This page is a POS system comparison that runs OpenTable and Allvio past the same 43 capabilities, from the register at the counter to a win back email in March, and the arithmetic is unusual. OpenTable is included on nine of the 43 and sits outside the other thirty four, which makes it the narrowest product in this whole comparison. That is not an insult and it is not a low score. OpenTable is a reservations network. It is not trying to be a till, a roster, an ordering page or a marketing tool, and nothing in the table below pretends otherwise. What is worth noticing is that every single one of its nine is a clean yes. Nothing partial, nothing behind a higher tier, nothing needing a second product.
Nine out of nine, and one thing nobody else can do
Take the reservations block first. The diary, the floor plan and table assignment, bookings from your own website, deposits and no show protection, the waitlist and walk ins, confirmations and reminders, ticketed events and set menus, and availability rules and trading hours: eight rows, eight yeses, no qualifiers. Visit and spend history is the ninth. There is a reason venue managers have trusted this diary for twenty years, and Allvio does not match it everywhere. We hold tables, sections, capacity and status and assign a booking to a table, with no visual floor plan designer. We take a deposit at the moment of booking and do not yet charge a no show or late cancellation fee automatically. Their column is stronger on both.
Then the thing that does not appear as a row at all, because no feature table can hold it. OpenTable brings you strangers. A diner in from Brisbane opens the app, has never heard of you, and books. Every other product on this page, ours included, is built to look after people who already know your name. Filling a Tuesday with faces you did not earn is a different job, OpenTable is excellent at it, and if that is the job you are hiring for, hire them.
Capability | OpenTable | 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 | Not what it does | Yes |
Visit and spend history | Yes | Yes |
Notes, preferences and allergies | Not what it does | Yes |
Segments such as regulars and lapsed | Not what it does | Yes |
Loyalty and rewards | Not what it does | Yes |
Marketing | ||
Email campaigns | Not what it does | Yes |
SMS campaigns | Not what it does | Yes |
Automated messages such as birthday and win back | Not what it does | Yes |
Campaign results tied back to spend | Not what it does | 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 | Not what it does | Part of it, phone browser, no native app |
The rows where an owner feels the difference
Menu built and changed in one place is the first. OpenTable holds no menu, so when the steak goes up four dollars on Thursday you change it in the till, then on the ordering page, then on the website, then on the printed list. Four jobs after close, and the one you miss is the one a guest reads back to you. In Allvio the register and the ordering page share the same menu.
One customer record is the second, and it is the row that quietly costs the most. OpenTable keeps her booking history, which is real and useful. What sits outside the product is one record your till can also read, and her preferences and allergies alongside it. So she exists twice: as a diner in the network and as a card number in your register, and the two halves never meet. In Allvio she is one contact that the diary, the till and the ordering page all use.
Marketing is the third, and all four rows are outside what OpenTable does. There is no way inside it to email her in March because she has not been in since January, no birthday message, no result tied back to what she spent. That work becomes a spreadsheet, or a third subscription to a mailing tool with a list that goes stale the day after you export it. Allvio sends email and SMS campaigns off the same record the diary uses.
The fourth is everything under selling, ordering, your team and reporting. Thirty four rows means the till, kitchen dockets, cash up, your own commission free online ordering pages, loyalty, rostering, clock in and out, timesheets, leave and your sales reporting are all somebody else's product to choose, buy, learn and ring at seven on a Friday. Every one of them is a row a restaurant POS system already holds. Invoicing, payroll and the books sit in the Allvio subscription too, and that is the only line they get here.
Why thirty four is a shape, not a score
A reservations network that also tried to be a till would be worse at both, and OpenTable has clearly decided which one it is. Narrow usually means deep, and this is deep. The honest question the table poses is not who has more yeses. It is who buys, sets up, pays for and maintains the thirty four capabilities OpenTable does not cover, and whether the woman at table six stays the same person in all of them. There is also the shape of the bill: network covers carry a fee for each diner, so her fortieth visit through the app is charged like her first, which makes your own sum harder to do at the kitchen table than a flat monthly figure.
Who should still book with OpenTable
A new room in a city centre, a hotel restaurant, a venue on a tourist strip with no local following yet: take the network and be glad it exists. Nothing Allvio does replaces a queue of strangers who found you on an app. Once your regulars are the ones filling the room, the sum changes, and that is when a single subscription is worth pricing. 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, with no per cover charge, and the trial runs 30 days with no card.
Frequently asked questions
Is OpenTable a POS system?
No. It is a reservations network, and 34 of the 43 rows sit outside it: the till, card and cash handling, kitchen dockets, cash up, ordering from your own site, loyalty, rostering, timesheets, leave, the back office and sales reporting. That is its shape, not a low score. Its nine covered rows are all clean yeses with nothing partial.
How do OpenTable's cover fees work?
Cover fees apply to diners who find your restaurant through OpenTable's website, app or affiliate network, not to guests who book directly on your own site or by phone. Charges apply to seated diners, so cancellations and no shows are not charged. Plans and per cover rates change, so ask for current Australian pricing in writing before you compare it with a flat monthly fee.
What is the best OpenTable alternative for a venue with a loyal local following?
If most of your covers already know your name, you are paying a network to deliver guests you would have had anyway. Allvio covers the diary, the till, ordering, the guest record, marketing, rostering and the books in one subscription with no per cover charge, at $399 per month ex GST for one location, with a 30 day trial and no card.
Can OpenTable replace your guest CRM?
Only partly. It keeps booking and visit history inside its own platform, but the row that matters for service is one record your till can read too, with preferences and allergies attached. When the diary and the register are separate products, the same guest exists twice and the two halves never meet.
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.