A small independent choosing between these three is really choosing a charging model, not just a diary. ResDiary publishes UK prices of £109 to £295 a month and charges 0% commission on bookings. OpenTable and SevenRooms are both quote-only in the UK; OpenTable's US pricing adds a per-cover fee on marketplace bookings, while SevenRooms charges no per-cover fee at all but is priced for groups.
Key pointers
- If most bookings already arrive through your own website or by phone, ResDiary is the only one of the three with a fully published UK price today, so you can cost it before you ever speak to a salesperson.
- Ask any vendor, in writing, whether a diner who searches your restaurant's name on Google and books through a listing counts as a "network" or "marketplace" cover, since that is what triggers a per-cover fee on OpenTable's model.
- Before you sign with ResDiary, get your own Order to state the contract term explicitly. The default under Access Group's Core Terms is a 36-month initial term, not one year.
- Add ResDiary's optional extras before comparing totals. SMS, PMS integration and CRM tools cost £10 a month each; pre-orders, gift vouchers, ResPhone and Event Manager cost £35 a month each, so a £109 headline tier can become £150 to £200 in practice.
- If you want a marketplace to bring you diners you would not otherwise get, OpenTable will quote a subscription plus a fee on network covers. Ask for that exact per-cover rate before signing, since it is not on the UK website.
- SevenRooms suits venues that want a guest CRM and marketing tools bolted to the booking diary, not a straightforward reservation widget. It has no per-cover fee, but no self-serve price either.
- Since May 2026, SevenRooms venues also pick up reservation traffic from the Deliveroo app at no extra cover fee, a new UK channel worth asking about if Deliveroo already lists your food delivery.
What the Three Charging Models Actually Mean
A restaurant currently taking every booking by phone is used to one cost: staff time. All three platforms replace some of that time with software, but they recover the cost in different ways.
ResDiary is a flat monthly subscription. You pick a tier by how many bookings a month you expect, from £109 for Evo Connect, £145 for Evo Express and £205 for Evo Pro, up to £295 for unlimited bookings on Evo Ultimate, and the price does not move whether the table is empty or full. ResDiary states plainly that it charges no commission on bookings, whichever channel they arrive through, including its own DesignMyNight discovery platform and Reserve with Google. The trade-off is that several genuinely useful features, taking SMS reminders, selling gift vouchers, running events or integrating a hotel's property management system, sit outside the core tiers as paid add-ons.
OpenTable runs on a subscription plus a fee for every diner ("cover") it seats through its own marketplace. On its US site, which publishes full figures where the UK site does not, a Core plan costs $299 a month and then $1 for every cover that arrives through OpenTable's app, website or partner links such as Google. Covers booked through the restaurant's own website carry no extra charge on Core or Pro. The logic is that OpenTable only bills for the diners its own network actually brings you. For a restaurant that depends on OpenTable's discovery traffic, that is a reasonable trade. For one whose bookings mostly come from regulars finding it directly, it is a cost for something it was not using.
SevenRooms takes a third route. It charges a subscription with no per-cover fee at all, but is built and priced around guest data (tags, visit history, automated marketing, loyalty) rather than a simple booking widget, and its own pricing page routes every enquiry to a sales conversation rather than a published figure. That combination, deep CRM tools plus enterprise-style quoting, points it at restaurant groups and upscale multi-site operators more than a single independent site.
Pricing and Add-on Costs
| Platform | Headline UK price | Commission or per-cover fee | Set-up | Notable add-ons |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ResDiary Evo (Connect/Express/Pro/Ultimate) | £109 to £295 + VAT a month, by tier | 0% on bookings; 1.2% surcharge on deposits and payments, 3% on gift vouchers | £99 set-up fee | SMS, PMS integration, CRM/marketing at £10/mo each; pre-orders, gift vouchers, ResPhone, Event Manager at £35/mo each |
| OpenTable Core / Pro | Quote only in the UK | Not published in the UK. US Core and Pro: $1 per network-sourced cover; own-website covers included | Not published | Premium SMS Messaging £19/mo add-on on Core |
| SevenRooms | Quote only | No per-cover fee on any booking channel, including Deliveroo | Not published | Extra modules (marketing automation and similar) sold separately, priced on application |
None of the three publishes a full, apples-to-apples UK total. ResDiary is the exception on the base subscription, but a restaurant that wants SMS reminders, a gift voucher scheme and PMS integration should add roughly £45 to £80 a month in add-ons, plus VAT, before comparing its real monthly cost with a quote from the other two.
How Each Platform Suits a Small Independent
| Criterion | ResDiary | OpenTable | SevenRooms |
|---|---|---|---|
| Best suited to | Independents and small groups wanting a predictable bill | Venues that want exposure to OpenTable's diner marketplace | Groups, hotels and upscale venues wanting a guest CRM |
| Pricing model | Flat monthly subscription by tier | Subscription plus a fee on marketplace-sourced covers | Subscription only, no per-cover fee |
| UK price published | Yes, in full | No, quote only | No, quote only |
| Diner marketplace included | DesignMyNight and Reserve with Google, no extra fee | Its own app and site, the largest network in this comparison, but network covers are billed | Deliveroo Reservations, no extra fee |
| Onboarding | Self-service sign-up against a published tier, £99 set-up fee | Sales-led, quote and demo first | Sales-led, quote and demo first, aimed at multi-site operators |
| Contract | Defaults to a 36-month initial term under Access Group's Core Terms unless your signed Order says otherwise | Standard one-year term, auto-renewing annually with 30 days' notice to opt out, per OpenTable's own UK pricing FAQ | Set in your individual quote; ask directly and get it in writing |
| Who should think twice | A venue that genuinely needs new diners from a large marketplace, since DesignMyNight's reach is smaller than OpenTable's | A quiet independent whose diners already book direct, since it would be paying for reach it is not using | A single small site without the guest volume or marketing team to make CRM tools worth the enterprise pricing |
For a restaurant currently taking every booking by phone, the practical starting point is usually ResDiary's Evo Connect or Express tier: a published price, no per-cover surprise, and DesignMyNight and Reserve with Google as marketplace options without an extra fee. OpenTable earns its higher, unpublished cost only if its marketplace genuinely brings in diners the restaurant was not getting another way. SevenRooms earns its enterprise pricing once a venue has the guest volume, and usually the multi-site structure, to make its CRM and marketing tools pay for themselves.
Contracts, Notice Periods and Exit
Price is only half the commitment. ResDiary sits under The Access Group's Core Terms and Conditions, which state that where an individual Order does not specify otherwise, the agreement runs for "an initial term of 36 months, then it renews for further 12-month periods unless either of us gives 90 days' notice to terminate." ResDiary's own product-specific terms confirm that termination notice must be given by email and otherwise follows those Core Terms. In practice that means the length of your commitment depends on what your specific signed Order says, so ask ResDiary to confirm the exact initial term and notice period for your account in writing rather than assuming a one-year deal.
OpenTable's UK pricing page states the standard contract is one year, auto-renewing annually unless you give 30 days' notice before the renewal date. SevenRooms does not publish a UK contract term at all; it is agreed as part of the individual quote. Ask each for the initial term, the renewal mechanism and the notice period before you sign, and get the answer in the contract itself rather than a sales conversation.
Sources
- ResDiary Pricing, GBP, ResDiary
- ResDiary Pricing, ResDiary
- OpenTable for Restaurants, Pricing and Plans (UK), OpenTable
- OpenTable for Restaurants, Plans and Pricing (US), OpenTable
- SevenRooms Pricing, SevenRooms
- Access Global Terms and Conditions, The Access Group
- ResDiary Product Specific Terms, The Access Group
- Completes acquisition of SevenRooms, DoorDash Newsroom
- Deliveroo launches in-app restaurant reservations service in London, HRC
- Revealing Insights: An In-depth Analysis of Restaurant Reservation Trends in Q3 2023, UKHospitality
