Technology

Olo, FreedomPay improving restaurant payment experiences

Photo: Olo

February 4, 2025

Olo, a provider of restaurant technology, is partnering with FreedomPay to improve restaurant payment experiences nationwide. The partnership also deepens Olo's relationship with Stripe, a financial infrastructure platform for businesses, which will include in-person transaction processing.

Olo Pay launched with Stripe as its original partner for digital payments in 2022, and the partnership will now be updated for an omnichannel world providing restaurants with a truly unified solution.

"Currently, about 18% of restaurant transactions are digital," Noah Glass, founder & CEO of Olo, said in a company press release. "By processing the remaining 82% of on-premise transactions, we're uniquely positioned to provide restaurants with a 360-degree view of their guests by combining the newly captured in-store data with the digital order data they already have from our online ordering. This visibility will allow restaurants to better personalize interactions, making every guest feel like a regular and driving superior hospitality."

The collaboration will accelerate Olo's ability to process more card-present transactions by leveraging FreedomPay's payment gateway, which is processor-agnostic and integrated with over 1,000 POS and payment systems. Olo Pay may now use Stripe's payment processing on in-person POS transactions for the majority of its 700+ customers, extending the restaurant-centric benefits customers appreciate about Olo Pay's digital payments.

By integrating Olo Pay with FreedomPay's Commerce Platform, Olo may now offer enterprise brands choice in how they integrate in-store payment processing with Olo: either directly through one of Olo Pay Card-Present partnerships announced in 2024 or through FreedomPay.

Brands may integrate Olo Pay's Card-Present solution with Olo Engage, the company's guest engagement suite. Aggregating both digital and in-store transactions into a single guest data profile will create opportunities for more personalized guest experiences and data-driven decision-making.

In addition, this integration provides current Olo Pay Card-Not-Present customers additional benefits:

• Consolidates payment processing with a single provider.
• Eliminates reconciliation, reporting, and refund challenges due to multiple processors.
• Improves omnichannel tracking of guest purchasing history.
• Enhances loyalty program and cross-channel promotion effectiveness.

"By combining FreedomPay's Next Level Commerce platform with Olo's innovative payment solution purpose-built for restaurants, we're creating a unified, secure, and seamless checkout experience that will drive digital transformation," Chris Kronenthal, president of FreedomPay said in the release. "Our work with Olo Pay will help unify the digital and in-store payment experience, improving reporting and providing restaurants with clearer insights for better decision-making."