Per-cover fees vs flat pricing
Put a number on per-cover fees.
Some booking platforms charge a fee for every seated diner their marketplace sends you — and as at 12 October 2026, none of the big names publishes the rate. So nothing here is guessed: bring your covers and the rate from your own contract, see the sum in full, and compare a year of it with a flat ResoFlow plan. If per-cover works out cheaper at your numbers, it says so.
What ResoFlow chargesOn table bookings
- Commission on table bookings
- 0%
- Fee per seated cover
- £0
- Plan prices
- Published
- Contract
- Monthly, cancel any time
Event tickets, paid experiences and Order & Pay carry their own disclosed platform fees — set out on the pricing page.
The calculator
Your numbers, not our averages.
Nothing is assumed and nothing is averaged. The three inputs below are the whole sum, and it’s printed on the ticket beside them.
Your numbersThree inputs, that’s all
Count only the covers booked through a marketplace. On per-cover platforms, bookings from your own website are typically free.
Used only to work out roughly how many bookings your covers are, so the comparison picks a ResoFlow plan that could actually take them.
Type the rate from your own contract or statement — as at 12 October 2026 none of the big platforms publishes an official one. The £1.00 it starts on is a placeholder, not anybody’s rate.
£6,000 a year
500 covers × £1 × 12 months — that’s what a per-cover platform would take from a year like yours.
- Per-cover fees
- £6,000 a year
- ResoFlow Plus, flat
- £468 a year
Plus (£39/month) is the cheapest plan that fits about 167 online bookings a month.
Break-even: at £1 a cover, Plus (£39/month) costs the same as 39 marketplace covers a month. Below that, per-cover is cheaper; above it, flat wins.
A year of it, at every size
Per-cover fees ResoFlow, flat
At £1 a cover, per-cover costs more than the flat plan across the whole range.
The same covers, on every plan
Free
£0 a year
Takes up to 30 online bookings a month
Built for getting started — a 30-day booking window.
PlusThe ticket’s pick
£468 a year
Fits about 167 online bookings a month
£5,532 a year less than per-cover
Pro
£948 a year
Fits about 167 online bookings a month
£5,052 a year less than per-cover
Complete
£1,548 a year
Fits about 167 online bookings a month
£4,452 a year less than per-cover
Yearly figures are twelve monthly payments, as the calculator counts them. Paying yearly takes two months off: Plus £390, Pro £790 and Complete £1,290 a year.
The sample rate is only a starting point, not any system’s price — OpenTable doesn’t publish its per-cover rate, so use the rate from your own contract for a true answer.
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; bookings your team add and walk-ins are unlimited on every plan, and paying annually gets two months free. There’s also a Free plan for trying ResoFlow (30 online bookings a month and a 30-day advance-booking window — built for getting started, not a busy service). See pricing for the full plan grid.
Commission isn’t the only fee model — see exactly what ResoFlow charges on every payment type
Checked 12 October 2026
Who actually publishes a per-cover rate?
We checked each provider’s own website. Here’s exactly what they say — which is why this page asks for your rate instead of inventing one.
| Provider | Per-cover rate | What their own site says |
|---|---|---|
| OpenTable | Charges per-cover fees — ask OpenTable for your rate | 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 Core and Pro plans are quote-priced. Ask OpenTable for the plan price, cover rate and any add-ons that apply to your venue. |
| ResDiary | No per-cover commission | Its pricing page states it “does not charge a commission on your bookings, 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 1.2% surcharge for processing deposits and payments and 3% for gift vouchers. |
| Quandoo | Closed — no new bookings | Quandoo took its last new bookings on 30 September 2026, and its closure page now says its platform is no longer available; its site carries no partner pricing. |
| ResoFlow | No per-cover fees — prices published | Flat monthly plans, published on the website: free, £39, £79 and £129 per month. We never take a cut of your table bookings, whatever channel they come from. |
Where a rival says its prices exclude VAT, so do we show them; ResoFlow currently charges no VAT.
OpenTable details from opentable.co.uk’s restaurant pages; ResDiary details from resdiary.com’s pricing page; Quandoo’s dates from its own closure page — all checked 12 October 2026. Features and pricing change; always confirm current terms with the provider directly. ResoFlow is not affiliated with OpenTable, ResDiary or Quandoo.
The other side
When per-cover fees can be worth paying.
- 01You’re below the break-evenA quiet venue seating a handful of marketplace covers a month can pay less per-cover than any flat subscription — the break-even shows exactly where the tipping point sits for your rate. Below it, per-cover is genuinely the cheaper deal, and the calculator says so.
- 02You need the marketplace’s dinersA per-cover fee buys something a flat-price system doesn’t: guests who found you through the platform’s own marketplace. OpenTable’s cover fee is charged 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.
- 03Your channel mix mattersPer-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 — the calculator will tell you. If your bookings mostly come direct, a flat plan means your plan price never rises with your covers.
Questions
Per-cover fees, answered.
Switching from one? The switch-from guides set each system beside ResoFlow.
Every comparisonWhat is a per-cover booking fee?
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 12 October 2026). Because the fee scales with how busy you are, a good month costs you more.
How much do OpenTable, ResDiary and Quandoo charge per cover?
As at 12 October 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 took its last new bookings on 30 September 2026 and has since closed; its site carries no restaurant rates. That’s why this calculator asks for the rate from your own contract or statement instead of guessing one for you.
How does the calculator work out the yearly cost?
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.
Does ResoFlow charge per-cover fees?
No — ResoFlow never takes a cut of your table bookings. You pay a flat monthly subscription: Free is free with no time limit, 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; bookings your team add and walk-ins are unlimited on every plan.
Is a flat monthly plan always cheaper than per-cover fees?
No, not always. Below the break-even point — the plan price divided by your per-cover rate — a per-cover deal costs less, and the calculator shows you that. 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.
What does ResoFlow cost?
Plans are flat-rate and published: Free is free with no time limit, Plus is £39/month, Pro is £79/month and Complete is £129/month, with two months free if you pay annually. When you first subscribe you get a 14-day money-back guarantee. There are no per-cover fees and no minimum term on monthly plans — cancel any time from your dashboard.
A busy month shouldn’t cost you more.
Free to start, then £39, £79 or £129 per month — however full the room gets.