OpenTable is a marketplace: it sends diners to restaurants and charges per cover for the privilege. That trade can make sense in a city centre. For a pub whose guests already know where it is, those cover fees are mostly a tax on demand you created, and they peak in exactly the month your other costs do.
It is the biggest name in restaurant booking for a reason, and the comparison only means anything if that reason is stated fairly.
The structural difference: a marketplace charging by the head against a flat-fee system you run under your own brand.
| AT A GLANCE | Hendra One | OpenTable |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Flat £100 per site per month, everything included | Quote-based subscription plus per-cover network fees, commonly around £2 a head, plus a 2% transaction service fee (August 2026) |
| Per-cover fees | None, ever | Yes, on network and discovery bookings |
| Whose brand the guest sees | Yours: branded widget, optionally your own domain | OpenTable’s marketplace and flow |
| Guest database ownership | Yours, exportable at any time, you are the data controller | Guest relationship partly mediated by the marketplace |
| Guest CRM & automated marketing | Included: 8 automation triggers, vouchers, campaign builder | Profile and marketing features tied to the platform |
| Food safety compliance (SFBB) | Included: digital SFBB, EHO mode, fire log, COSHH | Not part of the product |
| Rotas, HR, maintenance | Included | Not part of the product |
| New-diner discovery | None: it is your own channel | Yes, the core of the offer |
OpenTable details are from its published materials and third-party listings as of August 2026 and may change: confirm current pricing and features with the vendor before deciding.
The marketplace trade is discovery in exchange for fees and a shared guest relationship. A pub with regulars is usually giving up more than it gets.
The fair way to judge a marketplace is marginal: how many covers did it bring that you would not have had, and what did each of those actually cost once the subscription and the per-cover fees are spread over them? A destination restaurant in a city full of browsing tourists can answer that question favourably. A village pub whose bookings are regulars, locals and people who searched its name usually cannot, because the marketplace is charging by the head for guests who were coming anyway.
There is also the quieter cost: the guest who books through a marketplace is partly the marketplace’s guest. The visit history, the habits and the contact relationship accumulate somewhere you do not control, and switching later means starting some of that from zero. The earlier a pub moves its bookings onto its own channel, the more of that history it keeps.
Hendra One is the own-channel option built for pubs: a branded widget on your site and your Google profile, no per-cover fees in any month, and the guest database, marketing, compliance and rota in the same system, at a price that does not move when the diary fills.
See what is included in detail: bookings, guest CRM and marketing, compliance, rotas and HR and pricing.
As of August 2026, OpenTable in the UK combines a quote-based monthly subscription with a per-cover fee, commonly reported around £2 a head for bookings that arrive through its network, and in early 2026 it introduced a 2% service fee on transactions such as deposits and no-show charges. Direct bookings through your own website are charged differently: confirm current rates with OpenTable.
A flat £100 per site per month excluding VAT, with no per-cover fees for you or your guests, ever, and every module included. The only usage charge anywhere is a 2.5% commission on optional upsell payments such as birthday packages, never on bookings or covers.
An honest no: there is no marketplace. OpenTable’s network genuinely sends new diners to venues in areas where diners browse it. The question for a pub is what share of its bookings are really new discovery rather than regulars using it as a booking button, because you pay the per-cover fee either way.
Yes. We import future bookings and your guest database with consent status intact, and the widget runs alongside until you are ready. Most venues move in under two weeks.
Guests follow the button on your website and your Google profile, which can point at your own branded widget. For a pub whose guests already know it, the booking experience is the same or better, and no third party sits between you and your own guest data.
OpenTable is a trademark of its respective owner, which is not affiliated with and does not endorse Hendra One. This page reflects our understanding as of August 2026 and exists to help operators compare options; if anything here is out of date, tell us and we will correct it.
A 30-minute walkthrough with someone who has run a service, not a sales deck.