toast QR menus $29+/mo for work your own machine can do. Menuly pays for itself in under one month of a QR-menu subscription — and it never charges you per location.
Stay with Toast QR menus if your workflow depends on its integrations, you need enterprise features (SSO, admin controls, SLAs), or your team is large enough that per-seat collaboration tooling is worth the bill. Menuly does not try to replicate those.
Head to head
| Menuly | Toast QR menus | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $24 once | $29+/mo |
| Cost after 1 year | $24 | $348+ |
| Your data | Your SQLite file | Their cloud |
| Locations | Unlimited | Per-location pricing |
| Menu page speed | Server-rendered HTML, no JS | Bloated hosted pages |
| Works offline (builder) | Yes — desktop mode | No |
| Source code | MIT, on GitHub | Closed |
| 5-year cost | $24 | $1,740 |
Where Toast QR menus still wins
- Ecosystem and integrations. Established tools accumulate years of third-party integrations, templates and add-ons. If your workflow is wired into Toast QR menus's ecosystem, switching means rebuilding that plumbing — a real cost.
- Team and enterprise features. Shared workspaces, granular permissions, SSO, audit logs and a vendor to call when something breaks — that is what the higher subscription tiers actually buy, and a pay-once app does not come with it.
- Familiarity and hiring. Toast QR menus is the name people already know. Onboarding a team onto a tool nobody has used before takes time the subscription never charges for.
Where Menuly wins
- Price, permanently. $24 once versus $348/yr for as long as you use it. There is no renewal, no seat count and no tier gate.
- Menu builder. Categories and items with name, description, photo and dietary tags, all drag-to-reorder.
- Server-rendered menu page. Pure HTML with inline critical CSS and no JS bundle, so it loads instantly on any phone with sticky category nav.
- 86 it in one click. Toggle an item out of stock and it vanishes from the live menu immediately, toggle back when the kitchen restocks.
The math
Menuly pays for itself in under one month of a QR-menu subscription — and it never charges you per location.
- After 1 year: Menuly has cost you $24 total — Toast QR menus has cost $348.
- After 3 years: Menuly is still $24 — the subscription is at $1,044.
- After 5 years: Menuly is still $24 — the subscription is at $1,740.
Common questions
Is it really free on GitHub?
Yes — Menuly is MIT-licensed at github.com/bensblueprints/restaurant-menu-qr-mvp. The $24 buys the packaged Windows installer with zero setup; building from source is free.
Where does my menu live?
In your own SQLite file with images in local storage, served from your own server — no telemetry and no third-party calls, so your menu is never hostage to a SaaS.
Do I pay more for extra locations?
No. Menuly supports unlimited locations from one admin for the same $24, versus the per-location pricing the subscription tools charge.
Try Menuly — $24, one time
Or get Menuly plus every other app in the suite: the OneTimeSuite bundle is currently $97, one time.