Reservation platforms are convenient. Guests book in two taps, and your restaurant shows up in an app many people already have open. You rarely pay for this with one big invoice. You pay with many small ones: per guest, per booking, per month. Which is exactly why hardly anyone does the math. We did.

How platforms charge

The models vary by provider but come down to three patterns. Some charge a fee per seated guest, usually in the range of one to three euros. Others sell monthly packages, often combined with extra fees for bookings that arrive via the platform’s own search. And some take a percentage, mainly on promotions and event offers.

What matters is the difference between two kinds of bookings: guests who discover your restaurant through the platform, and guests who were coming anyway and just needed a booking button. For the first group, the fee is a fair price for advertising. For the second, you are paying for your regulars to take a detour.

A sample calculation

Take a restaurant with 400 guests a month booked through a platform, at a fee of €1.50 per guest. That is €600 a month, or €7,200 a year. If only half of those guests would have booked directly anyway, you are paying €3,600 a year for reservations you would have received for free.

For comparison: a complete restaurant website with its own reservation system costs €1,800 a year with us. The platform fees for your regulars alone would cover that twice over.

Annual cost in the example: 400 guests per month, €1.50 per guest

Platform fees, total€7,200

Of which for guests who would have come anyway€3,600

Own website with reservation system€1,800

Sample calculation from this article

What speaks for the platforms

Arguing against platforms entirely would be dishonest. They bring reach, especially with tourists and new guests who search for “restaurant near me” instead of your name. If you have just opened or want to fill quiet weekdays, that reach has real value.

So the question is not platform or no platform. The question is where your regulars book.

The fix: direct booking for everyone who already knows you

That guests want to book online is well documented: according to a representative YouGov survey commissioned by METRO and DISH (2025), one in two Germans has already reserved a table online, and among guests who eat out weekly it is 71 percent. The only open question is whether that booking runs through a platform with a per-guest fee or through your own website.

The setup we recommend: keep the platform for acquiring new guests. But on your own website, in your Google profile, and on Instagram, everything points to your own reservation system, with no per-guest fee. People who search for you book directly. People who discover you are welcome to come via the platform.

Your own booking channel has a second advantage: the guest data belongs to you. You see who comes and how often, you can react to no-shows, and in December you can send the invitations yourself instead of hoping the platform shows your restaurant.

Our hospitality package GuestMaker includes commission-free online reservations, with an interactive floor plan in the dashboard. There is no per-guest fee on top, no matter how good the month gets.