OpenTable or Resy for a small restaurant.

The short answer

Both systems take reservations, manage tables and send guests confirmations and reminders. They charge in different ways:

• OpenTable, part of Booking Holdings, sells three plans in the US: Basic, Core and Pro. Each has a monthly subscription. On top, OpenTable charges a fee per seated diner who found you on its website, its app or its affiliate network.
• Resy, backed by American Express, sells four plans. Two are Resy's own, Platform and Platform 360, and two run on Tock, which is now part of the Resy network: Essential and Premium. Each has one monthly fee, and Resy says there are no per-cover or per-reservation fees.

Our view: a neighbourhood restaurant whose tables fill mostly from regulars, the phone and its own website should price Resy and OpenTable Core side by side, because OpenTable's network fee then applies to few covers. A restaurant that relies on being discovered by people who have never heard of it should count how many covers OpenTable's network would bring, because those are the covers the fee pays for.

Plans and features change, and the details below come from each vendor's own pages in October 2026. Check them before you sign.

How the fees work

OpenTable, from its US plans page:

• A monthly subscription that rises from Basic to Core to Pro.
• A fee per network cover: a diner who discovered you on OpenTable's website, app or affiliate network and was seated.
• On Core and Pro, reservations from your own website are included, and phone bookings and walk-ins carry no fee.
• On Basic, which is only available in the US, cover fees also apply to bookings through your own website, with the option of a flat monthly fee for those instead.
• No cover fee for no-shows or cancellations, because OpenTable charges only for seated diners.
• A service fee on prepaid experiences and ticketing.

Resy, from its plans page:

• One monthly fee per plan, with no per-cover fees.
• On the Tock-powered Essential and Premium plans, a percentage fee on prepayments, lower on Premium.
• Standard payment processing fees on payments you take.

Neither list includes the time it takes to set up your floor plan, import your guest list and train the team, so ask each vendor what onboarding includes.

Work out one month for your restaurant

Take last month's covers and sort them by where the booking came from. Most reservation systems can report this, and if you take bookings by phone and in a diary, count them for two weeks.

• Diners who found you on OpenTable's site or app.
• Bookings made through the widget or link on your own website.
• Bookings through Google, Instagram or other links to your booking page.
• Phone bookings and walk-ins.

For OpenTable, the monthly cost is the subscription plus the first group multiplied by the network cover fee, plus website covers if you are on Basic. For Resy, it is the monthly fee, plus the prepayment fee on any prepaid tickets or menus on the Tock-powered plans. Card processing applies to both whenever you take money.

Then ask the harder question: how many of the OpenTable network covers would you have had anyway? A regular who books through the OpenTable app out of habit costs a cover fee. Moving regulars to your own booking link, on your website and your Google profile, cuts that, as how to get more bookings from your website explains.

Two restaurants, two answers

A forty-seat neighbourhood bistro full of regulars books most tables by phone and through its own website. OpenTable's network fee would apply to the few diners who find it through the OpenTable app, so the comparison comes down to subscription against subscription, and to which system the host finds easier on a busy Saturday. The deciding points are the floor plan, deposits for large groups and what the bistro can export if it leaves.

A new tasting-menu restaurant in a city centre needs strangers to find it. It sells prepaid menus and wants a deposit on every table. Its comparison is different: how many covers OpenTable's network and Experiences would bring, against Resy's reach through Amex card members and the Tock-powered prepayment tools, with their fee on each prepayment.

Neither should choose on features alone. The fee model, the guest data and the contract decide more of the year than any single feature on a demo.

Where new guests come from

OpenTable sells its diner network: your listing and profile on its website and app, booking integrations with more than a hundred sites and apps, digital advertising, and Experiences for tasting menus and classes. The network cover fee is the price of that reach.

Resy sells reach through American Express. Its pages promote access to Amex card members and marketing, and list discovery integrations that sync reservations in real time with booking channels.

Google matters for both. A Business Profile can show reservation links, and Google lets you add your own link and set it as the business preferred one, so guests who search your name see your booking page first. Do that whichever system you choose, and check it on a phone.

Who owns the guest list

This is where the two describe things differently, and it decides what you keep if you ever leave.

OpenTable's security centre says restaurants own the data they enter into their OpenTable system, including bookings taken by phone and walk-ins. Guests who book through OpenTable's own website and app keep ownership of their data, and OpenTable shares it with the restaurant when the guest has given permission. Guests can opt out of some sharing in their account settings, and OpenTable says it must honour that.

Resy's guest management page says your restaurant data will always belong to you, and describes guest profiles with visit history, spend, notes, tags and occasions.

Ask both the same questions before you sign:

• If we leave, which guest records, notes and visit history can we export, and in what format?
• Which guests can we email about our own news and events, and which have only agreed to messages about their booking?
• Who can see our guest notes, such as allergies and seating preferences?

Keep allergy notes to what the kitchen needs, and agree who can read them. In Europe, health details such as allergies get extra protection under the GDPR.

Deposits, card holds and no-show fees

• OpenTable lists deposits and credit card holds on all three plans, plus prepaid Experiences and ticketing.
• Resy lists credit card holds and cancellation fees on every plan, and deposits and prepayment on the Tock-powered Essential and Premium plans. Premium adds chargeback protection.

A card hold or a deposit only works if guests see the rule before they book. Put it on the booking page and in the confirmation, in plain words: how much, when it is charged and how late a booking can be moved. How to write a no-show and cancellation policy has wording that guests accept.

Use holds for the tables where a no-show hurts most, such as large groups and Saturday nights, rather than every booking. In our view, a deposit on a table for two on a quiet Tuesday costs more bookings than it saves.

Tables, the floor and the till

Both run the floor, and the plan you pick decides how much:

• OpenTable's Basic plan handles reservations without its table management. Core and Pro add customisable floor plans, automatic table assignment, waitlists, a POS integration and a mobile app with the floor plan. Automated email campaigns are on Pro only, and premium text messaging is an add-on on Core.
• Resy's plans all include reservations and table management. Its Platform and Premium plans list POS integrations, and its guest data page describes a partnership with Toast that shows guest history at the table. The Tock-powered plans add event ticketing.

If you use a POS, ask each vendor whether your till is on its integration list and what the connection shows: spend per guest, course status or only the check total. A connection that marks tables as paid is worth more to the host than any report.

Booking from your website, and what a chatbot can do

OpenTable includes a booking widget on every plan, fully customisable on Pro, and on Core and Pro the bookings it takes from your site carry no cover fee. Resy restaurants have a booking page on Resy's own site and app; ask how Resy's button or widget sits on your website and in your Instagram bio. Check both on a phone, because many guests book from one.

Load a widget only on the pages that need it, as it can slow the page. A clear button that opens the booking page in its own window is often faster for guests and rarely breaks. Put it at the bottom of the phone screen with today's hours next to it.

Both connect to other software through the integration partners listed on their sites. If you want a website or a chatbot to show live tables in your own design, ask the vendor first whether that connection is available to you. Otherwise a chatbot answers questions about the menu, parking and groups, and sends guests to the booking page with the date and party size chosen. Our restaurants page and booking chatbot describe how that works, and the chatbot only says a table is booked when the booking system confirms it.

When neither is needed

A café with walk-ins and a handful of bookings a week may not need either system. A reservation link on its Google profile, a booking form on the website and a diary can cover it, and booking software compared looks at general tools that cost less.

A reservation system earns its fee when tables turn more than once a night, when no-shows cost real money, when large groups need deposits, or when you want the host to know regulars by name and remember their allergies. If none of those is true yet, start simple and move when one becomes true.

Contracts, and leaving later

OpenTable's plans page says its standard contract runs for one year and renews automatically each year, unless you tell OpenTable at least 30 days before the renewal date. Put that date in your calendar the day you sign.

Resy's plans page does not set out a contract term, so ask for it in writing, along with what happens to your data and your booking page if you leave.

Switching systems means moving future bookings, guest records and every link: your website, Google profile, Instagram bio and any email signatures. Run both for a short overlap so bookings made in the old system are honoured, and tell your regulars the new way to book.

How to choose

• Count last month's covers by source, and price both systems at those numbers for a year.
• Decide your deposit and card hold rules first, and check each system's plan covers them.
• Book a table yourself on a phone from your website and from Google, on each system's demo or trial.
• Ask each vendor what you can export if you leave, and which guests you may market to.
• Ask about your POS and any other tool you need connected, by name.
• Ask for the contract term, the renewal date and the notice period in writing.

If you also send reminders, follow-up messages or event invitations from another tool, check what each system lets it read first. We do that check before we connect anything, and if a connection is not possible, requests reach an inbox instead: see booking automation. Our websites put the booking button where guests on a phone find it.