The booking system for UK independent restaurants.
Built for venues that want to keep their bookings, their branding, and their customer data — without per-cover commissions or annual contracts. A flat monthly subscription from £59.
What independents are up against
Industry conversations with independents consistently surface the same pattern — somewhere between sixty and seventy percent of bookings on marketplace platforms come from people who already knew the restaurant and would have booked through any channel. The per-cover fee is paid on those bookings regardless. For a 100-cover independent that quickly turns into hundreds of pounds a month spent acquiring customers you already had.
The subscription-only alternatives often come with their own friction — annual contracts, 90-day notice periods, onboarding fees, and a feature set bloated with tools the average independent never uses. Some restaurants stay because they signed a contract they have not finished, not because the product is working for them.
For restaurants without any online booking at all, the alternative is not a competitor platform — it is the phone. Diners under forty increasingly will not call. A website without a booking widget loses them to the next restaurant on Google.
What Seatly is built for
- 01. Flat monthly fee, no per-cover charges. Starter £59, Professional £89, Business £129 — every tier. The bill does not grow with the number of covers you take.
- 02. Monthly rolling, cancel anytime. No annual contracts. No 90-day notice period. No auto-renewal traps. Data export remains available after cancellation.
- 03. White-label widget on your own site. The booking flow stays on your domain, in your brand colours, with your restaurant name. No marketplace branding in the diner's journey.*
- 04. SMS reminders included on every tier — 200 on Starter, 400 on Professional, 1,200 on Business (pooled across all sites). Cuts no-shows without bolting on a third-party reminder service.
- 05. UK GDPR, London data residency. Customer data is hosted in London, the restaurant owns it, and export and erasure are one-click operations.
Seatly versus the three usual alternatives
Competitor figures are sourced from publicly available UK pricing (April 2026). Quandoo Pro at £39/month plus £3.90 per marketplace cover and £249 setup; ResDiary is quote-based with publicly reported Standard at around £149 per month (higher tiers running £199 to £299); OpenTable estimated from rate cards at £112+ monthly plus £0.75 to £1.12 per network cover. Always verify pricing directly with the provider.
| Seatly | Marketplace platforms | Subscription platforms | Phone only | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Example | Quandoo, OpenTable, TheFork | ResDiary, DesignMyNight | ||
| Monthly fee | £59 to £129 flat | £39 to £112+ | ~£149 to £299 quote-based | £0 |
| Per-cover fee | £0 | £0.75 to £3.90 per cover | £0 | n/a |
| Setup fee | £0 | £249 to £749 | Varies | £0 |
| Contract | Monthly rolling | Per agreement | Annual auto-renewal typical | n/a |
| Widget on your site | Yes, white-label | Often redirects out | Often vendor-branded | No |
| Customer data ownership | Restaurant | Platform controls | Restaurant (export terms vary) | Restaurant |
| Data residency | London, UK | Varies, often US | UK / EU | n/a |
What you keep when you switch
- 01. Your customers. Every diner who books becomes a record in your database, not a platform's. Names, contact details, preferences, booking history — yours to keep, export, or delete.
- 02. Your brand. No marketplace logo in the widget. No competing restaurants in the booking journey. The diner sees you, start to finish.*
- 03. Your margins. Per-cover fees stop. Setup fees stop. The bill stays flat as you grow into busier services.
- 04. Your exit option. Monthly rolling, cancel anytime, export your data on the way out. You stay because the product works, not because the contract says so.
When something else is the right choice
We are not trying to be the right answer for every restaurant. A few cases where the alternatives genuinely earn their fee:
- • Fine dining in central London or other tourist cities where the marketplace network materially drives inbound covers. There, the per-cover fee is real customer acquisition cost.
- • Multi-site groups with central reservations that need the operational tooling and integrations a Group platform provides.
- • Restaurants that genuinely want a marketplace directory listing as their primary discovery channel — though for most UK independents outside major tourist destinations this is rarely the case.
For most independent UK restaurants — single site, owner-led, taking bookings from locals who already know the place — flat fee plus your own website is the maths that adds up.
Switching is painless
- 01. Check your current contract. If you are on a subscription platform with a notice period, serve notice as soon as you have decided to switch. If you are on a per-cover marketplace, you can usually turn it off whenever.
- 02. Export your customer and booking history from the old system while the account is still live.
- 03. Paste one line of code into your website. The Seatly widget works on WordPress, Wix, Shopify, Squarespace, and custom sites (all tested in May 2026).
- 04. Point new bookings at Seatly and let the existing bookings on the old system play out. No migration drama, no double bookings, no downtime.
We are pre-launch and onboarding the first cohort of UK independents one at a time. If you want a second pair of eyes on a contract or a hand walking through the embed, get in touch.
Common questions
- Why are most independents paying per-cover fees if their bookings are direct anyway?
- Industry conversations with independents consistently surface the same pattern — somewhere between sixty and seventy percent of bookings on marketplace platforms come from people who already knew the restaurant and would have booked through any channel. The per-cover fee is paid on those bookings regardless. A flat-fee booking system removes that cost entirely.
- Is Seatly a marketplace? Will my restaurant be listed alongside competitors?
- No. Seatly is not a consumer marketplace. There is no diner-facing directory, no "people who booked here also looked at" nudges, no competing restaurants in the booking flow. The widget sits on your own website and your bookings stay yours.
- How long does setup actually take?
- Embedding the widget on your existing website is a one-line script tag, usually done in under ten minutes. Setting up your weekly availability, opening hours, and capacity takes another few minutes in the admin dashboard. Most restaurants are taking bookings on the same day they sign up.
- What if my website is on Wix or Squarespace?
- Seatly works on every major website platform. WordPress, Shopify, and custom HTML sites use the inline script tag. Wix uses an iframe embed (tested May 2026). Squarespace and GoDaddy also work. Setup guides for each platform are documented.
- Can I export my customer data if I leave?
- Yes. Data export and the right to erasure are first-class features in the admin dashboard, built in for UK GDPR compliance. The export is available at any time, including after cancellation. The restaurant is the data controller; Seatly is the processor.
Looking at a specific competitor? Our Seatly vs OpenTable , vs ResDiary , and vs Quandoo pages cover side-by-side pricing and switching in depth.
Running a specific cuisine? See our page for Indian restaurants or for Mediterranean and Turkish restaurants . Our buyer's guide compares nine platforms against the same six criteria.
Ready to keep your bookings?
We are onboarding UK independents into the first cohort now. Tell us about your venue and we will walk you through the switch end-to-end.
* A note on Seatly branding. Seatly branding is optional and entirely your choice. A single toggle in your admin Settings controls whether a small "Powered by Seatly" line appears on your booking widget AND in confirmation, reminder, and cancellation emails. When enabled, you receive a tier-matched discount on your subscription (£5/month on Starter, £10/month on Professional, £15/month on Business). The toggle defaults to ON for Starter accounts and OFF for Professional and Business — you can change it whenever you like.