Reservation Software Comparison for Restaurants in Canada

Three acquisitions in twelve months turned the Canadian reservation software market inside out. OpenTable bought Libro in April 2026. American Express merged Tock into Resy this summer. DoorDash completed its $1.2-billion purchase of SevenRooms and launched DoorDash Reservations as a discovery channel.

If you chose a platform two years ago, the company behind it has probably changed. Here's what the market looks like right now, for a restaurant that isn't part of a chain.

One note on the numbers before we start. Almost every platform here prices in US dollars and publishes no Canadian figure at all. The CAD amounts below are conversions at approximate mid-2026 rates, and they'll drift. Where a platform publishes a real Canadian price, we say so.

We build one of the eight tools in this comparison, so read the last section with that in mind. Everything in the tables is either a published price or a checkable fact, and we've flagged where our own product falls short.

Who owns what in 2026

Before comparing features, look at the ownership map. It changes how you think about the software sitting in the middle of your guest relationships.

Owner	Platform(s)	Core business
Booking Holdings	OpenTable + Libro	Travel bookings
American Express	Resy + Tock	Credit cards
DoorDash	SevenRooms	Delivery
TouchBistro	TouchBistro Reservations	POS (Canadian, independent)
Eat App	Eat App	Reservations (independent)
Hostme	Hostme	Reservations (independent)
Trudy's Table	Trudy's Table	Reservations (Canadian, independent)

Two conglomerates and a delivery giant control half the options. The other half is still independent. That's not a judgment call. It's a fact worth knowing before you sign a twelve-month contract.

Three pricing models, and the model matters more than the feature list

Reservation software splits into three camps based on how the money works.

Marketplace platforms (OpenTable, Resy) run two-sided networks. Diners use them to find restaurants. You pay for that traffic: either per cover, through high monthly fees, or both. If you need help filling tables, this model makes sense. If your tables fill on their own, you're paying for something you already have.

CRM-first platforms (SevenRooms, Eat App) give you ownership of your guest data and tools to build direct relationships. No marketplace sending you diners. Lower discovery, higher control.

Flat-rate tools (TouchBistro, Hostme) charge a predictable monthly fee with no per-cover charges. Simpler feature sets, but the bill doesn't move based on how busy your Saturday was.

The question underneath the pricing model

Sort the camps by what they actually do for a Tuesday night that isn't filling, and a sharper line appears.

The marketplace platforms are the only ones in this comparison that genuinely shape demand. They put you in front of a diner who hadn't chosen you yet. That's a real service, and the per-cover fee is the price of it. The catch is that the meter doesn't distinguish between a diner they found for you and a regular who would have called anyway.

Almost everything else is booking plumbing. Flat-rate tools and CRM tools record demand: they take the reservation, hold the table, store the guest, send the reminder. Useful, necessary, and priced fairly. But nothing in a floor plan or a guest profile gives a half-empty Tuesday a reason to fill.

That's the gap worth paying attention to. Most independents don't need a marketplace and can't afford a per-cover meter, but they still need a lever. Keep it in mind through the sections below, because it's the one axis where the tools genuinely diverge.

The eight options, compared

OpenTable comes first because it is the largest platform in Canada and, since the Libro acquisition, the one many Quebec operators are being moved onto whether they chose it or not. After that the order is simply cheapest to most expensive, which is also roughly the order from booking plumbing to full marketplace.

OpenTable (includes Libro)

Owner: Booking Holdings (BKNG) Model: Monthly subscription + per-cover fees on network bookings

Since acquiring Libro, OpenTable is the largest reservation platform in Canada. Libro's 3,000+ Quebec restaurants will eventually migrate to one ecosystem. The two products still run in parallel during integration.

Pricing: Basic starts at $149 USD/month (about $205 CAD) with $1.50 per cover on network reservations and $0.25 per cover on reservations from your own website. Core is $299 USD/month with $1.00 per cover. Pro runs $499 USD/month. A 2% service fee now applies to no-show charges, deposits, and prepaid experiences.

The real cost for an independent: A 40-seat restaurant with 800 covers a month, 40% from the OpenTable network, pays roughly $205 + $480 in cover fees = $685 CAD/month on Basic. If most of your reservations come through your own widget, the number drops. But that $0.25 per cover on your own website traffic is still a charge most flat-rate tools don't have.

Reserve with Google: Yes, with a caveat worth understanding. OpenTable's own documentation defines a network cover as a reservation made through "the OpenTable app, website, or partner links, such as Google or TripAdvisor." Read plainly, that means a booking a diner makes from your Google listing can be billed at the network per-cover rate rather than the lower own-website rate. OpenTable has never published a line item naming Reserve with Google specifically, so treat this as what the model implies rather than a confirmed charge, and ask before you sign. We break the whole pricing structure down in OpenTable pricing, explained.

Data ownership: Guest data from network bookings belongs to OpenTable. Guests who book through OpenTable can receive recommendations for other restaurants. Data you enter manually (walk-ins, phone reservations) stays yours.

Best for: Restaurants that genuinely need discovery help and have the margin to pay $1.00 to $1.50 per cover for it. In cities like Toronto and Vancouver where OpenTable has strong diner traffic, the network effect is real. In smaller markets, you're paying marketplace pricing for a management tool.

Trudy's Table

Owner: Trudy's Table (independent, Canadian) Model: Flat monthly subscription, no marketplace

This is our product, so treat this section as the interested party talking. The prices and limitations below are checkable, and the limitations are real.

Pricing: $59 CAD/month. Flat, no per-cover fees, no marketplace, monthly. It's the only price in this comparison that's published in Canadian dollars rather than converted from USD, which is less a feature than an accident of being Canadian.

Where it fits the demand question: Trudy's Table is a flat-rate tool that tries not to be only plumbing. Two mechanics do that work.

Perks. You can attach a free perk to a reservation and let the guest claim it when they book. A welcome glass of something, a shared starter, whatever the kitchen can absorb. Perks tie to specific services, party sizes, and time-of-day windows, so you can run an early-bird perk that expires at 6pm, or one that only applies to tables of four or more. The claim shows up on the floor plan when the guest arrives, so the server knows before the table does. It's a lever for a soft Tuesday that costs you food cost instead of a per-cover fee.

Walk-in services. You can mark a service as walk-in-only. Instead of the booking page showing a diner "no availability" for a Sunday lunch you never took reservations for, it tells them to come in, and points at the next day you do take bookings. Every reservation platform in this comparison shows an empty grid for a service you don't book, and diners read an empty grid as fully booked. That's a quiet, unmeasurable loss and it's the one this fixes. If you run part of the week on bookings and part on walk-ins, that's a hybrid model worth naming deliberately rather than drifting into.

Setup: You don't have to draw a floor plan. Enter a table count (four two-tops, six four-tops) and the system runs on that, with a time-grouped list view instead of a canvas. Build the visual floor plan later if you want it. For a 30-seat room where the owner is also the host, that's the difference between using the software this week and meaning to set it up eventually.

Card on file: Cards are saved, not charged and not held. Nothing appears on the guest's statement at booking. If someone no-shows, you decide afterward whether to charge the fee or clear the card. Most platforms that offer no-show protection place a hold or take a deposit, which the guest sees and sometimes resents.

Reserve with Google: Not yet. The integration is planned and the infrastructure is in place, but it isn't live, and this is the most significant thing Trudy's Table is missing against Eat App at a comparable price. If Google booking is your priority today, that's a real reason to choose differently.

Data ownership: You own your guest data. No marketplace, no third-party recommendations, nothing sold on.

French interface: Yes, fully bilingual, built that way from the start rather than translated afterward.

Best for: Independent restaurants that mostly fill their own tables through Google, phone, Instagram, and regulars, and want a lever for the nights that don't fill rather than a bigger monthly bill. The honest limitations: it's the newest tool here, there's no discovery network, no POS integration, and no Reserve with Google yet.

What $59 CAD/month includes
Per-cover fees	None
Guest perks claimable at booking	Yes, tied to service, party size, time window
Walk-in-only services	Yes, with a next-bookable-day prompt
Floor plan required to start	No, a table count works
Card on file	Saved, never held or charged upfront
Interface	English and French
Guest data	Yours
Contract	Monthly

Eat App

Owner: Eat App (independent, Dubai) Model: Tiered monthly subscription with a free plan

Eat App is the only platform in this comparison with a genuinely functional free tier and Reserve with Google integration at affordable price points.

Pricing: The free plan covers up to 300 covers per month with floor plan management and a booking widget. Starter is $99 USD/month (about $136 CAD) with automated messaging. Essential is $199 USD/month with unlimited covers, reports, and surveys. Pro is $389 USD/month with advanced analytics and CRM. No per-cover fees on any plan.

Reserve with Google: Yes, available even on lower-tier plans. Most platforms here offer Google booking in some form, so the differentiator isn't that Eat App has it. It's the price at which you get it: the free plan and the $99 USD Starter both include it, against $229 CAD for TouchBistro, $340 for Resy and per-cover fees on OpenTable. If Google Maps and Google Search discoverability is the feature you're shopping for, Eat App is the cheapest route to it in 2026. See how Google has become the discovery channel for why that matters more each year.

Data ownership: You own your guest data. No marketplace sharing.

Best for: Budget-conscious independents who want a real reservation system without the $200+/month commitment. The free plan is a legitimate product, not a stripped-down demo. Start there, upgrade if you outgrow it. One thing to know: Eat App is headquartered in Dubai, the interface is English-only, and support operates on Middle East business hours. For some operators, that matters.

Yelp Guest Manager

Owner: Yelp (independent) Model: Monthly subscription with discovery network

Yelp combines reservation management with its review and discovery platform. Reservations connect to Apple Maps, Google, Facebook, TikTok, and the Yelp network.

Pricing: Starts at $99 USD/month (about $136 CAD). No per-cover fees. Yelp regularly runs promotions offering up to six free months on a twelve-month commitment.

Reserve with Google: Available through partner integrations.

Data ownership: Guest data is shared with the Yelp ecosystem.

Best for: Restaurants in English Canadian markets where Yelp has an active diner base (parts of Ontario, BC, Alberta). In Quebec, Yelp's user base is much smaller, which limits the discovery value. The promotional pricing is attractive, but read the contract term: most promotions require a twelve-month commitment.

Hostme

Owner: Hostme (independent) Model: Flat monthly subscription

Hostme is a flat-rate platform built specifically for independents. No marketplace, no per-cover fees on your own booking channels.

Pricing: Mezzo plan is $109 USD/month (about $150 CAD) with unlimited parties, analytics, SMS messaging, and online ordering. Grande is $169 USD/month (about $232 CAD) and adds POS integration, dedicated support, and advanced reporting. A 10% discount applies for annual billing.

Optional add-ons: Facebook and Instagram booking for $15/month. TripAdvisor and Michelin channel at $2.50 per cover. Extra events at $20 each. Marketing credit packs from $20.

Reserve with Google: Available through partner integrations.

Data ownership: You own your guest data.

Best for: Independents who want a mid-range option between the bare-bones free tools and the $200+/month platforms. The pricing is transparent, the add-on model means you pay only for the channels you actually use, and the 14-day trial lets you test before committing.

TouchBistro Reservations

Owner: TouchBistro (independent, Toronto) Model: Flat monthly subscription, no marketplace

TouchBistro is a Canadian POS company that added a reservation module. The advantage is native POS integration: ticket data, item-level orders, and guest reservation profiles live in one system.

Pricing: $229 CAD/month. All features included: floor plan management, waitlist, online reservations, two-way SMS, no-show charges. No per-cover fees.

Reserve with Google: Yes. TouchBistro takes bookings through your own website, tbdine.com and Google, and their documentation describes diners booking directly from Google search and maps.

Data ownership: You own your guest data. No marketplace sharing, no third-party recommendations.

Best for: Restaurants already using TouchBistro's POS. The POS-to-reservation data connection is the real value here: you can see that the couple at table 7 spent $180 last visit and always orders the tasting menu. Without the POS, the reservation module alone doesn't have a discovery network or a particularly deep CRM. It's a solid management tool, not a growth engine.

Resy (includes Tock)

Owner: American Express Model: Monthly subscription, no per-cover fees

Resy positions itself as the platform for experience-driven restaurants. The Tock merger adds prepaid bookings, ticketed events, and tiered dining experiences. Amex cardholders get exclusive access and dining credits at Resy restaurants, which sends a specific (higher-spending) demographic your way.

Pricing: Basic is $249 USD/month (about $340 CAD). Pro is $399 USD/month. Enterprise with POS integration and advanced reporting runs $899 USD/month. No per-cover fees at any tier.

The real cost: Flat and predictable. $340 CAD/month whether you do 200 covers or 2,000. That predictability is valuable. But $340/month is steep for a 30-seat independent doing 500 covers, and Resy's network strength varies wildly by market. In Montreal and Toronto, the Amex diner base is meaningful. In Halifax or Saskatoon, check how many restaurants in your area are already on Resy before committing.

Reserve with Google: Yes. Resy says guests can book directly from Google Search, Maps and Assistant, syncing back to Resy.

Data ownership: Guest data from network bookings is shared with the Resy marketplace. Resy can recommend other restaurants to your guests.

Best for: Restaurants in major metros where the Amex diner network actively drives covers, and restaurants that want Tock-style prepaid experiences or ticketed events. If you're running chef's table dinners, tasting menus, or special events, the Tock features are a genuine differentiator.

SevenRooms (DoorDash Reservations)

Owner: DoorDash Model: Quote-based monthly subscription

SevenRooms is the most feature-rich CRM in this comparison. Guest profiles, automated marketing, loyalty programs, event management, and now DoorDash Reservations as a discovery channel. The DoorDash acquisition means your reservation data sits inside a delivery ecosystem, with DoorDash saying the data remains separate.

Pricing: Quote-based only. Reported pricing starts around $499 USD/month (about $685 CAD) for a single venue. Three tiers (Starter, Growth, Premium) with add-ons for email marketing, voice AI, and WhatsApp. No per-cover fees.

DoorDash Reservations: Commission-free, included with your SevenRooms subscription. Reaches DoorDash's diner base for discovery. Guest data from DoorDash bookings flows into your SevenRooms CRM, tagged so you can identify delivery regulars who are now dining in.

Reserve with Google: Yes.

Data ownership: SevenRooms has historically positioned itself as the operator-first platform where you own the guest relationship. The DoorDash acquisition adds a question mark: your data now lives inside a delivery company's infrastructure. The terms say data stays separate. Read the contract carefully.

Best for: High-volume restaurants with the budget for a full CRM stack and the staff to use it. If you're running email campaigns, loyalty tiers, and automated guest communications, SevenRooms does things the simpler tools can't. If you just need reservations and a floor plan, you're paying $685+ CAD/month for a Ferrari when a bicycle gets you there.

The comparison table

	OpenTable	Trudy's Table	Eat App	Yelp GM	Hostme	TouchBistro	Resy	SevenRooms
Entry price (CAD/mo)	~$205 + covers	$59	Free (300 cov.)	~$136	~$150	$229	~$340	~$685 (quote)
Publishes a Canadian price	No	Yes	No	No	No	Yes	No	No (quote only)
Per-cover fees	$0.25-$1.50	No	No	No	No	No	No	No
Discovery network	Yes (60,000+)	No	No	Yes (via Yelp)	No	No	Yes (25,000+)	Yes (DoorDash)
Reserve with Google	Yes	Not yet	Yes	Partners	Partners	Yes	Yes	Yes
You own guest data	Partial	Yes	Yes	Partial	Yes	Yes	Partial	With caveats
French interface	Yes (Libro)	Yes	No	No	No	Yes	No	No
POS integration	Via partners	No	Via partners	No	Paid add-on	Native	Via partners	Via partners
Contract minimum	Varies	Monthly	Monthly	12 months (promo)	Monthly	Monthly	Varies	Annual

A tilde means the figure is converted from a published US dollar price. Only two numbers in that row aren't: TouchBistro and Trudy's Table publish in Canadian dollars. Everyone else leaves you to do the conversion and absorb the exchange rate.

What's actually different about buying reservation software in Canada

Most comparison posts you'll find are written for a US restaurant and quietly assume you are one. Four things change north of the border, and none of them show up in a feature list.

You're buying in a currency you don't earn in. Six of the eight platforms here publish only US dollar prices. Your revenue is in Canadian dollars and your software bill isn't, so a quiet 5% move in the exchange rate is a raise you didn't approve. Most Canadian business cards add a foreign transaction fee of around 2.5% on top, which nobody quotes you. On a $340 USD subscription that's roughly $100 a year you'll never see itemized. It belongs in the same bucket as the rest of what your restaurant software actually costs.

Only three of eight run in French. For a Quebec restaurant this isn't a preference, it's whether your staff can use the tool and whether your guests get a booking page in the language they expect. OpenTable inherited French through Libro, TouchBistro has it, Trudy's Table has it. Eat App is English-only and staffed on Middle East hours, which is a real consideration if your Friday service problem happens at 7pm Eastern.

No-show fees are regulated differently here. Quebec in particular has rules on what a restaurant can charge a guest who doesn't show. Any platform that offers no-show protection is a US product applying a US assumption, so check what it lets you charge before you rely on it. We covered what no-shows actually cost Canadian restaurants separately.

The discovery networks are thinner than their numbers suggest. OpenTable's 60,000 restaurants and Resy's 25,000 are global figures. What matters is how many diners in your city open that app. In Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal the marketplace networks are genuinely active. In Halifax, Saskatoon, Trois-Rivières or Kelowna, you may be paying network pricing for a network that isn't there. Before signing a per-cover deal, search your own neighbourhood in the app and count the results.

What this costs a 40-seat independent per year

Theory is nice. Here's what a 40-seat restaurant doing 800 covers a month actually pays, assuming 40% of covers come from the platform's network (for marketplace tools) and the rest from the restaurant's own website or phone.

Platform	Monthly cost (CAD)	Annual cost (CAD)
Trudy's Table	$59	$708
Yelp Guest Manager	~$136	~$1,632
Eat App (Starter)	~$136	~$1,632
Hostme (Mezzo)	~$150	~$1,800
TouchBistro	$229	$2,748
Resy (Basic)	~$340	~$4,080
OpenTable (Basic)	~$685	~$8,220
SevenRooms	~$685+	~$8,220+

Note that Eat App's free plan covers 300 covers a month, so at the 800-cover volume in this scenario you're on Starter. Below that, it's genuinely free.

The spread from top to bottom is roughly $7,500 a year. On a 4% net margin, that's the profit from about $187,000 in revenue. Whatever you pick, that money either goes to a software vendor or stays in the business.

The question isn't which tool has the most features. It's whether the features you're paying for bring in enough covers to justify the cost.

Four questions before you choose

Where do your reservations actually come from?

If most of your bookings arrive through your website, Google, phone, or Instagram DMs, you don't need a marketplace. Eat App with Reserve with Google gives you discoverability on the world's biggest search engine without per-cover fees. If you genuinely rely on the OpenTable or Resy network to fill slow nights, the marketplace fee is the cost of acquisition, and it might be worth it. Worth knowing that restaurant discovery is shifting from search to asking, which changes what a marketplace listing is actually worth over the life of a contract.

Who do you want owning your guest relationships?

With OpenTable and Resy, your guests are also their guests. A diner who books through the marketplace can receive recommendations for competing restaurants. With Eat App, Hostme, or TouchBistro, you control the database. You decide who gets contacted and when. For an independent building long-term regulars, that control matters. For a restaurant that needs volume, the marketplace trade-off might be acceptable.

Can your team actually use the CRM features?

SevenRooms and the higher Eat App tiers offer automated marketing, loyalty programs, and guest segmentation. Those tools are powerful if someone on your team is running campaigns and tracking metrics. If the CRM sits unused because your team is too busy running service, you're paying for software no one touches. Be honest about your operational capacity before buying the premium tier.

What does the software do on a night that doesn't fill?

This is the question most comparison posts skip, including the vendor ones. Look at a Tuesday in February with eleven covers on the book. A floor plan doesn't help. A guest profile doesn't help. A waitlist definitely doesn't help. Most of these tools will faithfully record eleven covers and hand you a report about it.

The marketplace platforms are the honest answer to this problem, and they charge accordingly. The rest of the field is asking you to solve it yourself, with email or Instagram or a chalkboard. Whatever you choose, know which of those you're buying, because the monthly price tells you almost nothing about it.

The position we'll take

Most independents in Canada are overpaying for reservation software in 2026. Not because the expensive tools are bad, but because the features that justify their cost (marketplace discovery, advanced CRM, automated marketing) only matter if your specific situation demands them.

If you're in a competitive urban market and genuinely need the OpenTable or Resy network to drive covers, the marketplace fee is a marketing cost. Track your cost per acquisition on those covers the way you'd track any ad spend, and be ruthless about it. If the number doesn't hold up, you're paying a finder's fee on diners who already knew where you were.

If you fill your own tables, the calculation is different, and it's not simply "buy the cheapest flat-rate tool." Most of the flat-rate field is booking infrastructure: it will take the reservation and never help you get one. That's fine if it's what you want, and it's most of what's available. Just don't pay a premium for a management tool and expect it to fill a room.

The worst choice is the default one: signing up for the tool your neighbour uses without running the numbers on your own volume.

Sources: BetaKit, Restaurant Dive, Fast Company, OpenTable, OpenTable Support: Review cover performance in the Monthly Email Report, Eat App, TouchBistro, Hostme, Resy, SevenRooms.

Pricing is current as of July 2026. Figures marked with a tilde are converted from published US dollar prices at approximate rates and will move with the exchange rate. Verify current pricing with any vendor before signing.

Trudy's Table is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by OpenTable, Libro, Resy, Tock, American Express, SevenRooms, DoorDash, TouchBistro, Eat App, Hostme, or Yelp. All product and company names are the trademarks of their respective owners, referenced here for identification and comparison only.

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