Commission-free restaurant bookings, included with your menu

What does a per-cover commission actually cost over a year?

A commission is usually charged per seated guest or per confirmed booking, so the total scales directly with covers. A venue booking 40 covers a week through a platform at a given per-cover rate pays a fixed multiple of that rate every week of the year, in and out of season. Contract terms vary widely between providers and between negotiated agreements, so the only reliable figure is the one on your own invoice.

The arithmetic is simple to run for any venue: weekly covers booked through the platform, multiplied by the fee per cover, multiplied by 52. Two figures worth comparing against that total are a fixed monthly subscription and the margin actually left on an average check once food and labour cost are removed. A commission that looks minor per booking can represent a meaningful share of net margin once totalled over a year.

What do booking platforms genuinely bring?

These are real benefits, and they matter most for a venue that depends on constant new-customer discovery — a new opening, a location with little passing trade, or a highly seasonal business. The limitation is that the commission applies to every booking that arrives through the platform, including guests who already knew the venue and would have booked directly if that option had been easy to find.

• Discovery: diners searching the platform for a cuisine, area or availability who did not already know the venue.
• Aggregated reviews and ratings that some diners use to shortlist where to eat.
• A booking habit already built into some guests' routine, particularly for last-minute or unfamiliar venues.
• A reminder and no-show layer that some venues rely on.

What does a restaurant already own?

None of these channels carries a per-booking fee. A booking made through a direct link, a phone call or a Google listing costs the same whether it is the first booking of the month or the thousandth. The practical question for each venue is what share of its bookings already comes through these owned channels, versus how much genuinely depends on platform discovery.

• Regulars and repeat guests who already have the venue in mind.
• Its own website, if it has one, and any direct booking link on it.
• A Google Business Profile, which many diners check before opening a platform.
• Direct channels: phone, social media messages, walk-ins who ask at the door.

How can bookings move onto a fixed cost without losing volume?

The risk in switching too abruptly is not the fixed cost itself, but a gap in visibility while guests adjust to a new booking habit. A gradual transition, run over one full trial period rather than decided overnight, avoids that gap and gives the venue real data instead of a guess.

1. Keep the existing platform listing active while testing a direct booking link, rather than cancelling it on day one.
2. Add the direct booking link to the Google Business Profile, the website and any printed material, including the menu itself.
3. Tell regulars directly — a table card, a receipt note or a short message — that booking directly is now just as easy.
4. Track booking volume by source for a defined trial period before making any final decision.
5. Decide venue by venue whether platform discovery is still worth its cost, based on that data rather than on habit.

Which venues does this suit?

Venues that are new, isolated from passing trade, or in a highly competitive area with low brand awareness may still find that platform discovery earns its cost, at least for a period. The two approaches are not mutually exclusive: a venue can keep a platform listing for discovery while routing its own regulars through a direct, commission-free link.

The right mix also shifts over time. A venue two years into service, with a settled base of regulars, is in a different position from the same venue in its opening month, so the comparison in this guide is worth revisiting at least once a year rather than settled once and forgotten.

• Venues with an established local reputation, a stream of regulars or strong word of mouth, where new-customer discovery is not the main issue.
• Venues that already invest in their own marketing, social presence or a well-maintained Google listing.
• Multi-venue groups where a fixed cost is easier to budget across sites than a variable one.

Why is this a menu question, not just a bookings question?

A booking option is most useful exactly where a guest is already looking: at the menu. SimplyRestau offers reservations as an optional module that attaches to an existing plan, Free included, rather than a separate contract with its own company and its own per-booking fee. A guest scanning the table QR code or browsing the menu online can check availability in the same place. Module scope and pricing are listed on the pricing page rather than repeated here, since that is the single place prices are kept current.

Frequently asked questions