Start free. Pay only when you take payments. Upgrade for AI, branding, and multi-venue.

Yes. No subscription, no card required at signup, no reservation limit. If you only take reservations (no online deposits or event tickets), bookres costs $0/month. The 5% applies only to transactions you choose to take through bookres.

PAYG is designed for new restaurants, satellite locations, and operators who want to try bookres without commitment. The higher rate covers the fact that there's no subscription floor. When you're doing meaningful transaction volume, Premium saves you money — break-even is around $16K/month in transactions. Premium also includes the AI phone host and unlocks the AI features, branding, marketing automation, and sandbox.

Several triggers:

Transaction volume. At about $16K/month in payments, Premium's lower rate (3.3% + $0.30) plus the $179 subscription is cheaper than PAYG's 5%. At $40K/month you save ~$500/month.

AI superpowers. The AI phone host that answers calls, books, and takes messages (100 minutes/month included on Premium; a $20/mo + $0.20/min add-on on PAYG, cap 500 min); plus the AI operator assistant, and — shipping through 2026 — predictive no-show scoring, AI-drafted campaigns, smart waitlist with predicted seat times, and AI guest preference extraction.

Branded experience. Custom email from-address (emails from your domain) and unbranded booking widget (no "powered by" visible to guests).

Marketing tools. Mailchimp and Sendy sync, lifecycle automation (birthday, win-back), 1,500 guest texts/month included.

Whenever you have 2+ paid venues. Studio is a multi-venue tier that starts at $229/month base + $50/month per venue. So 2 venues on Studio is $279/month versus $358 on Premium × 2 ($179 × 2) — saves $79. At 5 venues, Studio is $429 vs $895 on Premium × 5 — saves $466. The base bump covers the extra support multi-venue operators need (setup, group config, more complex POS sync). Plus Studio includes the group dashboard, cross-venue analytics, pooled guest texts, and settings inheritance.

Yes. Each venue has its own tier. Your flagship can be on Premium for branding and AI, while satellite locations stay on PAYG. Multi-LLC restaurant groups (where each venue is a separate legal entity) get this for free — each venue has independent billing tied to its own EIN.

Group features require 2+ Premium venues. If you have one Premium venue plus PAYG satellites, you stay on Premium pricing ($179/mo). The Studio group dashboard, cross-venue analytics, and pooled guest texts only activate once you have 2+ Premium venues — that's when Studio pricing kicks in.

Features tagged "soon" are on the 2026 roadmap — most ship by Q3. Premium and Studio subscribers get them included at no extra cost when they launch. The core platform (reservations, floor plan, multi-venue, payments, branding, POS sync) is fully built today and powering real restaurants.

Guest text reminders cut no-shows by 30-50% (industry data). PAYG uses the $10/month add-on for 500 texts. Premium includes 1,500 texts/month, and Studio pools 2,500 across all your venues. Overage is $0.02/text at every tier.

Yes. Reservation data, guest history, event records, and payment records can all be exported as CSV from your admin. We don't hold your data hostage.

14 days, and the timer only starts when you pick Premium or Studio during setup — not at signup. That's when we collect payment info, and we won't charge until the 14-day trial ends. Cancel before then and you owe nothing. Or just stay on PAYG and try the product as long as you want — that's truly free, no trial timer.

Your reservation business keeps running. Reservations, floor plan, multi-venue, team accounts, basic branding, and on-site widget all continue working at PAYG rates — no platform breakage, no surprises.

For features unique to Premium, we give you a 30-day grandfather window so active integrations don't break overnight:

Continues for 30 days: custom email from-address, full theme customization (typography, palette), marketing platform sync (Mailchimp, Sendy), hidden "Powered by" badge.

Stops immediately: guest-text allowance (replace with the $10/mo add-on if needed), AI features, group dashboard (Studio only).

After the 30-day window, premium features fall back to defaults. Your data is never deleted — just gated. Re-upgrade anytime and everything restores instantly. You can run your venue on PAYG indefinitely if you choose.

Monthly only. We don't offer annual prepayment discounts or promotional pricing — the listed price is the price for everyone. Simpler that way.

US venues today. International markets (UK, EU, Australia, and more) are on the roadmap for 2026 with local-currency pricing. If you're outside the US and interested, drop us a note.