What Does OpenTable Actually Cost?
I get asked about OpenTable's pricing a lot. Usually by restaurant owners who are either considering signing up or staring at a bill that's higher than they expected. The pricing page doesn't make it easy to figure out the real number, so I'll do it here.
I should be transparent: I built bavoli, which competes with OpenTable. I have a clear bias. I'm going to use OpenTable's own published rates and work through the math step by step so you can verify everything yourself.
The base plans
As of early 2026, OpenTable offers two main plans for restaurants:
OpenTable Core: $299 per month base fee, plus $1.00 per cover for guests who book through OpenTable's marketplace (their website and app).
OpenTable Pro: $499 per month base fee, plus the same $1.00 per-cover fee for marketplace bookings. Pro adds features like guest relationship management, automated email campaigns, and enhanced reporting.
There's also a per-cover fee of $0.25 for guests who book through your own website using OpenTable's embedded widget. This is lower than the marketplace rate, but it's still a per-cover charge on guests who already knew where they wanted to eat.
The real monthly cost
Here's where it gets real. Let's look at three restaurant sizes:
Small restaurant (200 covers/month)
| Core | Pro | |
|---|---|---|
| Base fee | $299 | $499 |
| Network covers (est. 120) | $120 | $120 |
| Widget covers (est. 80) | $20 | $20 |
| Monthly total | $439 | $639 |
| Annual total | $5,268 | $7,668 |
Mid-size restaurant (500 covers/month)
| Core | Pro | |
|---|---|---|
| Base fee | $299 | $499 |
| Network covers (est. 300) | $300 | $300 |
| Widget covers (est. 200) | $50 | $50 |
| Monthly total | $649 | $849 |
| Annual total | $7,788 | $10,188 |
Busy restaurant (1,000 covers/month)
| Core | Pro | |
|---|---|---|
| Base fee | $299 | $499 |
| Network covers (est. 600) | $600 | $600 |
| Widget covers (est. 400) | $100 | $100 |
| Monthly total | $999 | $1,199 |
| Annual total | $11,988 | $14,388 |
The split between network and widget covers varies by restaurant. Some get most bookings through the marketplace. Others get 80% through their own site. Your split matters because it changes the per-cover math. But either way, you're paying per cover.
The costs that don't show up on the pricing page
Marketing and promotions. OpenTable offers "Boost" campaigns that give your restaurant higher placement in search results, for an additional per-cover fee on top of the standard rate. Restaurant Business has reported these can add $3 to $7.50 per cover for promoted bookings. If you're using Boost to fill slow nights, those seats aren't cheap.
The ad network. In early 2026, OpenTable launched an advertising network built on reservation data. Restaurants pay per-cover fees, OpenTable collects the data, and now they sell advertising against it. Your guest data is the product. I wrote about what this means for data ownership in a separate post.
Opportunity cost of the diner relationship. When a guest books through OpenTable's marketplace, OpenTable owns that initial touchpoint. They can (and do) market other restaurants to that guest. Your reservation generated the data. Their platform uses it to send your guest somewhere else next Friday. That's not a line item on your invoice, but it's a real cost.
When OpenTable is worth it
I'd be dishonest if I didn't say this: for some restaurants, OpenTable's pricing makes sense.
If your restaurant is new and you need discovery (actual new diners who wouldn't have found you otherwise), OpenTable's marketplace has real value. They're the largest reservation network in the world. For restaurants in competitive markets where you're fighting for attention, paying $1 per cover for a brand-new customer can be a reasonable acquisition cost.
If you're a large operation doing thousands of covers per month, you may be able to negotiate custom pricing. The published rates aren't the final word for high-volume restaurants.
And if you need deep POS integrations with systems like Toast or Square, OpenTable's ecosystem is more mature than most alternatives, including ours.
When it's not
For an established independent restaurant where most bookings come from regulars, your website, Google, and walk-ins, the per-cover model doesn't align with how you operate. You're paying acquisition costs for guests you already have.
If your monthly cover count is under 1,000 and you don't depend on marketplace discovery, you're likely paying $6,000 to $12,000 a year for features you could get for a fraction of that.
I built bavoli around flat monthly pricing because I think that's how business tools should work. Our Starter plan is $20/month ($240 a year) with zero per-cover fees. Our Professional plan is $50/month. No cover charges at any volume. You can run the numbers yourself on our savings calculator.
I'm not pretending bavoli does everything OpenTable does. We don't have a diner marketplace. We don't have deep POS integrations yet. Those are real gaps. But if the features you actually use (reservations, guest profiles, no-show protection, a waitlist) are available for $240 a year instead of $9,000, it's worth asking what that extra $8,760 is buying you.
Pull up your last OpenTable invoice. Add up the base fee, the per-cover charges, and any Boost spending. Compare that to $20/month. The math is the pitch.
