The 16 Best Online Restaurant Reservation Systems Compared (2024 Edition)
Today’s guests have a few expectations when booking a table.
Not only do they want a seamless experience from the beginning of their reservation to its end with as few interactions as possible, but they also expect real-time waitlists, reviews and recommendations from other patrons, and an option to make their preferences known.
Using an online restaurant reservation system gives customers the freedom to make a booking whenever they like without having to call you.
Currently, restaurants have a variety of options to choose from.
Here are the best restaurant reservation systems
- Eat App
- Resy
- Wisely
- Tock
- OpenTable
- Yelp
- Table Agent
- Eveve
- Tablein
- ResOS
- Sevenrooms
- Servme
- The Fork
- Hostme
- ResDiary
- Toast
For your business, restaurant reservation systems represent a huge lifting of responsibilities from staff and significantly improve day-to-day operations.
Floor activity, guest distribution, and dining preferences for each table can all be readily accessed.
In addition, you can integrate the saved customer information (birthday, anniversary, etc.) into a guest loyalty program to create a memorable experience for your regular customers.
A quick search on Google reveals there are several restaurant reservation systems in existence. How do you know which one is right for your restaurant? What are some popular options in the restaurant management space?
To create this review we reviewed all the reservation systems in this list by signing up for each product, (where possible) and assessing the ease of use and the available features.
We also looked at current reviews on sites like G2, as well as reviewed the pricing pages of each site to get up-to-date information on the price of each service.
To help get you started, we reviewed some of the best online reservation systems based on the below-listed criteria.
Considerations for choosing a reservation system
As you do your research, there are some key considerations to look at to ensure that you’re getting your dollars’ worth.
Features
Is the system intuitive and easy to use? Does it help reduce no-shows through features like SMS notifications, emails, push notifications, and tags for previous no-show guests? Does it offer to book widgets to help increase your online reservations?
Does it help you manage capacity by offering table management, customer service, and waitlisting features?
Cost
While cost shouldn’t be the only thing you’re considering, you might find that two or three best online restaurant reservation systems are so similar that price will be the defining consideration.
Make sure there are no hidden or exorbitant fees, like installation, setup, or SMS fees. This is especially true for restaurants with high numbers of reservations.
Below, we’ll examine these key questions as we review eight of the industry’s top restaurant reservation systems
Let’s dig in.