You've set up online reservations. Bookings are coming in. Guests are happy. And then the monthly invoice arrives from your booking platform and you do the maths properly for the first time.
A busy Saturday service — 60 covers — just cost you £37 in platform fees. That's before staffing, before food, before any other operating cost.
Multiply that across a year of services and you're looking at a meaningful sum quietly leaving your business every single month, on revenue you already worked to earn.
This is the reality of per-cover commission pricing. It's worth understanding exactly how it works — and whether it has to be this way.
How Per-Cover Commissions Work
The major reservation platforms — OpenTable is the best-known example — have historically charged restaurants a fee for every diner seated through their platform. The model varies, but the structure is roughly:
- A monthly subscription fee for basic access to the platform
- A per-cover charge for every reservation that arrives via their consumer-facing app or website (typically £1–£2 per diner)
- A lower (or zero) per-cover rate for bookings made directly through your own website using their widget
The distinction between a "network booking" and a "direct booking" is important — and often misunderstood by restaurants when they sign up.
If a guest finds you through the platform's own app and books there, you pay the full per-cover rate. If a guest visits your website, finds your booking widget, and books there, you may pay less. But both scenarios cost something, and tracking which is which adds administrative friction.
The Numbers Add Up Faster Than You Expect
Let's take a realistic small venue: 30 covers, two services on Friday and Saturday, one on Sunday. That's roughly 180 covers a weekend when full.
At £1.50 per cover for network bookings — assuming half your bookings come through the platform's own app:
- 90 network bookings × £1.50 = £135 per weekend
- Over 50 weekends: £6,750 per year
For a small café or wine bar operating on tight margins, £6,750 is not an abstraction. It's a part-time member of staff. It's a kitchen equipment upgrade. It's the difference between a profitable year and a flat one.
And this is before accounting for the monthly subscription fee sitting on top.
Why Platforms Charge This Way
It's worth being fair here. The per-cover model exists because these platforms do provide something real: a consumer-facing marketplace with millions of diners actively searching for somewhere to eat.
If you're an unknown restaurant in a competitive city and the platform drives genuine new customers through your door, a per-cover fee can be worth paying for that discovery. The platform is functioning as a marketing channel, and the fee is the cost of that channel.
The problem arises in two situations that are common for independent venues:
1. You're paying for guests who would have found you anyway
A regular who searches specifically for your restaurant on the platform, finds it, and books — you pay a fee for that booking even though the platform provided no discovery value. That guest was already yours.
2. You have no alternative channel
If the booking widget on your own website is from the same platform, and the per-cover rate applies there too, you're locked into paying regardless of where the booking originates. There's no escape valve.
The Monthly Subscription Alternative
A subscription-based model charges a flat monthly fee regardless of how many covers you take. At low volume, this can actually cost more per booking than a commission model. But it has a fundamentally different relationship with your success:
The platform's revenue doesn't scale with yours.
Under a commission model, a brilliant Saturday costs you more than a quiet one. The platform earns more the busier you are — but the additional revenue goes to them, not to reinvestment in your business.
Under a flat subscription, your costs stay the same whether you're half-full or running at capacity. The upside of a full house belongs entirely to you.
For venues that run regular services at reasonable occupancy, a flat subscription almost always works out cheaper within a few months.
What "Free" Actually Means
Some platforms offer a free tier. It's worth reading what's included carefully.
True free-tier booking systems — where you pay nothing, not even a per-cover fee — exist. They're typically funded by the venue-facing subscription on their paid tiers, and offer the core functionality without a commission charge at any volume.
The questions to ask of any free offering:
- Is there a per-cover fee, even a small one?
- Does the free tier remove your booking from a consumer marketplace, or keep it there?
- Are automated confirmations and reminders included, or paywalled?
- Is the guest data yours, or does the platform retain it?
That last point matters more than it might seem. If guest records — names, emails, visit history — live on the platform's servers and leave with you if you cancel, that's your most valuable long-term asset walking out the door.
Making the Right Call for Your Venue
There's no universally right answer. The honest framework:
Per-cover commission makes sense if:
- You're a new venue with no existing audience and need marketplace discovery
- The platform genuinely drives a significant proportion of new-to-you diners
- Your margins can absorb the cost at your typical volume
Flat subscription or free tier makes sense if:
- Most of your bookings come from guests who already know you
- You're running a consistent service and want predictable costs
- You want to own your guest data without conditions
No commission at all makes sense if:
- You're a small independent running on lean margins
- You have a direct audience through social media or Google
- You want a booking link that works without any ongoing platform cost
The Direct Booking Link
One practical step that costs nothing: wherever you currently send guests to book — your booking platform's page, a third-party app — also add a direct booking link to:
- Your Google Business profile
- Your Instagram bio
- Your website homepage
A guest who lands directly on your booking page and books there should cost you nothing in platform fees. If it does, that's worth examining.
The venues that manage booking costs most effectively treat their own channels — website, social, Google — as the primary booking route, and use marketplace platforms as a supplementary discovery tool rather than the default.
You don't have to pay a platform every time a loyal regular sits down for dinner. That revenue should stay with you.
Cheeky Table charges no per-cover commissions — ever. A flat free tier for independent venues, with no card required to get started. Set up your booking page →