Compared fairly, from published pages
Eightish vs ResDiaryResDiary alternative for UK restaurants
ResDiary is the UK-built incumbent: solid, proven, and everywhere in pubs and hotel dining rooms. The honest differences are the true monthly cost once add-ons land, and what the system does on the nights your diary is thin.
| Eightish | ResDiary | |
|---|---|---|
| Listed price | Free plan, then £69–£249/mo flat. | £109–£279/mo + VAT, plus £99 setup. |
| True entry cost | £69, no setup fee. Reminders and confirmations included up to your cover band. | Customer-reported £150–£175 once SMS bundles, POS integration, vouchers and pre-orders are added at £10–£35/mo each. |
| Messaging | Unlimited confirmations and reminders, included on every paid plan. | SMS typically bought in bundles as an add-on; email included. |
| Filling quiet nights | Autopilot proactively offers held tables to your overdue regulars, holdout-proved. | Yield management optimises the demand that arrives; it doesn't generate demand for a specific quiet night. |
| Guest memory | Phone-keyed Guest Graph with rhythms, tags and no-show history on tonight's book. | Guest database with booking history; strong records, less built around proactive recognition. |
| Interface | Floor plan-first host stand; timeline one tap away. | Grid-first diary (time × tables); floor plan as secondary view. Deep pub/hotel distribution. |
Figures researched August 2026 from published pricing and customer reports. Corrections welcome: hello@eightish.co.uk.
Which one is right for your restaurant
When ResDiary is the right choice
You're a hotel dining room or pub group that wants the system your ops team already knows, with yield management tuned over fifteen years and a big integration catalogue. It's a mature product with real distribution, and if grid view is how your team thinks, it's a fine home.
When Eightish is
You're a restaurant that cares about the two numbers ResDiary doesn't move by itself: your no-show rate and your quiet Tuesdays. Eightish costs less once ResDiary's add-ons are counted, includes reminders rather than selling them as an SMS bundle, and is the only one of the two with an agent whose job is filling the room.
Where the ResDiary bill actually lands
ResDiary is a flat-fee system, which is a real advantage over the marketplaces and worth saying plainly. The variability is not per-cover; it is in the add-ons, and it is substantial enough that the published entry price is rarely the price anyone pays.
| Line | ResDiary, typically | Eightish |
|---|---|---|
| Subscription | £109–£279/mo + VAT | £69–£249/mo, or free below 50 online bookings |
| Setup | £99 one-off | Free, on every plan |
| SMS reminders | Bought as bundles, on top | Included on every paid plan up to your cover band |
| POS integration | Add-on, commonly £10–£35/mo | Not offered today — an honest gap |
| Vouchers & pre-orders | Add-ons, commonly £10–£35/mo each | Not offered today |
| Reported real cost | £150–£175/mo | £69–£139 for most single sites |
Add-on pricing researched September 2026 from published rates and customer reports; ResDiary quotes per venue, so ask for a figure that includes everything you would switch on. Corrections welcome, including from ResDiary: hello@eightish.co.uk.
Note the two rows where we lose. ResDiary has POS integration and voucher handling and we do not, and if either is load-bearing in your operation that ends the comparison in their favour. We would rather put that in the table than let you find it out in month two.
Grid or floor plan: how your team actually thinks
This sounds like a preference and turns out to be the thing people notice most in week one. ResDiary is grid-first: time along one axis, tables along the other, which is how a diary has looked since diaries were paper and is genuinely efficient for anyone who has spent years reading one.
Eightish is floor-plan-first: the room as it actually is, with table states, walk-ins, the waitlist and who is running late drawn where those tables physically sit. During a busy service a host reads a room faster than a grid, and the timeline is still one tap away. Neither is correct in the abstract — but if your team is new to booking software rather than migrating fifteen years of habit, the floor plan is usually the shorter learning curve.
Moving off ResDiary
Export your guest list and forward bookings first; that is the only step you cannot undo. We import both on a single 45-minute setup call, rebuild your floor plan, set your service times and turnaround, and give you the booking page for your website. Guests notice nothing except a faster booking page that does not ask them to create an account.
There is no migration fee. If you want to see it before talking to anybody, the free plan needs no card — how switching works has the detail, and our comparison of twelve UK booking systems covers the wider field.
ResDiary: common questions
How much does ResDiary cost in the UK?
ResDiary's published plans run £109–£279 a month plus VAT, with a £99 setup fee. Customers commonly report a real monthly cost of £150–£175 once SMS bundles, POS integration, vouchers and pre-orders are added, since those are charged separately at roughly £10–£35 each. Ask for a quote that includes every add-on you would actually switch on.
Is ResDiary better than Eightish?
For a hotel dining room or pub group, often yes. ResDiary has fifteen years of yield management, a large integration catalogue and deep UK distribution, and if your operations team already knows it there is real value in that. For a single restaurant whose problems are no-shows and thin midweek trade, Eightish costs less once add-ons are counted, includes reminders rather than selling them as a bundle, and is the only one of the two with an agent whose job is filling the room.
Does ResDiary charge per cover?
No — ResDiary is a flat-fee system, which is one of its genuine strengths against the marketplaces. The cost variability comes from add-ons and SMS bundles rather than from per-cover charges.
Can I switch from ResDiary without losing my bookings?
Yes. Export your guest list and forward bookings from ResDiary and we import both on the setup call. Nothing dated in the future is lost, and returning guests are recognised from your first service on Eightish.
What does Eightish do that ResDiary does not?
Two things specifically. Reminders and confirmations are included on every paid plan up to your cover band rather than bought as an SMS bundle. And Autopilot proactively fills a named quiet night by offering held tables to your own regulars who are overdue, with a holdout group so the recovered covers are a measured number. ResDiary's yield management optimises the demand that arrives; it does not generate demand for a specific Tuesday.
Resenting the bill is not a plan.
We migrate ResDiary diaries on the setup call. £69 a month, and a free plan you can sit on first.