OpenTable Fees for Restaurants: What It Costs per Month
Does OpenTable charge a fee? Yes, two of them. OpenTable fees for restaurants in the US are a monthly subscription ($149, $299 or $499) plus OpenTable cover fees of $1 to $1.50 for each guest who books through its site or app. So how much OpenTable is per month depends mostly on how many guests it sends you.
How much is OpenTable per month?
OpenTable publishes its US prices on its own plans page (opentable.com/restaurant-solutions/plans). The figures below were checked on 12 October 2026. Prices change, so confirm them on that page before you sign anything.
| Plan | Monthly fee | Per network cover | Bookings from your own website |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | $149 | $1.50 | $0.25 per cover, or a flat $49 a month |
| Core | $299 | $1.00 | See the plans page |
| Pro | $499 | $1.00 | See the plans page |
The plans page lists Basic as free for the first 30 days. Read the terms on that page to see exactly what the free period covers.
So the bill has two parts: a fixed subscription you can predict, and a per-guest charge that grows with how many guests OpenTable sends.
OpenTable cover fees: what counts as a network cover
A cover is one guest. A table of four is four covers, not one booking.
A network cover is a guest who books through OpenTable's own site or app. Those are the covers that carry the $1.50 or $1 fee.
Bookings made through the booking button on your own website are treated differently. On Basic they cost $0.25 per cover, or you can pay a flat $49 a month instead. The plans page sets out how Core and Pro treat them.
The flat $49 option pays for itself at 196 website covers a month ($49 / $0.25 = 196). Above that, take the flat fee. Below it, pay per cover.
Does OpenTable charge a fee on every booking?
For bookings that come through OpenTable's site or app, yes, on all three plans. The fee is per guest. It applies whether that guest is a first-time visitor or a regular of ten years who happens to like the app.
That second group is where owners tend to feel the cost. A regular who would have called or used your website anyway still counts as a network cover when they book in the OpenTable app.
This guide covers what the plans page says the restaurant pays. For add-ons, hardware and contract length, ask OpenTable for the terms in writing.
A worked example: 150 network covers a week
Take a restaurant that seats 150 guests a week from OpenTable's site and app.
- Covers per month: 150 x 52 / 12 = 650.
- Basic: 650 x $1.50 = $975, plus $149 = $1,124 a month.
- Core: 650 x $1 = $650, plus $299 = $949 a month.
- Pro: 650 x $1 = $650, plus $499 = $1,149 a month.
At this volume the plan with the lowest sticker price is not the cheapest. Basic costs $175 a month more than Core, before any website cover fees.
The crossover is easy to find. Basic and Core cost the same when $149 + ($1.50 x covers) = $299 + ($1 x covers). That happens at 300 network covers a month, or about 69 a week (300 x 12 / 52). Below that, Basic is cheaper. Above it, Core is.
A smaller example: 40 network covers a week
- Covers per month: 40 x 52 / 12 = 173, rounded.
- Basic: 173 x $1.50 = $259.50, plus $149 = $408.50 a month.
- Core: 173 x $1 = $173, plus $299 = $472 a month.
If that restaurant also takes 200 covers a month through its own website on Basic, add the flat $49 (slightly cheaper than 200 x $0.25 = $50). The total becomes $457.50.
How that compares with what other operators pay
TouchBistro's State of Restaurants 2024 report, a survey of more than 600 US full-service operators fielded in June 2023, found that operators who pay for a reservations platform spend $351.90 a month on average. That figure covers every platform, not only OpenTable, but it is a useful yardstick for your own bill.
How to work out your own OpenTable bill
You need three numbers from your last three invoices or your OpenTable reports:
- Network covers per month.
- Covers booked through your own website.
- Your plan's monthly fee.
Multiply network covers by your per-cover rate. Add website cover charges if you are on Basic. Add the subscription. Then divide the total by the number of network covers. The result is what you pay, all in, for each guest OpenTable sent.
Now ask the harder question: how many of those guests were new? Have your hosts note for two weeks whether each OpenTable guest has been in before. If most are new faces, the fee is a marketing cost and probably a fair one. If most are regulars, you are paying a toll on guests you already had.
When OpenTable is worth the fee, and when it is not
It is probably worth keeping if:
- You are in a market where visitors and newcomers browse the app to decide where to eat.
- A meaningful share of your network covers are first-time guests.
- It fills tables on nights that would otherwise sit empty.
It deserves a second look if:
- Most of your bookings come from regulars, your own website or the phone.
- You are already full on the nights the network sends guests.
- The bill has crept up as you got busier, with no rise in new faces.
There is also a middle path. Some owners stay on the network for discovery and point regulars toward the booking button on their own website, where the per-cover cost is lower or nil. If you are weighing a full switch, the guide to OpenTable alternatives walks through the types of system available.
Do not forget the phone. In the same TouchBistro survey, operators said about 41% of their bookings come by phone. No platform fee touches those, but missed calls cost you in a different way. The guide to AI phone answering for restaurants covers that side.
What a flat-fee setup costs by comparison
Aeternal Digital builds the other kind of setup: a booking system on the restaurant's own website. Our prices are $800 once for the website, and $500 setup plus $250 a month for the booking system, with no fee per guest. If you cancel, you keep the site, the domain and the guest list.
The honest comparison: $250 flat is less than either example above, but it does not come with a diner marketplace. It will not send you strangers browsing an app. A restaurant that fills from OpenTable's network should probably keep it. We are a small studio, and our restaurant work so far is one steakhouse build in progress, so there are no results to quote yet.
What to do next
- Pull your last three OpenTable invoices and write down network covers, website covers and the total charged.
- Run the arithmetic above for Basic, Core and Pro with your own cover count, and check you are on the cheapest plan for your volume.
- For two weeks, have hosts mark each OpenTable guest as new or returning.
- Search for your restaurant by name on your phone and count the taps from the search result to a confirmed booking on your own website.
Aeternal Digital offers a free written check of how a guest finds and books your restaurant: request the free check.