Resy vs. OpenTable vs. SevenRooms: Reservations Compared

Resy vs. OpenTable is the comparison most owners start with, and SevenRooms belongs in the same conversation. All three cover the basics: online booking, waitlists, table management, and guest notes. They differ most in how they charge, where new guests find you, and how much of the guest relationship you control. Pricing and features change often, so treat this as a starting point and confirm current terms with each vendor before you sign anything.

The three platforms in brief

OpenTable is part of Booking Holdings. It pairs host stand tools, guest profiles, and marketing features with a large consumer marketplace where diners search and book through the OpenTable app and website.

Resy is owned by American Express. Diners discover and book restaurants in the Resy app, and the restaurant software, ResyOS, covers reservations, waitlist, and table management. Amex cardmember dining benefits run through Resy, and in February 2026 American Express announced that Tock, the prepaid reservations and experiences platform it also owns, will fold into Resy.

SevenRooms is owned by DoorDash, which completed the acquisition in June 2025. It's built around guest data: CRM, guest profiles, marketing automation, and branded booking through your own website, social channels, and Google. It doesn't run a consumer app of its own. In fall 2025, DoorDash began offering reservations inside the DoorDash app, powered by SevenRooms, starting in Miami and New York.

How each platform charges

Here are the pricing models in general terms. Exact prices change and often depend on your plan, market, and contract, so get a written quote from each vendor.

• OpenTable charges a monthly subscription by plan tier, plus a fee for each guest seated from reservations made through its network, meaning its app and website. Reservations made through your own website are charged less or nothing, depending on the plan. OpenTable also rolled out a 2 percent service fee on deposits, prepaid experiences, and no-show charges across late 2025 and early 2026, which the restaurant can absorb or pass on to the guest.
• Resy charges a flat monthly subscription by tier and says it doesn't charge per-cover or per-reservation fees. Ask about fees on prepayments, deposits, and ticketed experiences, since payments can carry their own charges.
• SevenRooms doesn't publish prices. It sells packages by quote and doesn't charge cover fees, including on bookings that come through DoorDash. Some features can be priced as add-ons, so ask exactly what's in the package you're quoted.

Resy vs. OpenTable vs. SevenRooms at a glance

The cover fee math

Per-cover pricing is easy to underestimate because it grows as you get busier. Here's the quick version:

Monthly network fees = network covers per month × fee per network cover

Using a placeholder rate of $1 per cover, a restaurant seating 1,200 network covers a month pays $1,200 in cover fees on top of its subscription. Whether that's a good deal depends on who those guests are. If most are first-timers who found you on the app, a dollar a head is cheap marketing. If most are regulars who'd have booked anyway, you're paying a toll on your own guests.

Two habits help with any platform:

• Put your own booking widget on your website, link it from your social profiles, and steer regulars there.
• Pull a report of covers by source every month so you know what share came from the network.

Deposits and no-show policies

All three platforms can hold a reservation with a card or take a deposit, and the rules and fees differ by plan. Before you turn either on, decide your policy: which nights, which party sizes, how much, and how far ahead a guest can cancel without a charge. Put it in plain words on the booking page and in the confirmation message. A clear policy applied the same way every time tends to draw fewer disputes than a strict one applied unevenly, and it gives your hosts something firm to point to on a busy night.

Questions that decide it

• Do you need discovery? New openings, tourist areas, and hotel restaurants tend to get the most from a big diner network. A neighborhood spot full of regulars may get less.
• Do you sell experiences? Tasting menus, holiday dinners, and ticketed events need prepayment tools. Compare how each platform handles deposits and what it charges on those payments.
• Do you run more than one venue? Groups and hotels care about one guest profile across venues, shared reporting, and marketing to the whole list.
• How does it work with your POS? All three offer POS integrations. Check your POS by name and ask what information moves in each direction.
• What happens if you leave? Ask what guest data you can export, in what format, and what you're allowed to do with it.
• What's in the contract? Term length, cancellation terms, setup fees, and hardware.

What to test in a demo

Book a demo with each platform and run the same script:

1. Build your real floor plan, including table combos for large parties.
2. Book, change, and cancel a reservation as a guest on your phone.
3. Add an allergy note and see where your host and servers will find it.
4. Quote a wait for a walk-in party and send the table-ready text.
5. Pull last month's covers by source and the no-show rate.
6. Export the guest list.

If a platform makes any of these awkward in a quiet demo, it'll be worse on a Friday at 7:30.

If you're switching platforms

Switching in the middle of your busy season is the hard way to do it. Pick a slower stretch and work through these steps:

• Export your guest list, notes, and tags from the old system, and confirm what the new one will import.
• Move future reservations over, or run both systems until the old bookings clear.
• Update every booking link on your website, Google listing, and social profiles the day you go live.
• Train hosts on a slow night before the first busy weekend.
• Check the cancellation date on your old contract so you don't pay for two systems longer than you need to.

Where custom software fits

For most independent restaurants, a standard platform like one of these three is the right call. Custom software earns its place when your rules don't fit a standard product: membership tiers with different booking windows, private clubs, hotel outlets with their own house rules, or a host stand built around your floor and your pacing. That's the kind of custom restaurant software we build, and it runs alongside your POS.

If you're choosing a POS at the same time, our comparison of Toast vs. Square vs. Clover covers the other half of the stack. Whatever you pick, make sure guests can book from your Google listing. Our Google Business Profile guide walks through the setup.

How Monarch helps

We help owners pick and set up the reservation platform that fits, and when a standard product can't follow your rules, we build custom reservations and host stand tools that work alongside your POS. Our free AI assessment reviews your website, your Google listing, and your reviews, and Christy follows up personally.