Craftable
Back-office software for restaurant recipe costing, inventory, and supplier invoicing.
On the record
Checkpoint: Gauge Capital hits the 3-year mark on its 2023 investment, a typical window for a PE exit or sale
The call
Craftable holds real workflow lock-in but faces a POS-bundled rival, an AI-native AP challenger, softening growth numbers, and a PE clock all ticking at once.
Craftable is a software tool that helps restaurant owners and managers buy supplies, approve purchases, and handle payments all in one place. It connects to over 60 cash register systems and 5,000 suppliers, which makes it sticky for customers to leave. But companies like MarginEdge and Restaurant365 do similar work, and Toast (which owns the cash registers many restaurants use) is building competing features directly into its own system, which gives Toast a huge built-in advantage since restaurants already use Toast's registers. The question that matters most is whether Craftable can ship and prove out its new artificial intelligence tools for forecasting, ordering, and profit tracking before the investment company that owns it decides to sell it off or merge it with another company, probably sometime in 2025 or 2026.
Why
01
AI pressure: Ottimate (AI-driven AP and invoice automation for restaurants). Ottimate already automates invoice and AP workflows with AI, cutting into the manual cost-tracking tasks Craftable was built to handle. Could AI do the core job? Unlikely.
02
Bigger players: Toast, via its xtraCHEF back-office product bundled into Toast POS. Toast sells xtraCHEF directly inside its POS install base, giving it distribution Craftable has to win deal by deal. Could a giant copy it? Probably.
03
What protects it. Deep lock-in from 60+ POS integrations, 5,000+ supplier connections, and embedded recipe and approval workflows that are painful to rip out.
What would change this call
Craftable ships Forecast AI, Suggestive Ordering AI, or Profit AI out of beta and holds them in market. Would show the roadmap can execute rather than stall, supporting independent growth.
Craftable's future PR reports consistent operator/venue counts instead of swinging between 80,000 and 50,000. Would show real growth or contraction instead of shifting definitions.
News of Craftable being acquired or sold by Gauge Capital around mid-2026 onward. Would confirm the PE hold window ended in an M&A exit rather than independent scaling.
Craftable's future PR reports consistent operator/venue counts instead of swinging between 80,000 and 50,000. Would show real growth or contraction instead of shifting definitions.
News of Craftable being acquired or sold by Gauge Capital around mid-2026 onward. Would confirm the PE hold window ended in an M&A exit rather than independent scaling.
Key numbers
- Headcount down 2.6-3% YoY
- Web traffic down 14% QoQ
- Operator count: 80,000 (Aug 2025) vs 50,000 (Jun 2026)
Named risks
- Web traffic to craftable.com declined roughly 14% quarter over quarter as of July 2026.
- Headcount growth turned slightly negative (-2.6% to -3% YoY) by mid-2026 after doubling 2022-2024.
- Operator/customer counts reported inconsistently across 2025-2026 PR releases, undermining growth claims.
- Toast could deepen xtraCHEF into a full POS-agnostic procurement and payments bundle, eroding Craftable's niche.
- Company is three years into Gauge Capital's 2023 investment, a typical PE hold window nearing exit decisions.
Rivals, as read in July 2026
| Rival | Direction | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Toast (xtraCHEF) | losing to | xtraCHEF bundles as one-click POS add-on inside Toast's suite, a structural distribution edge Craftable lacks |
| Restaurant365 | losing to | Raised $175M led by ICONIQ Growth on 2024-05-15, giving it far more capital and broader footprint than Craftable |
| MarginEdge | contesting | Runs a dedicated 'Craftable alternative' marketing page targeting Craftable's customer base as of 2026 |
| MarketMan | gaining on | G2 lists Craftable as 'best overall alternative' to MarketMan in mid-market comparisons, n.d. |
Questions people ask
- Is Craftable profitable in 2026?
- No public profitability data exists. Craftable is privately held with revenue estimated between $10M and $50M by third parties; no filings confirm profit or loss as of mid-2026.
- Who owns Craftable now?
- Craftable took a strategic growth investment from private equity firm Gauge Capital, announced July 26, 2023, with terms undisclosed. It remains privately held; no subsequent sale has been reported.
- Could AI replace Craftable's software?
- Unlikely soon: Craftable's moat rests on 60+ POS integrations and 5,000+ supplier connections (per company claims, Aug 2025), but its own AI features like Operator AI are still labeled BETA as of 2026.
- Is Craftable losing to MarginEdge or Restaurant365?
- MarginEdge runs a dedicated 'Craftable alternative' marketing page targeting its customers, and Restaurant365 raised $175M in May 2024, giving both rivals more capital and reach than Craftable.
- What is Craftable's biggest competitive threat?
- Toast's xtraCHEF, bundled directly into Toast's POS suite as a one-click add-on, threatens Craftable's POS-agnostic positioning since Toast controls point-of-sale distribution Craftable must integrate around.
- How many customers does Craftable have?
- Figures conflict: company materials cited 'more than 80,000 operators' in August 2025 via Dallas Innovates, then described '50,000 operators across 10,000 hospitality venues' in June 2026 PR, suggesting inconsistent counting rather than verified growth.
Timeline
- 2026-06-15Showcased AI-powered back-office and Procure-to-Pay platform at HITEC 2026
- 2026-05-28Launched Craftable AI suite: Operator AI and Crafty conversational assistant
- 2025-11-10Launched Invoice AI, an end-to-end human-free invoice automation agent
- 2025-08-19David Cantu becomes CEO; co-founder Sam Zats becomes Executive Chairman
- 2024-11-07David Cantu, HotSchedules co-founder, joins Craftable's Board of Directors
- 2023-07-27Press reports Craftable had roughly 70 employees at time of Gauge investment
- 2023-07-26Gauge Capital announces strategic growth investment in Craftable, terms undisclosed
- 2015-01Craftable founded by Sam Zats and Max Zats (approximate date)
Revision history
23 July 2026
First assessed. Losing its protection. The text above is fixed as of this date and is not edited afterwards.
In the same band
Sources
- Leading Hospitality SaaS Platform Craftable Announces Strategic Investment from Private Equity Firm Gauge Capi (2023-07-26)
- Craftable - Headcount, Funding & Open Jobs (2026-07-08)
- Craftable Announces New CEO and Strategic Leadership Expansion (2025-08-19)
- $8.6M ARR (Bootstrapped) (2023-11-30)
- Hospitality Tech Platform Craftable Taps Former Black Box Intelligence Chief as New CEO (2025-08-21)
- Craftable to Showcase AI-Powered Back Office and Procure-to-Pay Platform at HITEC 2026 (2026-06-15)
- SignalHire Company Profile
- Local Hospitality Platform Craftable Gets Strategic Investment from Southlake's Gauge Capital (2023-07-27)
- Restaurant & Hotel Back-Office Software
- Gauge Invests in Hospitality Focused SaaS Platform (2023-08)
- HotSchedules Co-Founder and Restaurant Industry Veteran David Cantu Joins Craftable's Board of Directors (2024-11-07)
- Craftable Launches "Invoice AI" (2025-11-10)