What online reservations actually cost your restaurant

Online reservations cost more than the number on the pricing page. A restaurant doing 1,500 covers a month, 1,300 of them through OpenTable's network, pays roughly $2,207 CAD per month on OpenTable Core once you add the per-cover fees. That is $26,484 a year just for the right to accept bookings.

The math matters right now. Restaurants Canada reports that 49% of Canadian operators saw lower sales in 2026. 41% are operating at a loss or breaking even, up from 36% in March. Canada is expected to lose roughly 4,000 restaurants net this year. When margins are this thin, a reservation system that quietly costs $25,000 or $30,000 a year is not a line item you can afford to ignore.

Here is what six platforms actually charge, what the fine print adds, and how to figure out what you are really paying.

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What does each platform actually charge?

The listed prices below are in USD because that is how these platforms publish them. The CAD column converts at the current rate (1 USD = 1.38 CAD) so you can see what hits your Canadian bank account.

Platform	Monthly fee (USD)	Monthly fee (CAD)	Per-cover fee	Transaction fee	Contract
OpenTable Basic	$149	$206	$1.50/network, $0.25/own-site (or $49/mo flat)	2% on deposits/prepaid	1-year auto-renew
OpenTable Core	$299	$413	$1.00/network	2% on deposits/prepaid	1-year auto-renew
OpenTable Pro	$499	$689	$1.00/network	2% on deposits/prepaid	1-year auto-renew
Resy Platform	$249	$344	None	2-3% on prepaid/events	Annual contract
Resy Essential	$269	$371	None	2-3% on prepaid/events	Annual contract
Resy Premium/360	$399	$551	None	Lower transaction %	Annual contract
Tock Plus	$199	$275	None	2% on prepaid	Annual contract
Tock Pro	$699	$965	None	None	Annual contract
Yelp Guest Manager Basic	$99	$137	None	None	$600 early termination
Yelp Guest Manager Plus	$299	$413	None	None	$1,500 early termination
TouchBistro Reservations	$229 (+ $69 POS)	$411 total	None	None	Requires POS subscription
SevenRooms	$499-$2,000+	$689-$2,760+	None	Varies	Annual contract
Trudy's Table	$59 CAD	$59	None	None	No contract

At a glance, the platforms that skip per-cover fees look cheaper. But the listed fee is only the starting point. The real cost depends on your volume, your event revenue, and how many guests come through the platform's network versus your own channels.

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How per-cover fees change the math

Per-cover fees are unique to OpenTable, and they are where the sticker price stops meaning much.

Take a mid-range Canadian restaurant doing about 1,500 covers a month over six nights a week: roughly 1,300 through the network and 200 through its own website. On OpenTable Core, the monthly bill looks like this:

Line item	Amount (CAD)
Base subscription	$413
Network covers (1,300 x $1.38)	$1,794
Own-site covers	$0 (free on Core)
Monthly total	$2,207
Annual total	$26,484

Switch to OpenTable Basic with the same volume:

Line item	Amount (CAD)
Base subscription	$206
Network covers (1,300 x $2.07)	$2,691
Own-site covers (200 x $0.35)	$70
Monthly total	$2,967
Annual total	$35,604

The cheaper plan costs more. This is how per-cover pricing works. The more successful you are at filling seats, the more you pay. Operators on Reddit have been saying this for years. One restaurant owner put it plainly: "I paid close to $1,000/month. Resy charges me like $200/month."

Another: "We used Open Table and I would never recommend them. I'm now using Tock and I swear by it. $140 a month."

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What about transaction fees?

OpenTable introduced a 2% service fee on deposits and prepaid experiences in early 2026. Resy charges 2-3% on prepaid events. Tock Plus charges 2%.

For a regular Tuesday dinner, these fees are irrelevant because no money moves at booking time. But for prix fixe events, holiday seatings, and ticketed experiences, the numbers add up fast.

Consider a New Year's Eve prix fixe: $150 per head, 80 guests. At 2%, that is $240 in transaction fees on a single evening. An 80-cover Valentine's Day tasting menu at $120 a head costs another $192.

If your restaurant runs four or five premium events a year, you are looking at $800 to $1,500 in transaction fees alone, on top of everything else.

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What does consolidation mean for your costs?

The Canadian market got smaller in April 2026, when the Quebec-based platform many independents used was acquired by one of the marketplace players. Both companies say it continues as a standalone brand, and its pricing is still flat-rate and commission-free as of September 2026.

What nobody has committed to publicly is what that pricing looks like in two years. That's not a prediction, it's an open question, and it's the right question to ask any vendor before you sign: what happens to my rate if you get bought? A flat fee is only flat for as long as someone keeps it that way.

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What does each platform give you for the money?

Price alone does not tell the whole story. Here is what you are buying at each tier. For a feature-by-feature breakdown, see our Canadian reservation software comparison.

OpenTable offers the largest diner network in North America. If your restaurant relies on discovery from new guests who search OpenTable directly, the per-cover fees are the price of that distribution. OpenTable also has the deepest integration ecosystem: POS connections, CRM tools, and now Reserve with Google on some plans. The trade-off is clear. You pay for reach.

Resy gives you a cleaner operator experience with no per-cover fees. The restaurant gets full control over how reservations are presented. Resy's diner-facing app has a strong following in major cities, especially among food-forward diners. But Resy's network is smaller than OpenTable's, and discovery is weaker outside Toronto and Vancouver.

Tock is built around prepaid and ticketed dining. If your restaurant does tasting menus, pop-ups, or prix fixe events, Tock's model makes sense. The 2% transaction fee on Plus is the cost of that infrastructure. Tock Pro at $965 CAD/month eliminates the transaction fee entirely, which can be cheaper for high-volume event restaurants.

Yelp Guest Manager is the budget entry point, but the early termination fees ($600 on Basic, $1,500 on Plus) mean you are still locked in. Yelp's reservation network is weaker than the others in Canada, which limits discovery value.

TouchBistro bundles reservations as a $229 USD add-on to its POS system. If you are already on TouchBistro's POS, the reservation tool makes sense. If you are not, you are looking at $411 CAD/month minimum for reservations plus a POS you may not need.

SevenRooms is enterprise software priced accordingly. Most independent Canadian restaurants will not need what SevenRooms offers, and the $689-$2,760+ CAD monthly price reflects that.

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What's the full cost, side by side?

Put the subscription, the per-cover fees and the transaction cuts together, and the gap between platforms stops being a rounding error. Same restaurant as above: 1,300 network covers a month and a few prepaid events a year.

Cost component	OpenTable Core (CAD)	Resy Platform (CAD)	Trudy's Table (CAD)
Annual subscription	$4,956	$4,128	$708
Per-cover fees (1,300 network covers/mo)	$21,528	$0	$0
Transaction fees (est.)	$500-$1,500	$500-$1,500	$0
Annual software total	$26,984-$27,984	$4,628-$5,628	$708

Most of that gap is per-cover fees. They are the price of OpenTable's diner network, and for some restaurants the network is worth it. The question to ask is how many of those 1,300 guests would have found you anyway, through Google, your website, or walking past. Every one of them still costs $1.38.

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What should you actually look for?

Here is what matters when you are choosing a reservation platform, starting with what moves the bill the most:

1. True cost at your volume. Run the math at your actual cover count. A platform that looks cheap at 500 covers a month may cost double at 1,500. Ask for a quote based on your numbers, not the pricing page.

2. Contract terms. Auto-renewing annual contracts are the industry default. If you sign up in January and want out by June, you are paying for 12 months regardless. Look for month-to-month options.

3. What you actually use. If 90% of your reservations come from your own website and Google, you do not need to pay for a diner network. If most of your revenue comes from walk-ins and you take 20 reservations a night, you do not need enterprise software. Our guide to what your restaurant actually needs online covers the website side of that question.

4. Canadian billing. USD pricing with CAD bank accounts means currency conversion fees on every charge. A platform that bills in CAD saves you 1.5-3% on every payment, depending on your bank.

5. Card-on-file. Can you save a card at booking and decide afterwards whether to charge a missed reservation? Entry tiers often leave it out. If empty tables are a real problem in your room, check this before you sign, not after.

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The bottom line

The same restaurant can pay $708 or close to $28,000 a year to take the same bookings. Per-cover fees, transaction percentages, and locked contracts add up, especially for restaurants doing real volume.

The question is not "which platform is cheapest?" It is "what am I actually paying, and what am I getting for it?"

If reservations are only one of several subscriptions creeping up, we added up the whole stack in what your restaurant software actually costs.

When you're ready to see what reservations should cost, Trudy's Table is $59/month. No contracts. No commissions. No per-cover fees. Just reservations.

Sources: OpenTable pricing, Resy for Restaurants, Tock for Restaurants, Restaurants Canada 2026 outlook, Restaurants Canada Q2 2026 report, OpenTable acquisition announcement, Yelp for Restaurants pricing, TouchBistro reservations.

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