If you run a restaurant or bar in the UK and take bookings through OpenTable, TheFork, or Resy, you're paying a per-cover charge on every guest who shows up. At £1–2 per diner, the numbers add up faster than most operators realise.
This guide explains exactly what commission-free booking means, how much the average UK restaurant pays in platform fees, and what to look for in an alternative.
Commission-based booking platforms charge restaurants a fee every time a guest books and arrives. The fee is typically expressed per cover — per person seated — and ranges from £1 to £2.50 depending on the platform and your arrangement.
A commission-free booking system replaces this model with a flat monthly subscription. You pay a fixed amount each month — regardless of how many covers you do — and there are no additional charges when bookings come in.
The maths that matters. A restaurant doing 300 covers per week, with 60% of bookings coming through a platform at £1.50 per cover, pays £270 per week in commission. That's £14,040 per year. A flat-fee alternative at £200/month costs £2,400 per year. The difference is £11,640 — or a part-time member of staff.
| Platform | Model | Rate | Annual cost (300 cov/wk, 60% via platform) |
|---|---|---|---|
| OpenTable | Per cover | ~£1–1.50 | £11,000–£14,000 |
| TheFork | Per cover | ~£2.00 | ~£18,700 |
| Resy | Per cover | ~£1.25+ | ~£12,000 |
| SevenRooms | Commission + fee | Variable | £10,000+ |
| Hanna AI | Flat monthly | £99–399/mo | £1,188–£4,788 |
One of the most persistent myths about commission-free booking is that you're trading features for lower cost. That was true five years ago. It isn't any more. Modern commission-free systems — particularly those built in the last two years — offer everything a busy UK venue needs:
What the best new platforms add — and what differentiates Hanna AI specifically — is intelligence layered on top of the mechanics: AI-powered booking via a chatbot on your website, a pre-service briefing for staff with guest intel, and a full POS and payments system in a single platform.
Beyond the per-cover fee, platform bookings carry two costs that rarely appear in the headline figure.
Data ownership. When a guest books through OpenTable, OpenTable holds the guest record. Their email address, their preferences, their visit history — all of that sits in OpenTable's database, not yours. If you leave the platform, you don't take the data with you. Guests who found you through the platform remain the platform's asset.
Brand dilution. A guest who books through TheFork associates the experience with TheFork, not your restaurant. The loyalty is to the platform's discovery layer, not to you. Direct booking — through your own website, your own AI chatbot — keeps the guest relationship yours.
Honestly, not always. For a brand-new restaurant with no existing following, appearing on a discovery platform like OpenTable or TheFork provides genuine exposure to diners who don't know you yet. In that context, the per-cover fee is a customer acquisition cost — and it may be justified.
For the majority of established UK restaurants and bars — venues that have been open for a year or more, that have a regular following, that rely primarily on local word-of-mouth and returning guests — the value proposition of commission-based platforms is much harder to justify. You're paying £1.50 per cover for bookings that would have come to you anyway.
The right question to ask is: what percentage of my platform bookings are genuinely new guests who wouldn't have found me otherwise? For most established independent restaurants, that figure is 10–20% at most. Paying commission on the other 80% is simply a cost with no corresponding benefit.
Hanna AI is a commission-free restaurant management platform built for UK restaurants and bars. AI booking, guest memory, full POS — from £99/month. Live at Hotori restaurant in London since 2024.
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