OpenTable runs the biggest diner facing network in the business, and unlike almost every other product in this comparison it does something no diary can do on its own: it brings you people who had never heard of you. A visitor lands in the city, opens the app, sees two free tables at seven and books yours. You did no advertising and made no phone call. That is demand generation, and it is genuinely worth money.
The stranger is worth the fee
Think about what finding that diner any other way costs. Boosted posts, a photographer, a listing somewhere, a discount to get them through the door once. Measured against that, a fee for a cover the network hands you is a fair trade, and a new venue with an empty first month should take it seriously. OpenTable's diary is mature too, with a real floor plan and its own no show handling, and it is better at both than we are. Allvio takes deposits at booking and runs a waitlist, but there is no drag and drop floor plan designer yet and no automatic no show or late cancellation charge yet either. If those matter more than anything else on this page, believe them and not us.
The fortieth time your regular books through the network
Here is where the maths turns. She came the first time because the app suggested you, two years ago. She comes most months now, she knows the staff, she has a favourite table. And she still books through the app, because that is the icon on her phone. Every one of those bookings is a network cover, and network covers carry a per diner fee. You are paying, over and over, for access to a customer you stopped needing help to find after the second visit.
Nothing about that is dishonest. It is what a marketplace is: it charges for delivery, whether or not delivery was required. The fix is not to leave the network. It is to own the second visit, on your own booking page, with the guest keeping their table and you keeping the fee. In Allvio that page is part of the subscription, the booking lands in the same diary, and there is no charge per cover. Keep the network for strangers. Take the regulars back.
Wednesday, and the pinot goes up two dollars
The other half of the story is everything the network does not touch. OpenTable holds no menu, so when the wine goes up you change it in the till, then your ordering page, then the website, then the printed list. When a public holiday changes your hours, the network is told, then the till, then the ordering page, then Google, and the one you forget takes a booking you cannot fill. A new casual starts Friday and gets added to the roster tool, then the till. Five minutes each, several times a week, for as long as you own the place.
What the network remembers, and what you need remembered
OpenTable keeps a record of her visits. What it does not keep is one customer record your register can also see, her preferences and allergies, or a way to email her in March because she has not been in since January. Those sit outside what the product is for, so they become a spreadsheet, a note by the phone, or a third subscription to a mailing tool with a list that is stale the day after you export it. Allvio holds one contact record used by the diary, the till and the ordering page, with preferences and allergies on it, and sends the email and SMS campaigns from that same record.
You cannot do the sum without booking a call
OpenTable does not publish Australian rates, and the plan figures it does publish are in US dollars, with the cover charge on top and messaging sold as an add on. So the honest answer to what it costs your venue is that you will not know until somebody talks to you. Allvio publishes in Australian dollars: Complete is $399 per month ex GST for one location with every app switched on, and $299 per month for each extra location, with no per user or per app charge and no fee per cover. Build your own starts at $20 per month per app. Hardware is bought outright at $1,499 ex GST for the single station, $1,869 for the retail station and $2,499 for the restaurant station. The trial is 30 days and no card is asked for. Invoicing, payroll and the books are in the same subscription, which is a footnote and not the point.
OpenTable | Allvio | |
|---|---|---|
What you are actually buying | A mature reservations diary plus access to the largest diner network, which brings you strangers | One subscription covering the diary, the till, your own commission free booking and ordering pages and the guest record |
A regular booking again | A network cover carries a per diner fee whether it is her first visit or her fortieth | Bookings on your own page with no charge per cover |
Changing a price or a menu item | Menus are not in the product, so the till, the ordering page and the website are each changed by hand | One menu behind the till and the ordering page, changed once |
Changing your trading hours | Told to the network, then the till, then any ordering page, separately | Sessions and trading hours set once |
Keeping a customer's details right | The network keeps her booking history. Your till keeps its own version of her, and the two never meet | One record with preferences and allergies, used by the diary, the till and the ordering page |
Working out what it will cost you | Australian rates are not published, and cover fees rise with a good month | Published in Australian dollars, so the sum is yours to do tonight |
What you pay before your first sale | Subscription plus a till, hardware and an ordering page bought elsewhere, then a fee on each cover once you trade | Hardware bought outright, one setup, one monthly bill |
When it breaks mid service | OpenTable for the diary, another company for the till, another for ordering | One number for the whole lot |
Best fit | A new or tourist facing venue that needs strangers in the door and will happily pay for them | A venue with regulars it already earned and no wish to keep paying to reach them |
Friday night, from her side of the table
She arrives at seven for the fortieth time. She is greeted by name, because the staff know her face, not because anything on a screen told them. Nobody knows it is her birthday next week. Nobody knows she has spent more here than most of the room combined. She has a lovely night and leaves, and the only record of her worth anything sits with a marketplace you rent by the cover.
When the network is worth every cent
Opening in a city centre, on a strip full of hotels, with no reputation yet and tables to fill: take the network, pay the fees, and be glad of them. That is exactly the job OpenTable is best in the world at, and Allvio does not pretend to replace it.
The question is what happens after the network has done its work. Whether the fortieth visit costs the same as the first, and whether the person greeting her tonight knows a single thing that you know.
This comparison reflects each product's general positioning as published by each vendor in August 2026. Features and pricing change: always check directly with each vendor before deciding.