If you are choosing between OpenTable vs Resy, you have probably noticed the two platforms will not even let you compare them on the same terms. OpenTable talks about its giant diner network. Resy talks about flat pricing and hospitality. Both are dodging the real question you care about as an owner: which one fills more tables for less money, with less headache on a Friday night? Let’s break it down like two owners talking over coffee, with 2026 pricing straight from both companies.
The short answer
OpenTable is a marketplace first. It has roughly 60,000 restaurants worldwide and the biggest pool of diners actively searching for a table. You pay a monthly fee plus a per-cover fee for every diner the network sends you. It is owned by Booking Holdings, the same company behind Booking.com, and discovery is the whole pitch.
Resy is an operations tool first. It charges a flat monthly fee with no per-cover charges, it is owned by American Express, and its diner base skews toward food-obsessed city diners and high-spending Amex cardholders. After folding in Tock, the Resy family covers about 25,000 venues.
So the honest framing is this: do you need help filling seats, or do you need a calmer, cheaper way to manage the seats you already fill? Your answer decides the winner. Now the details.
How OpenTable pricing actually works in 2026
OpenTable has three plans, per its official pricing page:
- Basic: $149/month plus $1.50 per network cover (free for the first 30 days). Reservations from your own website cost $0.25 per cover or a $49/month flat fee. US only.
- Core: $299/month plus $1 per network cover. Reservations from your own website are free. Adds full table management, POS integration, and the floor plan tools most full-service spots actually need.
- Pro: $499/month plus $1 per network cover. Adds guest profiles, automated email campaigns, and post-dining surveys, basically a built-in CRM.
A few things owners miss in the fine print. You only pay cover fees for seated diners, so no-shows and cancellations do not get billed. Prepaid experiences and ticketing carry a 2% service fee. And the standard contract is one year with auto-renewal, so put a calendar reminder 30 days before your renewal date if you want the option to walk.
How Resy pricing works
Resy keeps it simpler. Per the Resy plans page, you pay a flat monthly subscription and zero per-cover fees:
- Platform: $249/month. Reservations, table management, waitlist, and no-show tools.
- Platform 360: $399/month. The popular one. Adds event management and deeper guest insights.
- Tock Essential ($269/month) and Tock Premium ($399/month). Since American Express bought Tock, it lives in the same family. These plans charge 3% and 2% respectively on prepayments, and they are the pick if you run a tasting menu, wine dinners, or anything ticket-heavy.
The Amex connection matters more than it sounds. Amex has owned Resy since 2019, and perks like Global Dining Access push millions of high-spending cardholders toward Resy restaurants. If your check averages run high, those are exactly the guests you want.
The math: OpenTable vs Resy for a real restaurant
Say you seat 1,000 covers a month that come through the platform’s own network, not your website or phone.
- OpenTable Basic: $149 + (1,000 × $1.50) = $1,649/month, plus fees on your website covers.
- OpenTable Core: $299 + (1,000 × $1.00) = $1,299/month, website covers free.
- Resy Platform: $249/month. Flat. Done.
Looks brutal for OpenTable, right? Here is the counterpoint that keeps them at 60,000 restaurants: if those 1,000 covers are diners who would never have found you otherwise, $1 to $1.50 for a seated guest is some of the cheapest customer acquisition in hospitality. A $75 check for a buck is a trade you make all day.
The problem is when the network takes credit for guests who were coming anyway. If you are a beloved neighborhood spot with a strong local following, a chunk of those “network” covers are really your regulars booking through the app out of habit. Then you are paying marketplace prices for your own customers, every single month. That is the whole debate in one paragraph.
Where OpenTable wins
- Reach. The largest diner network in the business, and it is not close. This matters most in suburbs, smaller cities, tourist markets, and for corporate diners who default to OpenTable.
- Pay for results. Cover fees only hit for seated diners, so slow months cost less than they would on a big flat plan you are not using.
- Mature toolset. Review management, 100+ booking integrations, solid POS connections, and real reporting on Core and Pro.
Where Resy wins
- Predictable cost. One flat fee. For a busy room, Resy is dramatically cheaper, and there is no per-cover penalty for growing.
- The right crowd. Resy diners skew toward people who plan their weekends around restaurants, plus Amex cardholders with big dining budgets.
- Brand halo. In big cities, being “on Resy” reads as a signal. For date-night and special-occasion spots, that positioning has real value.
- Operator-friendly guest data. Resy leans into giving you ownership of your guest relationships instead of renting them back to you.
The 2026 wildcard: the reservation wars
One more thing worth knowing before you sign anything: the reservation space is suddenly crowded. DoorDash jumped into reservations this year, and CNBC covered how the fight between the platforms is heating up. More competition means more leverage for you. Ask for waived fees, a shorter term, or free onboarding. Right now, they all want your dining room more than you need any one of them.
OpenTable vs Resy: how to actually decide
- New restaurant, new market, or empty-table problem? OpenTable. You are buying discovery, and per-cover pricing means you mostly pay when it works.
- Established room in a city with strong word of mouth? Resy. Stop paying rent on your own regulars and pocket the difference.
- Tasting menus, events, or prepaid dinners? The Tock side of the Resy family was built for exactly that.
- Not sure? Audit one month of reservations. Count how many guests genuinely discovered you through a platform versus booked direct. That one number usually settles the OpenTable vs Resy question better than any feature chart.
Whichever system you pick, squeeze more out of it. Tighten your cancellation policy so no-shows stop eating your margins, build a loyalty program that brings guests back without a middleman, keep your review responses sharp since both platforms surface reviews, and capture emails at every turn so you can market direct with a tool like Mailchimp or Klaviyo. The reservation platform gets the first booking. Your job is to own the second one.
And if you would rather hand this whole decision off, that is literally what we do at Houseful. We will run the numbers on your reservation mix and tell you straight which platform earns its fees.