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Per-cover fees vs flat pricing

What per-cover fees cost you a year.

Some booking platforms charge a fee for every seated diner their marketplace sends you — and as at July 2026, none of the big names publishes the rate. So this calculator doesn't guess: enter your own covers and the rate from your own contract or statement, see the formula in full, and compare the yearly total with a flat ResoFlow plan. If per-cover works out cheaper at your numbers, it will say so.

500
503,000
Average party size

Used only to work out roughly how many bookings your covers are, so the comparison picks a ResoFlow plan that actually fits.

Type the rate from your own contract or statement — as at July 2026 none of the big platforms publishes an official one. Or start from the starred estimate below and adjust.

£
per seated cover

500 covers × £1 × 12 months = £6,000 a year in per-cover fees — vs £468 a year flat with ResoFlow Plus39/mo, the cheapest plan that fits ≈167 online bookings a month).

You'd keep £5,532 a year.

Break-even: at £1 a cover, Plus 39/mo) costs the same as 39 marketplace covers a month. Below that, per-cover is cheaper; above it, flat wins.

Count only covers booked through a marketplace — on per-cover platforms, bookings from your own website are typically free (OpenTable's site says its are, as at July 2026). ResoFlow prices are our standard published plans: Plus includes 500 online bookings a month and there's no monthly online-booking cap on Pro and above; staff-created bookings and walk-ins are unlimited on every plan, and paying annually gets two months free. There's also a free Free plan for trying ResoFlow (30 online bookings a month and a 5-day advance-booking window — built for getting started, not a busy service). See pricing for the full plan grid. *The starred preset is an approximate figure as reported by third-party restaurant-industry guides (July 2026) — OpenTable doesn't publish its per-cover rate, so treat it as an estimate and use the rate from your own contract for a true answer.

Commission isn't the only fee model — see exactly what ResoFlow charges on every payment type →

Checked July 2026

Who actually publishes a per-cover rate?

We checked each provider's own website in July 2026. Here's exactly what they say — which is why this page asks for your rate instead of inventing one.

Swipe to compare →

ProviderPer-cover rateWhat their own site says
OpenTableCharges per-cover fees — amount not published (approx. £2 per network cover*)Its own FAQ says cover fees apply only to diners who discover you through OpenTable's website, app or affiliate network; bookings from your own website are free, and only seated diners are charged (nothing for no-shows or cancellations). Its UK restaurant pages list no prices at all — plans are "contact us for pricing" — though third-party guides commonly report around £2 per network cover (*an estimate, not OpenTable's own figure).
ResDiaryNo per-cover commissionIts pricing page states it "does not charge a commission on your booking, regardless of where the booking is made". Plan prices aren't published (quote on request); it lists add-ons at £10–£35/month, plus a 1% surcharge for processing deposits and payments and 3% for gift vouchers.
QuandooWinding down — rates never publishedQuandoo has announced it is closing: new bookings stop on 30 September 2026 and the platform goes offline by 31 December 2026. It never published its restaurant per-cover rates, and its site today carries no partner pricing.
ResoFlowNo per-cover fees — prices publishedFlat monthly plans, published on the website: free, £39, £79 and £129 a month. We never take a cut of your bookings, whatever channel they come from.

OpenTable details from opentable.co.uk's restaurant pages; ResDiary details from resdiary.com's pricing page; Quandoo dates from its public wind-down announcement — all checked July 2026. Features and pricing change; always confirm current terms with the provider directly. ResoFlow is not affiliated with OpenTable, ResDiary or Quandoo.

The honest bit

When per-cover fees can be worth paying.

You're below the break-even

A quiet venue seating a handful of marketplace covers a month can pay less per-cover than any flat subscription — the calculator's break-even line shows exactly where the tipping point sits for your rate. Below it, per-cover is genuinely the cheaper deal.

You need the marketplace’s diners

A per-cover fee buys something a flat-price system doesn't: guests who found you through the platform's own marketplace. OpenTable's model charges only when its network delivers a seated diner. If discovery is your bottleneck, paying per delivered guest can be rational. ResoFlow has no diner marketplace — guests book through your own website, links and profiles.

Your channel mix matters

Per-cover platforms typically don't charge for bookings from your own website — so your real bill depends on where your bookings come from, not your total covers. If most guests already book direct, you're paying a marketplace premium for a marketplace you barely use; that's when flat pricing pulls ahead.

If marketplace discovery is what your venue needs most, a per-cover platform may genuinely be the better buy — we'd rather you do the maths and choose well. If your bookings mostly come direct, a flat plan means a busy month never costs you more.

FAQ

Per-cover fees, answered.

A per-cover (or per-guest) fee is a commission some booking platforms charge for each diner seated from a booking made through their marketplace. On OpenTable's plans, for example, its own website says cover fees apply only to diners who discover you through OpenTable's website, app or affiliate network — bookings from your own website are free, and only seated diners are charged, so no-shows and cancellations cost nothing (as at July 2026). Because the fee scales with how busy you are, a good month costs you more.
As at July 2026, none of them publishes a per-cover rate. OpenTable's UK restaurant pages list no prices at all — plans are "contact us for pricing", though its FAQ confirms cover fees apply to bookings from its network. ResDiary charges no booking commission at all (its pricing page says so explicitly) but doesn't publish its plan prices either. Quandoo is winding down — new bookings stop on 30 September 2026 — and never published its restaurant rates. That's why this calculator asks for the rate from your own contract or statement instead of guessing one for you.
The formula is shown on the page and nothing else is added: marketplace covers a month × your per-cover rate × 12 months. For the ResoFlow side it multiplies the flat monthly plan price by 12, and it picks the cheapest plan that actually fits your volume — your covers divided by your average party size gives your online bookings a month, compared against each plan's monthly online-booking allowance. No invented statistics, no "average venue" assumptions.
No — ResoFlow never takes a cut of your bookings. You pay a flat monthly subscription: Free is free forever, Plus is £39/month, Pro is £79/month and Complete is £129/month, with two months free if you pay annually. Plan limits apply to online bookings only; staff-created bookings and walk-ins are unlimited on every plan.
Honestly, no. Below the break-even point — the plan price divided by your per-cover rate — a per-cover deal costs less, and the calculator will show you that rather than hide it. A marketplace fee also buys something a flat-price system doesn't: diners who found you through the marketplace. If discovery is your bottleneck, paying per delivered guest can be rational. Flat pricing wins when your bookings mostly come through your own website, socials and Google profile — then a busy month costs you nothing extra.
Plans are flat-rate and published: Free is free forever, Plus is £39/month, Pro is £79/month and Complete is £129/month, with two months free if you pay annually. Every paid plan comes with a 14-day money-back guarantee. There are no per-cover fees and no contracts — cancel any time from your dashboard.

Prefer a price that stays flat?

Start free — no card and no demo call. Published plans, no per-cover fees, and a busy month never costs you more.

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