Compare — argued fairly
Eightish vs Resy
Resy is a good product with a real following, owned by American Express and strongest in New York, Los Angeles and a handful of other US cities. In the UK it is a smaller presence, which changes the calculation considerably — because with a marketplace, reach is the entire thing you are buying.
Side by side
| Eightish | Resy | |
|---|---|---|
| Model | White-label. The booking page is yours, on your domain, under your branding. | Marketplace plus tools: diners discover restaurants through the Resy app and website. |
| UK reach | None — we do not run a diner marketplace and do not claim to. | Present but modest compared with OpenTable and TheFork in the UK. |
| Guest ownership | Yours outright. Export everything in one click, any time. | Shared with the platform, as with any marketplace. |
| Pricing | Free plan, then £69–£249/mo flat. No per-cover fee, ever. | Subscription tiers; marketplace economics, with Amex integration a factor for some venues. |
| No-show tools | Text confirmations and reminders included, plus per-guest no-show history at the host stand. | Notifications and card-hold options. |
| Filling quiet nights | Autopilot messages your own overdue regulars with held tables, holdout-measured. | Depends on marketplace demand reaching your listing. |
Researched September 2026 from published pricing and public product documentation. Vendors change terms without notice; check anything that would decide your purchase. Corrections welcome, including from Resy: hello@eightish.co.uk.
Which one is right for your restaurant
When Resy is the right choice
You are a destination restaurant in a major city, your guests are Amex cardholders who live in the app, or you have US sites and want one system across them. Resy’s audience is real and its product is well made. If the app is genuinely sending you people, that is worth paying for.
When Eightish is
You are a UK independent outside the handful of cities where Resy has density. You are not going to get meaningful discovery from it, so you would be paying marketplace prices for diary software. Eightish is built here, priced flat, includes the reminders, and puts the guest list in your hands rather than the platform’s.
What to check before you switch
Most of the regret in this category comes from three things nobody asks about on the demo call. Whichever way you go between Eightish and Resy, ask these before you sign anything.
Is SMS included or metered?
Text reminders are the single most effective thing any booking system does about no-shows, and they are frequently sold as a separate bundle. Ask what 500 reminders a month costs. On Eightish, confirmations and reminders are included on every paid plan up to your cover band.
Can you get your guest list out?
Ask specifically: can you export every guest record, with phone numbers and visit history, in one click, without asking permission — including on the day you leave? If the answer involves a support ticket, that is a lock-in you will feel later.
What is the contract term?
Annual lock-ins are still common. A monthly rolling term is worth real money, because the honest test of a booking system is whether you would still choose it in March. Eightish is monthly, and the free plan needs no card at all.
Moving your diary across
Switching sounds worse than it is, and the diary is the part people fear. We do that part for you: export your guest list and forward bookings from Resy, and on a single 45-minute setup call we load them, build your floor plan to match the room, set your service times and hand you the booking page for your website. Your regulars are recognised from the first service rather than starting from an empty database, and your guests notice nothing except a faster booking page that does not ask them to create an account.
If you would rather look before you talk to anyone, the free plan needs no card and no call. How switching works has the detail, and our comparison of twelve UK booking systems covers the wider field if Resy and Eightish are not the only two on your list.
Common questions
Is Resy available in the UK?
Yes, Resy operates in the UK, but its density is concentrated in London and it is a smaller presence than OpenTable or TheFork. Because the value of any marketplace is the number of diners actually browsing it in your area, a UK venue should check how many covers it realistically expects before committing.
What is the best Resy alternative for a UK restaurant?
It depends what you were using Resy for. For marketplace discovery in the UK, OpenTable and TheFork have more reach. For running your own diary on a flat fee with the guest data yours, Eightish, Resos, ResDiary and Seatly are the closer comparisons.
Does Eightish charge per cover like a marketplace?
No. There is no per-cover fee and no booking commission on any Eightish plan, including the free one. Paid plans are a flat monthly fee banded by cover volume, and confirmations and reminders are included within that band.
Reach you do not get is not worth paying for.
Flat monthly pricing, reminders included, guest list yours. Start on the free plan and see.