Compared fairly, from published pages
Eightish vs OpenTableOpenTable alternative for UK restaurants
The shortest honest version: OpenTable is a demand network that rents you its diners and charges per cover. Eightish is a system that turns your diners into regulars for a flat monthly fee. Which one you need depends on whether your problem is being unknown — or being forgotten.
| Eightish | OpenTable (UK) | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Flat: free plan, then £69–£249/mo. No per-cover fees, ever. The free plan charges 40p an online booking past 50, capped at £69 a month — the only per-unit charge we have, and it has a ceiling. | Reported around £112/mo plus £0.50–£2 per seated cover from the network (quote-based; figures are customer-reported). |
| Whose guest is it? | Yours. Phone-keyed Guest Graph, per-venue consent, exportable. | Diners hold OpenTable accounts; the network relationship is fundamentally theirs. |
| No-show tools | Text reminders with one-word cancel, smart risk-based deposits, no-show flags on tonight's book, waitlist auto-fill. | Reminders and card-hold options; strong, but built around the network booking flow. |
| Filling quiet nights | Autopilot offers held tables to your own overdue regulars, with a holdout that proves lift. | Network discovery across Google, Maps, TripAdvisor and more — genuinely powerful for new-guest demand. |
| Floor plan & service | Live floor plan-first host stand, walk-ins, waitlist, timeline. | Mature table management, iPad-centric, well proven at scale. |
| Setup | Free. Includes a 45-minute working session and diary migration. | Varies by package and sales process. |
OpenTable's UK pricing is quote-based; figures above are customer-reported ranges, researched August 2026. Tell us if we're out of date: hello@eightish.co.uk.
Which one is right for your restaurant
When OpenTable is the right choice
You're new, unknown, in a city-centre tourist flow, and your problem is that strangers can't find you. OpenTable's network puts you in front of diners browsing Google, Maps and TripAdvisor — and you pay per cover because those genuinely are covers you'd never have had. That trade can be worth it, and we'd rather say so than pretend otherwise.
When Eightish is
You're established, you take phone bookings, your regulars matter, and per-cover fees on guests who were coming anyway have started to sting. Your problem isn't being unknown — it's no-shows, quiet Tuesdays, and a diary full of people nobody remembers. That's the exact shape Eightish is built for. OpenTable rents you their customers. We turn yours into regulars.
What OpenTable actually costs
The subscription is the part people compare and the smaller part of the bill. OpenTable’s published UK plans run £149, £299 and £499 a month, and bookings that arrive through the OpenTable network add a per-cover fee of around £2 on top. That is the number that decides whether this is a good deal for you.
| Monthly network covers | OpenTable, roughly | Eightish | Difference a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 200 | £149 plan + ~£400 covers = ~£549 | £69 | ~£5,760 |
| 500 | £149 plan + ~£1,000 covers = ~£1,149 | £139 | ~£12,120 |
| 1,000 | £299 plan + ~£2,000 covers = ~£2,299 | £139 | ~£25,920 |
Illustrative, using published plan prices and a £2 cover fee, September 2026. Your actual cover fee varies by plan and booking channel, and covers arriving through your own website are charged differently from network covers — check your invoice rather than this table.
Those differences are large, and they are also beside the point if the network is genuinely sending you people who would never otherwise have walked in. The test that settles it: what share of your OpenTable covers are guests who had never eaten with you before? If it is high, you are buying marketing and the fee is fair. If it is low, you are paying a marketplace rate for diary software, and that is the most expensive common mistake in this category.
What you gain and what you give up
You give up discovery
Eightish does not run a diner marketplace and is not going to build one. Bookings come from your own website, phone, Instagram and Google listing. If strangers finding you is your binding constraint, that is a real loss and you should weigh it honestly.
You gain the guest list
Every guest record is yours outright, keyed to a phone number, exportable in one click at any time and for any reason including leaving. No shared relationship, no platform sitting between you and the person who ate at table nine.
You gain a system that acts
Autopilot picks the quietest night ahead and offers held tables to your own regulars who are overdue a visit, keeping a holdout group back so the recovered covers are measured rather than claimed. No marketplace does this, because filling your Tuesday is not what a marketplace is for.
Moving off OpenTable
Export your guest list and every forward booking before you cancel anything — that is the only irreversible step in the process. We load both on a single 45-minute setup call, build your floor plan to match the room, set your service times and turnaround, and hand you the booking page for your own website. Your regulars are recognised from the first service rather than starting from an empty database.
Most venues run both for a fortnight before switching off, which costs one month of overlap and removes all the risk. If you want to look before speaking to anyone, the free plan needs no card and no call. How switching works covers the detail, and our comparison of twelve UK booking systems has the wider field if OpenTable and Eightish are not the only two on your list.
OpenTable: common questions
How much does OpenTable cost in the UK?
OpenTable's published UK plans are £149, £299 and £499 a month, and network bookings carry a per-cover fee of around £2. A restaurant taking 1,000 covers a month through the OpenTable network therefore pays roughly £2,000 in cover fees on top of the subscription. A 2% service fee on transactions including deposits and prepaid experiences was introduced in early 2026.
Is there a cheaper alternative to OpenTable?
Several, but they are not the same product. OpenTable sells diner discovery as well as software; flat-fee systems such as Eightish, Resos, ResDiary, Seatly and Tablein sell only the software, at £25–£140 a month with no per-cover charge. If discovery is genuinely bringing you new guests, OpenTable may be the cheaper option per cover. If it is mostly your own regulars clicking through, it is not.
Do I lose my guest data if I leave OpenTable?
You keep the records you have exported, but the diner relationship on network bookings is partly OpenTable's — that is the nature of a marketplace. Before switching, export your guest list and booking history. On Eightish the guest list is yours outright and exports in one click at any time, including on the day you leave.
Will I lose bookings if I stop using OpenTable?
You will lose the network bookings, so the honest question is how many of those are genuinely new guests. Run the test on your own data: what share of OpenTable covers came from someone who had never eaten with you before? Venues where that number is low usually find that switching costs them almost nothing in covers and saves several hundred pounds a month.
Can Eightish import my OpenTable diary?
Yes. Export your guest list and forward bookings from OpenTable and we load them on a single 45-minute setup call, so returning guests are recognised from your first service and no future reservation is lost in the move.
Leaving the network?
We migrate your OpenTable diary on the setup call. Guests notice nothing except better reminders.