Migration guide — updated 4 September 2026
Quandoo alternative for UK restaurants
Quandoo stops taking new bookings on 30 September 2026 and switches off entirely by 31 December. If you are on it, you need a replacement live before the end of the month. Here is what actually has to happen, in order, and how long each part takes.
What is happening, and by when
Quandoo is closing its restaurant booking platform worldwide. This is not a UK-only withdrawal and it is not a rebrand — the company is shutting the product down in every market it serves, including Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Australia and Singapore. The dates matter more than the reasons:
| Date | What changes | What you must have done |
|---|---|---|
| 30 September 2026 | Diners can no longer place new bookings through Quandoo’s website or app. | Your replacement booking page is live and linked from your own site and social profiles. |
| 1 October 2026 | Restaurants can no longer handle new or existing bookings in Quandoo. Export support is no longer guaranteed. | Your guest list and forward bookings are exported and loaded into the new system. |
| 31 December 2026 | The website, apps and infrastructure are taken down. | Nothing — by this point you should have been off it for three months. |
Dates as published by Quandoo and reported in the trade press, September 2026. Confirm against Quandoo’s own notice, which is the authority here.
Do this first, before you choose anything
The single irreversible thing in this process is your data. Everything else can be redone; a guest list that went dark on 1 October cannot be recovered. Before you compare a single system, log into Quandoo and export three things: your guest list, your booking history, and every forward booking dated after 30 September. Quandoo’s support team is currently helping partners with exports. That help is not promised past the cut-off.
Restaurants that have been on Quandoo for years often have four or five thousand guest records in there — names, numbers, how often people came. That list is the most valuable thing you own and it is the thing most likely to be forgotten in the rush to get a new booking page live.
Marketplace or your own book? Decide this honestly
Quandoo did two different jobs and most replacements only do one of them. It managed your diary, and it put you in front of diners who had never heard of you. Which of those you actually need determines what you should buy.
If Quandoo mostly brought you strangers
Look at TheFork or OpenTable. They run consumer marketplaces with real audiences, and that is genuinely worth paying for if discovery is your problem. Understand the trade: you will pay a per-cover fee on those bookings, typically around £1–£2 a head, and the guest relationship partly belongs to the platform. Eightish does not do this and does not pretend to.
If Quandoo was really just your diary
Most independents find, when they look at the numbers, that the majority of their Quandoo covers were people who already knew them and simply clicked the nearest booking button. If that is you, a marketplace is an expensive way to buy bookings you were getting anyway — and a flat-fee system like Eightish, Resos or ResDiary will cost less and keep the guest list yours.
How Eightish compares with what you had
| Quandoo (closing) | Eightish | |
|---|---|---|
| Commercial model | Marketplace: subscription plus a per-cover fee on bookings sourced through Quandoo. | Flat monthly fee. No per-cover charge and no booking commission on any plan, including the free one. |
| Where bookings come from | Quandoo’s consumer app and website, plus your own booking widget. | Your own website, phone, Instagram and Google listing. We do not run a diner marketplace. |
| Who owns the guest | Shared with the platform. | Yours. Export the whole guest list any time, in one click, for any reason including leaving. |
| No-show tools | Booking confirmations and reminders. | Text confirmations and reminders included on every paid plan, plus per-guest no-show history surfaced on tonight’s book so the host knows who to double-check. |
| Quiet nights | Nothing proactive — you wait for the marketplace to send someone. | Autopilot finds the quietest night ahead and offers held tables to your own regulars who are overdue a visit, with a holdout group so recovered covers are a measured number. |
| During service | Diary list view. | Live floor plan host stand: table states, walk-ins, waitlist and no-show risk flags on one screen. |
| Cost to start | — | Free plan, 50 online bookings a month, no card. Then £69/month. |
Researched September 2026. If you think anything here is unfair to Quandoo, tell us and we will change it: hello@eightish.co.uk.
The four steps, in the order they have to happen
1. Export from Quandoo
Guest list, booking history, forward bookings. Today, not in the last week of September. This is the only step with no undo.
2. Get a booking page live
Before 30 September, so there is never a day when a diner clicks Book and lands on nothing. On the Eightish free plan this takes about twenty minutes and costs nothing.
3. Carry the forward bookings across
Every reservation dated October onwards has to exist in the new system, or those guests turn up to a table nobody is expecting. We do this from your export on the setup call.
4. Repoint every link you control
Your website, Google Business Profile, Instagram, Facebook, and the QR codes on the tables if you have them. Anything still pointing at Quandoo in October is a lost booking.
What the switch actually looks like
One call, about forty-five minutes, and we do the parts that are fiddly. You send the Quandoo export; we load the guest list so your regulars are recognised from the first service, build your floor plan to match the room, set your service times and turnaround, and give you the booking page to drop on your website. Your guests notice nothing except that the booking page is faster and does not ask them to make an account.
There is no migration fee for coming off Quandoo before the shutdown. If you want to see the system before you talk to anyone, the free plan needs no card and no call — how switching works covers the detail.
Quandoo shutdown: common questions
When exactly does Quandoo stop working?
Quandoo stops taking new bookings on 30 September 2026. From 1 October 2026 restaurants can no longer manage new or existing bookings through the platform, and the website, apps and supporting infrastructure are switched off by 31 December 2026. Bookings already confirmed before the cut-off are still honoured, so the practical deadline for having a replacement live is 30 September 2026.
Do I lose my guest data when Quandoo closes?
Only if you leave it there. Quandoo has said partners can export their data while the platform is still live, and its support team is helping with exports ahead of the shutdown. There is no guarantee of help after 1 October 2026, so export your guest list, booking history and table configuration now rather than in the last week.
Which countries does the Quandoo shutdown affect?
All of them. Quandoo is closing its restaurant booking platform across every market it operates in, including the United Kingdom, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Australia and Singapore. There is no market where the platform continues.
Will I lose the bookings Quandoo used to send me?
Some of them, and you should plan for that honestly. Quandoo was a marketplace: part of your covers came from diners browsing Quandoo rather than looking for you. A white-label system like Eightish takes bookings from your own website, phone and social channels but does not put you in front of strangers. If marketplace discovery was a large share of your covers, look at TheFork or OpenTable as well, and be clear-eyed that both charge per cover for it.
How long does it take to move off Quandoo?
For a single-site restaurant, one 45-minute call. We import your exported guest list and forward bookings, build your floor plan, set your service times and put the booking page on your website. The usual blocker is not the software, it is finding the hour — which is why moving in early September is easier than moving in the last week of the month.
What does Eightish cost after switching from Quandoo?
There is a free plan covering 50 online bookings a month with the full host stand, so you can move off Quandoo before you decide to pay anything. Paid plans are £69, £139 and £249 a month flat, with confirmations and reminders included and no per-cover fee or booking commission on any plan.
Thirty days is enough. Three is not.
Move the diary now, while exports still work and you can choose calmly. Free plan, no card, and we carry your bookings across on the call.