The OpenTable alternative for small restaurants.
Big booking networks take a cut of guests you already earned. Bzz is a flat-rate booking and waitlist system for independents — keep your margins, and keep your guests.
Waiting Area
Get a buzzer and track your place in line from your phone.
Book a table for a future date and skip the wait entirely.
Instant confirmation · Email reminder
Why Small Restaurants Overpay on Booking Networks
Per-cover fees stack up
A commission on every seated guest punishes you exactly when you are busy. For a small dining room, that can quietly cost more than your software ever should.
Contracts & hardware
Annual lock-ins and proprietary tablets are designed for large groups. Independents end up paying for capacity and complexity they will never use.
They own your guests
On a marketplace, the diner belongs to the network. With Bzz, every booking and contact is yours to keep and re-market to.
What is a flat-rate reservation system?
Instead of taking a cut of every diner who books, a flat-rate system charges one predictable monthly fee no matter how many guests you seat. For a small, independent restaurant that turns a cost that climbs with every busy night into a fixed bill you can actually plan around.
The math a busy Friday exposes
Per-cover pricing feels small on a quiet Tuesday and painful on a full Saturday. Here is the same month, priced two ways.
Seat 1,000 covers in a month at roughly $1 per seated diner and the network takes about
≈ $1,000
…that month. Get busier next month and the bill goes up with you.
The same 1,000 covers — or 5,000 — cost you one predictable subscription:
$11.99/mo
Unlimited covers. The number stays put whether you have a slow week or your best month ever.
Illustrative example. Per-cover fees vary by provider, plan and region — check your own statements for the exact figure. Bzz paid plans from $11.99/mo, with a free plan to start.
OpenTable-style Networks vs. Bzz
| Feature | Booking networks | Bzz |
|---|---|---|
| Cost per seated guest | Up to ~$1 per cover | No per-cover fees — ever |
| Monthly price | Tiered subscription + cover commissions | Free plan, then from $11.99/mo flat |
| Contract | Often annual lock-in | Month-to-month, cancel anytime |
| Hardware | Proprietary tablet / coaster pagers | None — runs in any browser |
| You own the guest relationship | Network keeps the diner data | Your guests, your data |
| Walk-in waitlist + digital pager | Add-on or separate tool | Included |
| Earn revenue during the wait | Not possible | Show specials & cocktails in-wait |
| Best fit | Large, high-traffic venues | Small, independent restaurants (<5 sites) |
*Competitor fees vary by provider, plan, and region; figures are industry estimates. Paid plans from $11.99/mo.
One host stand, not five subscriptions
Small dining rooms don't need a booking network bolted to a separate pager system and a separate waitlist app. Bzz is one screen that does the whole front door.
Online booking page
Your own branded reservation page takes bookings 24/7 — no marketplace listing you rent, and no commission on the diner who books.
Live walk-in waitlist
Add walk-ins in a tap. Upcoming reservations auto-seed onto the same list before guests arrive, so bookings and walk-ins share one honest queue.
Drag-and-drop floor plan
Lay out your real tables, see which are open, seated, or turning, and drag a party onto a table to seat them. Table timers help you forecast the next opening.
Pager on the guest’s phone
When a table is ready, the guest’s own phone buzzes — a QR scan or NFC tap, no coaster to hand out, lose, or sanitise. They can wait at the bar or on the street and still get the call.
Offers during the wait
The waiting screen is prime attention. Show tonight’s specials, a cocktail, or a dessert while guests watch their place in line advance.
Your guests, your data
Every booking, phone number and repeat visit is yours to keep and re-market to — not locked inside a network that treats your regulars as its audience.
Switch in an afternoon
Bring your bookings
Keep taking reservations on your current system until you go live. Add upcoming bookings to Bzz by hand or import them — nothing gets lost in the switch.
Draw your room
Recreate your floor plan with drag-and-drop tables and set your covers. Most small rooms are ready in well under an hour.
Go live, keep the fees
Point your booking link at Bzz, print your QR, and seat your first guest commission-free. Cancel the old contract when its term ends.
Is Bzz the right OpenTable alternative for you?
We'd rather you switch with eyes open. Here is where Bzz wins — and where a big network still makes sense.
A great fit if you…
- Run one to a few independent sites and feel per-cover fees on busy nights.
- Get most of your covers from regulars, walk-ins, and your own channels.
- Want bookings, a walk-in waitlist and a pager in one flat-rate tool.
- Care about owning your guest data.
Stay on a network if you…
- Rely on the marketplace itself to send you new diners who don't know you yet.
- Run a large, multi-site group that needs deep network integrations.
- Value the network's loyalty/points programme above keeping the fee.
Honest note: leaving a marketplace means leaving its discovery. Many independents replace it with a strong Google Business Profile and their own booking link — but it's a real trade-off worth weighing.
What Switching Looks Like
100%
Of covers, commission-free
Replace per-head reservation fees with one flat subscription and keep every euro from guests you earned.
~15%
In-wait revenue uplift
Showing specials and cocktails to waiting guests typically lifts pre-seating bar and appetizer spend.
Switch in an afternoon — start free
Online bookings, a live walk-in waitlist, drag-and-drop floor plans and digital table pagers — built for independents, with no per-cover fees and nothing to install.