OpenTable for Restaurants: Listing, Plans and Fees

OpenTable for restaurants is a paid reservation and table-management product, not a free directory you simply fill in: to be bookable on OpenTable a restaurant signs up for a plan, and the plans on OpenTable’s own pages run from $149 to $499 a month plus a fee for each seated diner who finds you through OpenTable. Our take: do not pay for OpenTable to be “listed”. Treat it as a booking system with a fee schedule, work out what a month of covers would cost you, and put your free listings (Google, Apple, Bing, Yelp, Tripadvisor and the rest of the general set) in order first, because a wrong phone number costs you more bookings than a missing OpenTable page. This guide covers how to add your restaurant, what the plans and per-cover fees cost according to OpenTable, how to cancel, and what to build before you spend anything.

One note on sources, because it affects how far you can trust the numbers. Every figure below comes from OpenTable’s own pages, but we could not open them directly: our page fetches of opentable.com plan, product and help pages timed out or returned an empty shell on repeated tries on November 6, 2026. We therefore relied on how those pages read in search results, which quote OpenTable’s text. Where those results disagreed with each other, we say so, and we link the live pages so you can check the quote yourself before you commit.

How to add your restaurant to OpenTable

OpenTable’s restaurant side lives at opentable.com/restaurant-solutions. From the pages we could read, the path is:

1. Apply through “Join OpenTable”. The Join OpenTable page asks for your contact details, restaurant address, number of locations and the reason you are getting in touch.
2. Talk to sales, or start a trial. OpenTable’s plans pages point to a demo with its sales team, and the Basic plan page offers a free trial with a form for your restaurant’s name, phone and address.
3. Choose a plan. See the next section. OpenTable’s Join page says a member of its team will reach out shortly to discuss your needs and, if you want, give you a platform demo. The Core plan page’s FAQ states the standard contract is one year.
4. Onboarding. OpenTable’s reservation software page says setup covers floor-plan configuration, availability rules and staff training, and that most restaurants can go live within a few days of signing up.

Notice what is missing: there is no step where you type your name, address and phone into a free directory form and appear. We found no free listing tier on OpenTable’s pages. An older help article on how to join exists in OpenTable’s help center, but it returned an error page when we tried to read it, so we cannot quote it.

OpenTable plans and what they cost

At the time of writing (November 2026), OpenTable’s plans and pricing page and the individual Basic and Core plan pages showed:

	Basic	Core	Pro
Subscription	$149 a month	$299 a month	$499 a month
Per-cover fee for diners from OpenTable’s site, app or network	Free for 30 days, then $1.50 per cover	$1 per cover	$1 per cover
Bookings from your own website	$0.25 per cover, or a $49 a month flat fee	No cover fee	No cover fee
Phone bookings	Not stated on the pages we read	No cover fee	No cover fee
Trial	30 days free for new customers, month-to-month term, credit card required	Not stated	Pro page repeats the same trial terms
Term	OpenTable says “cancel anytime” and asks for 30 days notice	Standard one-year contract, auto-renews annually, 30 days notice before renewal	Pages conflict: one says cancel anytime, another describes a one-year auto-renewing contract

Three cautions on that table, all of them OpenTable’s own wording as we found it:

• The pages do not fully agree. The plans table shows Basic’s network cover fee as free for 30 days and then $1.50, while a Basic FAQ says only that after the trial it is $149 a month “plus a per cover fee”. That is probably the same fee presented two ways, but it is a reason to get the rate in writing.
• There is a 2% service fee. In search results, the plans page shows a 2% service fee on its prepaid experiences and prepaid ticketing rows, and OpenTable’s marketing describes it as on top of card processing fees. We could not read the footnote text itself, so ask what it covers before you sign.
• Prices are for US restaurants. OpenTable’s Connect page says its pricing is for US customers and may differ elsewhere, and the same is likely true of the plans pages.

OpenTable’s Connect page describes an older low-cost option: no monthly fee, $0.25 per seated cover for reservations from your website, Facebook and email marketing, $2.50 per seated cover for reservations from OpenTable and partner sites, and no long-term commitment. Another OpenTable page says Connect was upgraded into the tiered Basic, Core and Pro plans, and the newer plan pages show tiers, so we cannot tell whether Connect is still sold as a standalone product. Ask directly.

How per-cover fees work (with a worked example)

A “cover” is one seated diner. OpenTable’s pages say:

• You pay for seated diners only. Its FAQ says a no-show or a cancellation does not generate a cover fee. The Basic page adds that you must mark the reservation as a no-show or cancellation within 48 hours.
• The fee depends on where the diner came from. On Core and Pro, OpenTable says it charges cover fees only for diners who discover you on its website, app or affiliate network, and that a diner who books through your own website or by phone is free. On Basic, website bookings cost $0.25 per cover or $49 a month flat.

Here is arithmetic from those published prices, not a quote and not a forecast. It leaves out the website fee, the 2% service fee, taxes and anything you negotiate. Suppose your restaurant seats 100 covers a month from OpenTable’s network, 300 covers, or 600 covers:

Network covers a month	Basic ($149 + $1.50 each)	Core ($299 + $1 each)	Pro ($499 + $1 each)
100	$299	$399	$599
300	$599	$599	$799
600	$1,049	$899	$1,099

What this shows: Basic is cheaper until about 300 network covers a month, where it matches Core, and Core is cheaper above that. Pro costs $200 a month more than Core at any volume, so it only makes sense if you need what it adds. The per-cover fee is the part that scales with volume, so put it in your margin maths, because above a few hundred covers it outweighs the subscription.

What you do not get for free: the listing itself

Search for a restaurant on OpenTable and you see a page with its name, address and a booking widget. That is a citation, but it is also the front end of a product you subscribe to. OpenTable’s general terms of use, which we could only read as search-result excerpts, say it can refuse service, terminate accounts, remove or edit content and cancel reservations in its sole discretion. Those terms are written for users of the site in general, so check your own restaurant agreement for what applies to you. Either way, the page is not something only you control.

That does not make OpenTable a bad choice. For restaurants that live on reservations, it is a mature booking network, and our catalog puts it first on our restaurants citation list and also first on our hotels and clubs-venues lists, with a paid label. That label matches what we found on OpenTable’s own pages: a 30-day trial of a paid plan, but no free listing tier. It means the question is “do the covers pay for it”, not “does the citation help”.

How to cancel OpenTable or remove your restaurant

We found no dedicated page on removing a restaurant from OpenTable, so what follows comes from the plan pages and the terms:

• Basic: the plan page says cancel anytime and that OpenTable asks for 30 days notice. It also says cancelling stops future subscription charges, and that cover fees continue for covers made after your trial period ends, so check what applies to bookings already on the books.
• Core: a standard one-year contract, auto-renewing annually, with a requirement to notify OpenTable 30 days before the renewal date. Missing the window renews the year.
• Pro: OpenTable’s pages conflict. A Pro referral page says you can cancel anytime to stop future subscription charges, while the main Pro page is described as showing a one-year contract that auto-renews with 30 days notice. Assume the stricter reading until OpenTable confirms in writing.
• Your agreement: the signed order form is what actually governs a restaurant account, whatever the marketing pages say.

Before you sign, ask in writing: the contract length, the notice period, how cover fees on already-made bookings are handled after cancellation, what the 2% service fee covers, and what happens to your restaurant’s page afterwards.

What to build before you pay for OpenTable

Most of the visibility a restaurant gets from listings is free. A sensible order:

1. Google Business Profile. The single most important local listing, with correct hours, menu link and phone. Our Google Business Profile optimization guide walks through it.
2. Apple and Bing. Apple Business and Bing Places are the other major map and search sources, and both are claimed through their own owners.
3. Review and discovery sites. Yelp and Tripadvisor each have a guide from us on claiming and keeping the page accurate.
4. The rest of the free set. See the ranked restaurants citation sites list and the local citation finder for your country.
5. Then decide on OpenTable. Add it when you know your average covers, your no-show rate and your margin.

Whichever you pick, the details must match: name, address and phone identical everywhere, including the booking widget. The free NAP checker shows where your details disagree, and our guide to finding and fixing duplicate listings covers the usual mess when a restaurant has changed phone or owner.

Does an OpenTable listing help local SEO?

We found no official statement from Google that an OpenTable listing is a ranking factor, so this answer stays hedged. What is defensible: the page is a genuine structured citation on a high-profile reservation site, a public record of your name, address, phone and booking link, and consistent records across many sources are how search engines and AI assistants judge whether a business is real and stable.

The honest limit is cost. A free listing delivers the same consistency signal for nothing, so OpenTable’s SEO value cannot be what justifies a $149 to $499 subscription. What justifies it is bookings. If you already take most reservations by phone and your own site, the Core plan’s free website and phone bookings mean you pay the fee only for diners OpenTable itself sends you.

A short OpenTable checklist

• Decide your covers, margin and average spend before the sales call.
• Get the per-cover rate, the website-booking rate, the 2% service fee and the contract term in writing.
• Ask whether Connect (no monthly fee) is still available for your location.
• Note the 48-hour window for flagging no-shows and cancellations.
• Calendar the cancellation notice date the day you sign.
• Keep the free listings accurate while you evaluate.

Common mistakes with OpenTable

• Paying for it to “get listed”. OpenTable is booking software with a listing attached. If you do not need the booking system, a free listing does the citation job.
• Ignoring where the cover came from. On Core and Pro, your own website and phone bookings are free, so push them, and keep the fee-bearing covers to genuinely new diners.
• Missing the renewal window. A one-year contract with 30 days notice renews if you forget.
• Not logging no-shows. OpenTable’s Basic page says to flag them within 48 hours.
• Letting booking-widget details drift. A different phone number on OpenTable than on your Google page weakens both.

OpenTable alongside your other citations

OpenTable is the booking layer on top of a set of listings, not a replacement for them. For the free general and restaurant-specific citations, see our ranked restaurants citation sites list and the local citation finder. If you would rather have the free set handled for you, our restaurant citation building service page explains what is included, and you can always add OpenTable yourself afterwards once the covers justify the fee.