Bookatable is now TheFork. Here is the flat-fee alternative.
Bookatable was acquired by TheFork and folded into its UK operation. If you remember being a Bookatable partner, your account, bookings, and customer data sit inside TheFork's platform today — and the commercial model is now per-cover commission on marketplace bookings. Seatly is a flat-fee, no-commission alternative for UK independents who want bookings on their own website, in their own brand.
What happened to Bookatable
Bookatable spent two decades as one of the UK's better-known restaurant booking platforms — a flat-monthly product that competed with OpenTable on the high street and was a default choice for hotels and mid-market independents.
It was then acquired by TheFork, the restaurant booking platform owned by TripAdvisor. The Bookatable brand was wound down for UK restaurant partners and existing accounts were migrated onto TheFork's restaurant platform. The bookatable.com and bookatable.co.uk addresses still respond but the traffic now routes through TheFork and TripAdvisor's infrastructure rather than a separate Bookatable operation.
The headline change for independents was the commercial model. TheFork operates a marketplace: your restaurant appears on TheFork's consumer-facing app and website, and the platform charges a per-cover commission on bookings sourced through that network. If you were on Bookatable when it was an independent flat-monthly product, the platform you are on today is a different shape.
Side-by-side comparison
Bookatable as a standalone product is no longer marketed to new UK partners. The comparison below is Seatly against TheFork, which is what Bookatable's UK partners are now on. TheFork pricing is quote-based and varies by tier and venue — always verify current pricing directly with the provider.
| Seatly | TheFork (ex-Bookatable) | |
|---|---|---|
| Commercial model | Flat monthly subscription | Per-cover commission on network bookings |
| Monthly fee | £59 to £129 flat | Varies — quote-based |
| Per-cover fee | £0 at every tier | Charged on marketplace bookings |
| Contract term | Monthly rolling, cancel anytime | Annual commitment typical |
| Where diners book | Your own website, your branding | TheFork consumer app and website |
| Widget branding | White-label by default* | TheFork branding visible to diners |
| Customer data ownership | Restaurant owns it, export anytime | Shared with platform, export on request |
| Data residency | London, UK | EU and US — operated by TheFork / TripAdvisor |
| Target customer | UK independents booking diners direct | Venues benefiting from marketplace discovery |
The maths on a real restaurant
A 40-cover independent doing 1,000 covers a month. We can't quote a specific TheFork figure on this page because their UK pricing is quote-based and varies by tier, but we can show the shape of the trade-off using publicly reported per-cover marketplace rates as a sense check.
TheFork (illustrative)
£600+
per month
Per-cover commission on 1,000 marketplace covers
Plus any base subscription element
Total scales with how busy you are
Seatly Professional
£89
per month
Flat fee, same in your busiest month and your quietest
£0 per cover
Cancel any month with 30 days' notice
Figures are illustrative. TheFork's UK pricing is quote-based and the figure above uses publicly reported marketplace per-cover rates to show the shape, not a quoted price for any specific venue. The substantive point is the model difference — commission on bookings versus a flat fee — rather than the precise £ figure. Always verify current pricing directly with the provider.
The shape of the trade-off is the point. On a marketplace you pay more in your busiest months — exactly when an extra fee bites — and the more successful your restaurant becomes, the bigger the bill. On a flat-fee plan, growth lands in your pocket, not the platform's.
What changes when you switch
- 01. Bookings live on your own website. Diners book from your domain in your branding — not redirected to TheFork's app. You keep the relationship with the diner.
- 02. No commission on busy weeks. Your Friday and Saturday service do not get more expensive because you got busier. The fee stays the same whether you do 200 covers or 2,000.
- 03. No marketplace dependency. You stop renting an audience from a third-party app and start building your own customer list, with emails and visit history you actually control.
- 04. No annual lock-in. Monthly rolling, 30 days' notice to cancel. If Seatly isn't right for your venue, you are never trapped to the next renewal.
When TheFork (the ex-Bookatable platform) still wins
Not every restaurant should switch. There are venues where the marketplace model is paying for itself, and a flat-fee white-label like Seatly would mean giving up real inbound traffic.
If your bookings genuinely come from TheFork's consumer app. Tourist-heavy locations, central-London destination venues, or any restaurant where a meaningful share of bookings come from diners who first discovered you on TheFork or TripAdvisor — the per-cover fee can be worth paying for that audience.
If your TripAdvisor presence is part of your marketing. TheFork integrates tightly with TripAdvisor listings. If TripAdvisor reviews and rankings drive a non-trivial portion of your booking flow, leaving the ecosystem has a cost you should price in.
For UK neighbourhood independents — bookings coming from regulars, locals, and your own social media and website — the marketplace fee is usually taxing existing customers rather than acquiring new ones. That is the segment Seatly is built for.
How to switch from TheFork (or restart from Bookatable)
- 01.
Check your contract
Find your TheFork contract or the email outlining your terms. Note the renewal date and any required notice period. Annual contracts typically auto-renew if you miss the window.
- 02.
Run Seatly in parallel
Most restaurants embed the Seatly widget on their own website immediately, even before the marketplace contract ends. You take direct bookings on Seatly while TheFork handles the bookings already in their system. The diner experience on your own site improves on day one.
- 03.
Export your customer data
Request a customer and booking export from TheFork. UK GDPR gives you a right to your own customer records, and the platform should facilitate this on request. Seatly imports the CSV during onboarding so your customer list moves with you.
- 04.
Cancel at renewal
Send written cancellation before your renewal date. By that point your own website is already taking the majority of bookings, so the transition is administrative rather than operational.
Common questions
- What happened to Bookatable?
- Bookatable was acquired by TheFork (owned by TripAdvisor) and folded into TheFork's UK operation. The Bookatable consumer brand is no longer actively marketed. UK restaurants that were on Bookatable were migrated to TheFork's restaurant platform, which uses a per-cover commission model on marketplace bookings.
- Is Bookatable still available for new UK restaurants?
- Not as a standalone product. New UK independents looking at Bookatable today are quoted onto TheFork's restaurant platform instead.
- How does Seatly compare to TheFork?
- Seatly is white-label and flat-fee — bookings on your own website, your branding, from £59 a month with no per-cover fees. TheFork is a marketplace — your restaurant appears on TheFork's consumer app, and you pay per-cover commission on bookings through that network. Whether marketplace is worth it depends on how much of your traffic actually comes from the marketplace versus direct from your own website.
- Can I move my Bookatable / TheFork customer data to Seatly?
- Yes. Whatever was held under Bookatable should now sit inside TheFork's restaurant dashboard, which provides exports on request. Seatly imports the CSV during onboarding so you do not start from zero.
- When might TheFork still be the right choice?
- Tourist-heavy or destination venues that genuinely benefit from TheFork-driven discovery, and restaurants where TripAdvisor reviews are a serious marketing channel. For neighbourhood independents booking diners they already know, the per-cover fee usually taxes existing customers.
Comparing more than just Bookatable's successor? Our buyer's guide to UK restaurant booking systems walks through 9 alternatives against the same six criteria — pricing, contracts, data ownership, embedding, GDPR, and feature fit.
Take your bookings back
We're onboarding UK independents into the first cohort now. Tell us about your venue and we'll walk you through what an exit from the marketplace model actually looks like.
* 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.