Many booking platforms charge a per-cover fee on the bookings they bring you — even repeat guests who first found you there. TableTango is one flat £49 a month, nothing per cover, and your guest list stays 100% yours.
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Restaurant booking software splits into two business models, and the difference shows up on your bill every single night.
TableTango is firmly in the second camp. To be fair to the marketplaces: their real strength is discovery — they can genuinely put your restaurant in front of new diners. If filling seats with strangers is your main need, a listings platform may suit you. But if you mostly want to run the bookings you already attract, paying a finder's fee on guests who already found you is money you don't need to spend.
Per-cover charges are usually quoted in pennies, which is exactly why they slip past you. Here's a rough worked example. Per-cover fees are publicly reported to commonly sit around £1–£2 per seated diner on network bookings, and they vary by platform and contract — so treat these numbers as an illustration, not a quote.
| A worked example | TableTango | A per-cover platform (illustration) |
|---|---|---|
| Covers seated in a month | 1,000 | 1,000 |
| Per-cover fee (illustrative) | £0 | ~£1.50 each |
| Commission on covers | £0 | ~£1,500 |
| Plus monthly subscription | £49 flat | a subscription on top |
| Roughly what you'd pay | £49 | ~£1,500 + subscription |
At 1,000 covers a month, the per-cover model can cost many times more than a flat fee — and unlike TableTango, that bill climbs every time you have a good night. Even at a quieter 400 covers, the commission alone can dwarf £49. The flat fee never moves.
Models are stable; specific prices move around and are often quote-only, so we've stuck to the model and hedged the figures. Marketplace platforms are built to charge for the seats they touch. TableTango runs your bookings for one flat fee.
| TableTango | Typical per-cover platforms | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Flat monthly subscription | Subscription + per-cover commission |
| Monthly fee | £49 flat | A monthly subscription (varies, often quote-only) |
| Per-cover commission | Never | Commonly ~£1–£2 per seated diner |
| Charged on repeat regulars? | No | Typically yes, on network bookings |
| Confirmation & reminder texts + emails | Included | Varies by platform |
| 24/7 AI chat booking | Included | Rarely a core feature |
| Waitlist & cancellation fill | Included | Varies by platform |
| Your guest data | Stays 100% yours | Platform owns the diner relationship |
| Contract | None — cancel anytime | Often a longer commitment |
For context, not every alternative charges per cover — some other systems are also flat-fee and commission-free, and they're a fair option too. Where TableTango differs is the package: a flat £49 with AI chat booking, no-show prevention and the texts built in, designed for a single independent rather than a multi-site group. There are also free routes — a Google booking link or a plain form — but those are a front door, not a booking system, with no real-time availability, confirmations or reminders behind them. We cover those honestly on our free booking tools page.
Dropping the per-cover fee is the headline. The rest is a full front-of-house brain — everything a busy independent needs, nothing you'd need an IT department for.
Worried about the empty-table surprise? Every booking is risk-scored and the risky ones get a one-tap reminder text, while a waitlist quietly re-texts the next matching guests when someone cancels. If cutting no-shows is your main reason to switch, we've written a practical UK playbook on how to reduce restaurant no-shows. And if you're weighing up the incumbent specifically, here's the commission-free OpenTable alternative view.
The reason marketplaces charge per cover is that they treat the diner as theirs. TableTango treats every guest as yours. Names, numbers and visit history belong to your restaurant — never sold, never shared, and never used to market to your guests or to send your diners to another restaurant. It's UK-made, UK-hosted and GDPR-friendly, with a standing DPA available and one-tap guest export and erasure for data requests. Every booking page carries a small "Powered by TableTango", and the link works on your website, Google Business profile, Instagram bio, Facebook or a QR code by the door.
No sales call, no onboarding wait, no hardware, no app for guests to download. Sign up with an email and password, verify your UK mobile with a 6-digit text code, name your venue, then follow a guided checklist (with an AI setup helper) to add your tables, hours and details. Your page stays paused until you tap "Go live", so nothing happens before you're ready. It's free for 30 days, no card up front, no contract — cancel any time with one email.
I'm Graham, the founder — I built TableTango in the UK after watching independents lose covers to missed calls and pay per-cover fees on their own regulars. Questions before you start? Email hello@tabletango.co.uk and a real person (me) replies within a working day.
It means TableTango never charges you a fee per seated diner — no per-cover commission and no per-text charge. You pay one flat £49 a month per restaurant, however busy you get. Marketplace platforms commonly charge a fee for every diner on their network (often reported at around £1–£2 a cover, varying by platform and contract), and that charge typically keeps applying to repeat regulars too. With TableTango, a great Friday costs you exactly the same as a quiet Tuesday. (Prices exclude VAT — none is added while we're not VAT-registered, and most restaurants reclaim it if it ever applies.)
It adds up faster than it looks because it's quoted in pennies. As a rough illustration, at 1,000 covers a month and a commonly-reported ~£1.50 per cover, that's around £1,500 in commission — on top of a subscription. TableTango is £49 flat for the same month. Per-cover figures vary by platform and contract, so treat that as an example rather than a quote, but the direction is consistent: the busier you get, the bigger the gap.
Yes — booking confirmations, day-before reminders, waitlist offers and post-visit review invites to your own guests are all included in the £49, with no per-text charge. There's a sensible fair-use guide (comfortably more than most restaurants ever send, roughly 800 texts a month — about 400 bookings); if you're consistently much busier we'd simply move you to a busy-venue plan, and we'll always talk to you first and never cut your guests' texts off mid-service. Guests who book with an email and no mobile still get confirmations and reminders by email.
Completely. Names, numbers and visit history belong to your restaurant — never sold, shared, or used to market to your guests or send your diners elsewhere. TableTango is UK-made, UK-hosted and GDPR-friendly, with a standing DPA available and one-tap guest export and erasure for data requests. You also get a built-in guest book: who your regulars are, their usual table and any allergies, surfaced automatically next time they book.
Not necessarily — and we won't pretend the marketplaces are useless. Their genuine strength is discovery: putting you in front of new diners. Plenty of owners keep a listings platform purely for net-new discovery and run TableTango for everything they already attract — their website, Instagram link, QR code and repeat regulars — so they stop paying a finder's fee on guests who already know them. That's a perfectly good way to use both.
No contract and no setup fee. It's a 30-day free trial with no card details up front, you set it up yourself in about five minutes, and you can cancel any time with one email — your data exports out with you. Nothing goes live until you tap "Go live".
One flat £49 a month, no per-cover commission, your guest data yours. 30 days free, no card, cancel anytime.
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