Here is the news, because it changes the comparison. me&u sells reservations now. Their own page is headed as an all in one reservations, voice AI and functions platform, with a section called Reservations, reimagined, a table plan preview in the hero and a functions and events module beside it. If you last looked at me&u as the QR code on the table, that is an older product than the one they sell today.
What me&u has actually built
Give it full credit first. me&u, merged with Mr Yum, is the category leader for order and pay in Australia and New Zealand, and guests already know how to use it without being told. On the reservations side there is a booking diary, operator controls they describe as brand it, report it, ask it, track it and edit it all at once, and smart floor management that prevents double bookings. There is a genuine functions module, described as built for hospitality functions, with portals for both the operator and the guest. Quick Dine offers shorter seating times to fill gaps with more sittings.
Their Connect CRM is real too, and better than most ordering products manage. It builds guest profiles based on lifecycle, recency, frequency and spend, holding last visit, order value, anniversaries and birthdays, and it can automate personalised email and SMS. Somebody has thought about it.
A module on day one, and a diary that has been in service for years
Now the honest part, and it is not a criticism of their engineering. It is about age. A booking diary is a strange piece of software: almost none of the work is the calendar, and almost all of it is the hundred small situations that only turn up after thousands of services.
Take an ordinary Friday at seven. A party of six rings to move from seven to half past. Two couples walk in and you need them in a queue, in order, with a realistic wait. A table of eight wants to hold Saturday with money down so they actually turn up. One guest swears she never got a reminder.
Ask me&u's reservations product each of those and the answers are uneven. Their published material does not say whether guests can book from your own website through a widget or an embed. Their published material does not say whether you can take a deposit, hold a card, or charge a no show or late cancellation fee. Their published material does not say whether there is a waitlist or a way to enter a walk in. Their published material does not say whether the diary sends its own confirmations and reminders, and while their CRM clearly sends automated email and SMS, nothing published ties that to a booking. The floor plan appears in their hero media but is never described, so laying out tables and areas, or dragging a booking onto a table, cannot be established either. Session times, trading hours and availability rules are the same: the only published control is Quick Dine.
None of that means the features are absent. It means an owner cannot find out before signing, and a booking diary is the one product where you find out during service. Allvio's Reserve has been carrying deposits, waitlists, walk ins, branded reminders, cancellation notices, session times and trading hours for years. That is the difference worth attention. Not who has the newer product, but who has already been asked the awkward question a thousand times.
The till is still somebody else's
me&u is not a point of sale and does not claim to be. It works alongside one. So your menu exists twice from day one, once in your till and once in me&u, built by two separate setups. Take the special off on Sunday night and you do it twice, or a guest orders it from their phone at table nine and pays before anybody notices. Rostering, timesheets, invoicing and payroll are not what me&u is for either, so those are more products and more logins for whoever does the admin, which is you.
The bill moves with how busy you are
me&u does not publish pricing. It is quote only, scaled by volume and setup, with payment processing fees on top. So you cannot work out your own monthly number tonight without booking a call, and the number is not flat: the busier the venue, the more the ordering costs.
Allvio publishes its figures in Australian dollars. Complete is $399 per month ex GST for one location, plus $299 per month for each extra location, switching every app on with no per user charge. Build your own starts at $20 per month per app. Hardware is sold outright, from $1,499 ex GST for the single station up to $2,499 for the restaurant station. The trial runs 30 days and needs no card. The same subscription covers the till, ordering, the diary, email and SMS campaigns, rostering, and your invoicing, payroll and books.
me&u | Allvio | |
|---|---|---|
What you are actually buying | Order and pay, a CRM, and a new reservations product, alongside a till you own separately | One AUD subscription: the till, ordering, the diary, marketing, rostering and the books |
Changing a price or a menu item | Typed into your till, then typed again into me&u | Typed once, and the till and the ordering page both show it |
Changing your trading hours | Your till, then the ordering side. On the diary, their published material describes only Quick Dine seating times | Sessions and trading hours set once, respected by ordering and the diary |
Taking a deposit on a booking | Their published material does not say | Deposits taken at booking. Automatic no show fees are not in yet |
A waitlist and walk ins on a busy Friday | Their published material does not say | Waitlist, plus walk ins charged at the diary without a booking |
Bookings from your own website | Their published material does not say | Public availability and booking on your own site |
Keeping a customer's details right | Connect CRM holds a strong guest profile. Your till keeps its own | One record used by the till, the diary and the ordering page, with dedupe and merge |
Working out what it will cost you | Not published. Quote only, scaled by volume, plus processing fees | Published in Australian dollars, and flat whether Friday is busy or not |
Best fit | High volume bars, QSR, stadiums and venues where order and pay at the table is the main job | A single venue owner who wants the diary and the till to know the same guest |
The table of six who booked for a birthday
They booked online on Tuesday and mentioned it was her fortieth. On Saturday, does the person on the door know? Does the kitchen know about the gluten? Does the till know a deposit was paid, or does somebody charge the full amount and refund it Monday? A guest cannot see which product holds which fact. They only notice whether they were expected.
If order and pay is the whole job
Then me&u is the strongest choice in this market. For a busy bar where table turn is everything, their ordering experience is better known and better polished than ours, and their CRM is genuinely good. If your till and your diary are settled, adding me&u for ordering alone is a sound decision.
If bookings are the reason you are looking, the fair question is not whether me&u has a diary. They do, and it is early. It is whether you want to find out during Friday service which parts of it are not built yet.
This comparison reflects each product's general positioning as published by each vendor in August 2026. Where me&u's own material does not describe a booking capability, we have said so rather than guessed. Features and pricing change: always check directly with each vendor before deciding.