Obee and Allvio, checked against the same 43 capabilities a venue needs covered in a normal week, in the same POS system comparison format we use for every vendor. Obee is included on eight of them, does part of the job on two at no extra cost, puts one behind a paid add-on or a higher tier, needs a second product bought separately for one, answers four with a plain no, leaves one that their published material does not settle, and sits outside twenty six. Say the last one out loud before you read the table: twenty six rows marked not what it does is not a mark against Obee. It is a reservations product. It was never meant to be a till, a roster or an ordering page.
What Obee gets right for a dining room
Obee is Australian, it is used by restaurants whose names carry weight here, and the way it sells itself deserves credit. A flat monthly fee, free setup and no lock in, and no marketplace sitting between you and your own guests, so a regular booking for the fortieth time does not arrive with a fee attached. That is a fairer shape than a lot of this category offers.
All eight booking rows come back as included, and the evidence is their own help centre rather than a sales page. There is a guest facing waiting list you switch on in booking settings and a separate walk in flow for the parties who arrive on spec. Confirmation emails are documented, and so are email reminders, SMS reminders, email follow ups and SMS follow ups, each with its own setup article. Add the diary, the floor plan and table assignment, bookings from your own site, deposits, ticketed events and set menus, and availability rules and trading hours, and the reservations half of the table is complete. Ours is not, in two places we should name: Allvio holds tables, sections, capacity and status without a visual floor plan designer, and takes a deposit at booking without charging a no show or late cancellation fee automatically.
Capability | Obee | Allvio |
|---|---|---|
Selling and taking payment | ||
Touchscreen till for counter and table service | Not what it does | Yes |
Card, cash, split and part payments | Not what it does | Yes |
Table plan and open tabs | Not what it does | Yes, no floor plan designer |
Kitchen screens or dockets | Not what it does | Yes |
Stock counts and low stock alerts | Not what it does | Part of it, stock moves with sales |
Discounts, happy hour and price levels | Not what it does | Yes |
Gift cards | Not what it does | Yes |
Refunds, voids and exchanges | Not what it does | Yes |
Cash up and end of day | Not what it does | Yes |
Online ordering | ||
QR ordering at the table | Not what it does | Yes |
Pickup and takeaway from your own site | Not what it does | Yes, commission free |
Menu built and changed in one place | Not what it does | Yes |
Modifiers, sizes and dietary flags | Not what it does | Part of it, no nested modifiers |
Online payment and split bills | Not what it does | Part of it, no online bill split |
Upsells and promo codes | Not what it does | Part of it, no automatic upsells |
Orders land straight in the kitchen | Not what it does | Yes |
Bookings and reservations | ||
Booking diary | Yes | Yes |
Floor plan and table assignment | Yes | Part of it, no visual floor plan designer |
Bookings from your own website | Yes | Yes |
Deposits and no show protection | Yes | Part of it, deposits but no automatic fees |
Waitlist and walk ins | Yes | Yes |
Confirmations and reminders to guests | Yes | Yes |
Ticketed events and set menus | Yes | Part of it, no ticket pricing tiers |
Availability rules and trading hours | Yes | Yes |
Knowing your customers | ||
One customer record | Costs extra, add-on or higher tier | Yes |
Visit and spend history | Part of it, visits, spend not published | Yes |
Notes, preferences and allergies | No | Yes |
Segments such as regulars and lapsed | Another product, bought separately | Yes |
Loyalty and rewards | Not what it does | Yes |
Marketing | ||
Email campaigns | No | Yes |
SMS campaigns | Part of it, included | Yes |
Automated messages such as birthday and win back | No | Yes |
Campaign results tied back to spend | No | Yes |
Your team | ||
Rostering | Not what it does | Yes |
Clock in and out | Not what it does | Yes |
Timesheets ready for pay | Not what it does | Yes |
Leave and availability | Not what it does | Yes |
Staff app on their own phone | Not what it does | Part of it, phone browser, no native app |
Back office | ||
Invoices and quotes | Not what it does | Yes |
Payroll and payslips | Not what it does | Yes |
Not what it does | Yes | |
Seeing how you are doing | ||
Sales and end of day reporting | Not what it does | Yes |
Reporting on your phone | Check with them | Part of it, phone browser, no native app |
Four rows that decide this one
One customer record is the first. In Obee the guest record sits behind a paid add-on or a higher tier, so the thing you assumed came with a booking system is a line item to ask about. In Allvio the record is the ordinary furniture: the register, the diary and the ordering page all write to the same contact, keyed on email and phone, with duplicates merged.
Notes, preferences and allergies is the second, and it is a plain no in Obee. That is where a fine dining room feels it. Coeliac, hates the window table, in for an anniversary: staff hear all of it at the pass and it has nowhere to live except a phone note or somebody's memory. Their Guestbook will hold her visits, and staff can even enter past bookings by hand, though spend is not something their material documents.
Marketing is the third. Email campaigns, automated birthday and win back messages and campaign results tied back to spend are all no. SMS does part of the job at no extra cost, on the reminder side. Segments such as regulars and lapsed means another product, bought and set up separately, so telling four hundred regulars that Sunday lunch has changed becomes an export, an upload, a third bill and a list that is stale the day after.
The fourth is the twenty six. Your till, card and cash handling, kitchen dockets, cash up, QR and commission free online ordering off your own site, loyalty, rostering, timesheets, leave and your sales reporting are outside Obee, as they are outside every diary, and every one of them is a row a restaurant POS system already holds. Each is a separate signup, a separate setup evening and a separate place your prices and your staff have to be kept right. The same Allvio subscription also covers invoicing, payroll and the books, which is one line and no more.
What the twenty six actually tells you
Not that Obee is worse. A narrow product carries less weight and is quicker to learn, and Obee is quicker to learn than we are. What twenty six tells you is where the work goes. Somebody has to buy, set up, pay for and maintain those other capabilities, and somebody has to make sure the woman on table six is the same person in all of them. In a venue with a general manager, that is a job. In a venue with you, it is your Tuesday night. Reporting on your phone we could not settle either way from what Obee publishes, so check with them rather than trust a cross.
The rooms Obee suits better than we do
A small destination restaurant with two sittings, a set menu and a waiting list, where bookings are the whole operational problem and the till is already sorted, will be well served by Obee. Flat fee, no commission per cover, an Australian company answering the phone, and a diary that behaves. If that is your venue, buy it with confidence.
If instead you are the person who takes the booking, rings the sale, writes the roster and then wants to email the regulars, the count matters. Allvio Complete, the all in one business software plan, is $399 per month ex GST for one location with every app on, plus $299 per month per extra location, no per app and no per user charge. Build your own starts at $20 per month per app, and the trial is 30 days with no card.
Frequently asked questions
Is Obee a POS system?
No. It is a reservations product, and 26 of the 43 rows sit outside it for that reason: the till, card and cash handling, kitchen dockets, cash up, ordering from your own site, loyalty, rostering, timesheets, leave and sales reporting. That is its scope, not a fault. A venue on Obee buys a till separately, and usually a roster too.
Does Obee include a guest CRM with notes and allergies?
Not in the base product. The single customer record sits behind a paid add-on or a higher tier, and notes, preferences and allergies is a plain no. Their Guestbook holds a guest's visits, and staff can add past bookings by hand, but spend is not documented in their published material. For a dining room that runs on dietary notes, ask exactly what the add-on includes.
Can you run email marketing from Obee?
No. Email campaigns, automated birthday and win back messages and campaign results tied back to spend are all noes, and customer segments such as regulars and lapsed mean a second product bought separately. SMS does part of the job on the reminder side at no extra cost. Emailing your regulars means exporting a list into another tool.
What is the best Obee alternative for a venue that also needs a till?
If you want the diary, the till, ordering, the guest record, marketing and the books in one subscription, Allvio covers those rows together. Obee is ahead of Allvio on two booking rows today: a visual floor plan designer and automatic no show fees. Allvio Complete is $399 per month ex GST for one location, with a 30 day trial and no card.
Every cell above comes from each vendor's own published material, checked in August 2026. Products change constantly: always confirm current capability directly with each vendor before deciding.