The question "what does a reservation system cost" has no single figure as an answer, and that is not a dodge. Two businesses on the same system can get an invoice of €25 and one of €1,700 a month, because they are on a different model and have a different number of guests.
So: the four models first, then the figures we read on four providers' own pages, and then the sum you do with your own covers.
Four ways a reservation system earns from you
- A flat monthly fee. You pay for software. Guests are free.
- Commission per cover. You pay for every guest who books through the platform.
- A percentage of the bill. You pay a share of what that guest spends.
- Free, with the business model somewhere else. Discounts, a contract, or commission.
None is inherently better or worse. They just scale differently, and you notice the difference in your best month.
1. A flat monthly fee
The simplest model and the easiest to budget: one amount, however full it gets.
What it costs in practice. Guestplan publishes €49.99 for Pro, €109.99 for Business and €229.99 for Ultimate, with no setup fee and no commission. Our own booking dashboard with online booking is €49 a month, free for the first six months. Across the wider market a flat fee runs roughly €25 to €230 depending on what is in the plan.
What to watch. The monthly figure is rarely the whole figure. Look at what is charged per action: with Guestplan, for instance, a deposit costs €2.99 on Pro, €0.99 on Business and nothing on Ultimate. That looks small until you multiply it by a busy weekend.
Who it suits. Virtually anybody with more than a handful of reservations a month. The amount does not move, so your good months are actually good months.
2. Commission per cover
You pay little or nothing monthly, and a fixed amount for every guest who books through the platform's network.
What it costs in practice. OpenTable publishes it in full: $149 a month for Basic, $299 for Core, $499 for Pro, plus $1.50 per network guest on Basic and $1.00 on Core and Pro. And on Basic you also pay $0.25 for every guest who books through your own website, or $49 a month to buy that off.
That last line is the one people miss. On the entry plan you pay for guests who typed your name.
What to watch. Ask whether reservations through your own site, Instagram and Facebook count. With TheFork they are included; with OpenTable not on the entry plan. Ask too whether a returning guest counts as a network guest every time: usually it does, and then you are paying for your own regular.
Who it suits. A new business buying reach. The moment your own name does the work, this is the dearest model on the list.
3. A percentage of the bill
This model is written up in comparisons as "commission per cover" almost every time, and it is not the same thing.
TheFork describes on its own pricing page that the cost is based on a percentage of the average spend per guest for reservations arriving through TheFork, Tripadvisor and partners. Not an amount, a percentage.
The difference is large and it runs exactly the wrong way. A fixed amount per guest does the same at a lunch café as at a fine-dining room. A percentage does not: the better your business does and the higher your average spend, the more each network guest costs. Your success is in the formula.
Independent Dutch comparisons quote roughly €2 to €4 a guest and subscriptions between €30 and €75 a month, but those are third-party figures. TheFork itself says "ask for pricing" beside both plans. Ask for yours in writing, and ask whether it is a percentage or an amount. What TheFork actually costs per cover works the mechanism through.
4. Free, with the business model somewhere else
No monthly fee, and the money comes from commission per guest, from mandatory discounts of 30% or more to stay findable, or from a contract you cannot leave.
The crossover sits low: at €2 a guest and parties averaging 2.3 people, you are worse off than a €25 subscription after about six reservations a month. What "free" costs you a year works all three models through.
Work it out with your own covers
This is the only part of this piece that really matters. Get last month's figures.
What you need: the number of reservations, the average number of people per reservation, and how many of those reservations came through a network rather than through your own site or telephone.
An example. A hundred covers a week through a network, so roughly 435 a month:
| Model | Sum | Per month |
|---|---|---|
| Flat fee | €49 | €49 |
| €2 a guest | 435 × €2 | €870 |
| €4 a guest | 435 × €4 | €1,740 |
| OpenTable Basic | $149 + (435 × $1.50) | ~$802 |
The difference between the first line and the last is not a subscription choice. That is a part-time member of staff.
The honest counter-question: how many of those 435 covers would you have had without the network? If the answer is "nearly all of them", you are paying €870 for guests you already had. If it is "nearly none", you bought 435 covers at €2 apiece and that is probably a fine deal.
Nobody can answer it for you. But it is one question, and it is the question.
The costs that are not on the pricing page
The monthly figure is the headline. Underneath it are lines that only appear on the invoice.
Payment processing. Zenchef publishes theirs and it does them credit: 2–6% on card payments depending on your plan, 3.5–6% on Amex, €0.29 to €3.29 on iDEAL and €0.05 to €0.12 per SMS. In the Netherlands most of it goes through iDEAL, so that line is no footnote. With us you pay your own payment method's rate and nothing of ours on top.
Deposits, each. See Guestplan above: €2.99 per deposit on the entry plan. If you use deposits to fight no-shows, you use them often.
SMS. Reminders by text are charged per message. One per reservation, every reservation, adds up quietly. We send them over WhatsApp, included in the plan.
Extra locations and extra users. Ask whether the figure is per venue or per account.
Setup. Guestplan charges nothing. We charge €149 once to set Bubo up around your business (menu, hours, rules) and it is waived if you stay a year.
And the cost on no price list at all
Every model above charges for reservations that arrive. None charges for the reservations that did not arrive because nobody picked up.
In an average restaurant five to fifteen calls an evening are lost, concentrated in the hour before service and the middle of the peak, exactly when nobody is free. Those callers do not leave voicemail. They ring the next place.
Work one such evening a week against an average booking of €65 to €140 and you are above the dearest subscription in this whole piece. It just happens to be on nobody's invoice, so it does not feel like a cost.
That is why we sell the phone and the diary as one system rather than two subscriptions: the phone assistant starts at €29 a month and looks at the same availability as your booking widget. To see which systems keep up on that, four stand side by side in comparing reservation systems.
Frequently asked questions
What is a normal monthly figure for a reservation system?
For a flat subscription, roughly €25 to €230 a month depending on what is included. Guestplan starts at €49.99, our dashboard at €49 with the first six months free. Commission models start lower and climb with your covers.
Is commission per guest dearer than a subscription?
Above a handful of reservations a month, almost always. At €2 a guest the crossover sits around six reservations a month against a €25 subscription. At a hundred network covers a week, commission runs to €870–1,740 a month.
Do I also pay for reservations through my own website?
It varies by provider and it is the most important question in this piece. With TheFork, reservations through your own site, Instagram and Facebook are included. With OpenTable a guest through your own site costs $0.25 on Basic, or $49 a month to buy off. With Guestplan, Zenchef and Bubo it is zero.
Which costs are usually missing from the pricing page?
Card and iDEAL processing, per-deposit fees, SMS messages, extra locations and setup costs. Ask for one total figure for an average month rather than the subscription rate.
What does it cost to have the phone answered too?
With us that starts at €29 a month for 60 minutes, rising to €289 for 800. You pick on call volume, not on features. Of the systems in our comparison, only Zenchef also answers the phone, and they publish no price for it.