Restaurant Booking System UK: 2026 Buyer's Guide

A restaurant booking system in the UK costs anywhere from nothing to about £300 a month plus VAT. resOS has a free plan capped at 25 bookings a month, ResDiary lists £109 to £295 a month plus VAT, and some marketplace and enterprise systems only quote privately. The right choice depends on your booking volume, whether you need deposits and Reserve with Google, and whether you want a standalone book or one connected to your till. This guide covers the four types of system, how each one charges, the UK law that applies to fees, a must-have checklist and a 30-day switching plan.

What a restaurant booking system does

At minimum it replaces the paper diary. Guests book on your website, Google or social profile, the system stops you double-booking, and your team sees the evening's covers on a live book and floor plan. Everything else is a layer on top: SMS and email reminders, deposits and card guarantees, a waitlist, guest notes and history, and reports on no-shows and covers.

There are four types, and the type decides how you pay.

A marketplace gives you reach and charges for it. A standalone system gives you a lower, more predictable bill but no new diners unless you bring them through Google, your website and Instagram.

What booking systems cost in the UK

Prices below are as listed on each vendor's own pricing page in October 2026. Where a vendor does not publish a price, the table says so. For a fuller breakdown with a worked example, see our booking system cost guide.

The prices are ex VAT where the vendor says so (ResDiary and TablePort do; the others we checked do not state it), and several vendors show different prices for annual billing. Check the page on the day you buy.

The legal point most vendors skip: fees must be in the price

Since 6 April 2025 the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (DMCC Act) has treated drip pricing, which means showing a headline price and adding mandatory fees later in the journey, as a misleading omission. The CMA announced on 7 April 2025 that the new regime was in force. Section 230 of the Act says the total price includes any fees, taxes, charges or other payments the consumer will necessarily incur. The CMA can fine up to 10% of turnover or £300,000, whichever is greater, according to its price transparency summary.

For a restaurant this matters in two places:

• Mandatory booking or table fees. If a guest must pay a fee to book, it belongs in the price shown before they commit, not on the last screen.
• Deposits. A deposit that is credited against the final bill is a part payment, not an extra, but the amount and the refund terms still need to be clear before the guest pays. Our deposit policy guide has wording you can copy.

Ask any vendor how its guest-facing widget displays fees, and whether you or the vendor controls that. This is our reading of the law, not legal advice.

Bookings also fall outside the usual 14-day cooling-off period: regulation 28(1)(h) of the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013 excludes catering contracts that give a specific date of performance.

Must-have checklist

Not every restaurant needs every item. Tick the ones that matter for your venue before you book a demo.

• Deposits and card guarantees, configurable by shift, party size or date (see how to reduce no-shows).
• Reminders and one-tap confirm or cancel, by SMS and email, with SMS priced openly.
• Google booking button. Ask whether the vendor is a Google partner and whether Google bookings are commission-free. Google's own Business Profile help warns that your booking provider might charge you for bookings made through Google.
• Waitlist with SMS notification when a table frees up.
• Floor plan and table management, including joined tables for bigger parties.
• A widget on your own site, in your branding, with no marketplace banners.
• Guest data you own, with a full export and no fee to take it away.
• POS connection, so a reservation becomes an open check and the deposit comes off the bill.
• Plain contract terms: monthly or annual, notice period, set-up fee, price rises.

Which type suits which venue

Cafes and small independents (under about 300 bookings a month) rarely need a marketplace. A flat low-cost plan, or a free tier if your volume is tiny, plus a Google booking link covers most of the need.

Pubs and bars take a lot of walk-ins and a few big-group bookings. Look for deposits on large groups, a waitlist and an events or enquiry flow rather than a heavy CRM.

Casual dining with several hundred bookings a month is where tiered pricing starts to bite. Work out your monthly booking count and compare tiers, not just headline prices.

Fine dining and tasting menus need prepayment or card holds, strict cancellation windows and good guest notes. A marketplace may add reach but the margin on a tasting menu absorbs per-cover fees badly, so model it first.

Groups and multi-site need a shared guest database and reporting. Expect quotes rather than price lists, and negotiate the multi-site rate.

Switching in 30 days

1. Week 1: Export your guest list and future bookings. Check what marketing permissions you hold on each guest and carry only what you can lawfully carry. Pick your new system and set up shifts, tables, party-size rules and the deposit policy.
2. Week 2: Import guests and future bookings. Test the widget on your own site on a phone. Send yourself test confirmations and reminders.
3. Week 3: Run both systems in parallel. Take new bookings in the new system and keep the old one live for existing bookings. Brief the team.
4. Week 4: Update your Google profile, website button, Instagram link and phone greeting. Tell regulars. Switch off online booking in the old system once the future book has cleared, then cancel it with the notice your contract requires.

Do not cancel the old system before you have confirmed it has no future bookings, and keep a CSV copy of the old guest book.

Where TablePort fits

TablePort Reservations costs £49 per location per month ex VAT with no per-cover fees and no setup fee, and it sits on the same floor plan and guest profiles as the TablePort POS. Deposits and cancellation fees are set per shift, reminders go by SMS and email, and a waitlist texts guests when a table is ready. You can try it for 30 days with no card.

The honest limits: TablePort is a newer company with a smaller footprint than ResDiary or OpenTable, and it does not run a consumer marketplace, so it will not send you new diners. If a diner marketplace is the main thing you want, compare OpenTable and SevenRooms side by side, or read our guides to OpenTable alternatives and ResDiary alternatives. Full plan prices are on the pricing page.

This guide is general information about consumer and pricing law, not legal advice, so check your own circumstances with a qualified adviser.