Free restaurant reservation software that stays free
A real reservation system, free. Guests book online, you manage from any phone, and your dining room runs at $0 a month with $0.00 per-cover fees.
- $0/mo forever, no end date
- No credit card to start
- Unlimited reservations
- $0.00 per-cover fees
bavoli costs $0 a month with no end date: unlimited reservations, a booking page guests can use from your website or Instagram bio, floor plans, a waitlist with SMS, guest profiles, no-show protection, and analytics. No credit card to sign up, and $0.00 per-cover fees. The only charges anywhere in bavoli are per-order fees on online ordering, if you turn it on.
How it works
Share your booking link
Add it to your website, Google listing, and Instagram bio. Guests pick a day, party size, and time.
Confirm or let it auto-confirm
The guest gets a confirmation with a link to cancel or change. You see it on the floor plan instantly.
Seat and manage
Open the day's list before service. The floor plan shows what is open, who is coming, and who did not show.
Every real free reservation system, compared honestly
These are the systems that publish a genuinely free option as of July 2026, as distinct from a countdown that ends in a bill. Each is a reasonable choice for the right restaurant, and each has a catch worth knowing before you build your host stand around it.
Verified from each vendor's public pricing pages in July 2026. Caps and prices change, so check the vendor's own page before you commit.
| System | What's free | The catch |
|---|---|---|
| bavoli | Unlimited reservations, floor plans, a waitlist with SMS, unlimited guest profiles, no-show protection. $0 forever, no card. | None on reservations. bavoli's only charges are per-order fees on online ordering, 50c per pickup order, $1 per delivery order, and 0.5% on dine-in QR orders. |
| Tableo | Up to 100 covers/mo with email and SMS reminders | The cap counts covers (seats) rather than bookings, so a busy weekend eats it fast. |
| resOS | Up to 25 bookings/mo with core features | The lowest cap of the group. Paid plans list around $47/mo. |
| Eat App | Up to 100 covers/mo with table management and guest profiles | No waitlist and no SMS on the free tier, and paid plans climb steeply. |
| GloriaFood | Unlimited table reservations | An online-ordering platform first. Branded website, apps, and marketing are paid add-ons. |
| TableAgent | Unlimited reservations, truly $0 | A list-based book: no floor plan, no guest CRM, a widget you cannot brand, SMS at $20/mo, and $30/mo to keep your restaurant off their public directory. |
What you get, free
Floor plan and table management
Draw your room, assign tables, and see availability at a glance. Unlimited floor plans and tables.
No-show tracking built in
Every booking builds a guest profile. No-shows are marked automatically, so you know which nights and party sizes cost you covers.
Guest profiles from day one
Unlimited profiles, free. See visit history, preferences, and no-show counts without a separate CRM.
Waitlist included
Walk-ins join the list, get a text when the table is ready, and your host stand runs both systems in one place.
Free is the whole thing
There is no line to cross. A new opening, a small dining room, a place that lives mostly on walk-ins, and a 120-seat room turning three times on Saturday all pay the same $0 for reservations. You get online booking, a guest list, a waitlist, and no-show protection without paying anyone anything, and that already beats the notebook. What bavoli does charge for, online ordering, is spelled out further down rather than left for you to find mid-service.
What bavoli charges for, and what it never charges for
Reservations never cost anything, per month, per cover, or per booking. Neither do the waitlist, floor plans, guest profiles, staff accounts, SMS, the phone agent, or menus. There is no card on file for the software, so nothing can charge you on its own.
The one place bavoli earns money is online ordering, if you turn it on: 50c per pickup order, $1 per delivery order, and 0.5% of the subtotal on dine-in QR orders. By default your guest covers that inside the checkout order-fee line together with card processing, and you can choose to cover it yourself instead. Either way your restaurant keeps 100% of the menu price, tax, and tip.
Two things never change, and they are the two that matter on a busy night. The per-cover fee stays $0.00, so a Valentine's Day that turns the room three times costs what a dead Tuesday costs. And there is no contract, so a slow February is just a slow February.
Setting up and running your reservation system
Frequently asked questions
Keep reading
More honest comparisons and pricing breakdowns for independent restaurants.
- What bavoli costs: nothing, except per-order fees on online ordering
- The free OpenTable alternative, and four more, ranked for 2026
- Cheap reservation software with flat pricing
- How online reservations work on bavoli
- The free restaurant waitlist app, compared honestly
- Guide: the best free reservation systems for 2026, reviewed
- No-show protection, included free
- Floor plans and table management for a small dining room