Resy Alternative

The Resy
Alternative
Built for the UK.

Resy is an American Express company selling in the US and Canada. It told its UK restaurants to offboard by 31 August 2024. BookingNinja is the British answer: your own booking page, your own guest list, pricing in pounds and money landing in a UK bank account.

Start For Free

No credit card required. No contracts. Cancel anytime.

No Per-Cover Fees
Flat pricing, even on your busiest nights
Free Forever Plan
All features, no card needed
Family-Run Support
Real people, not a call centre
Why Switch

An American Network, A British Restaurant

Resy does its job well in New York and Chicago. The question for a UK operator is narrower: does a US-first, Amex-backed reservation network suit your room, your card processing and the people who actually eat with you? Here is where the two platforms part company.

A Platform You Can Buy Here

Resy announced its UK closure in January 2024 and offboarded British restaurants on 31 August. It now sells to the US and Canada. BookingNinja is built in the UK, run from the UK and supported from the UK.

The Guest Record Stays With You

A booking taken on your BookingNinja page belongs to your venue. Contact details, marketing consent, what they ordered last time. Nobody sits between you and that diner deciding who gets to email them.

Pounds In, Pounds Out

Flat monthly pricing in GBP, Stripe handling the cards, payouts into your UK bank. Resy has only ever published plans in US dollars for the US market, so there is no British price to weigh up.

Wider Than Reservations

Session capacity, guest types priced per head, deposits set per session, memberships, gift cards, parties and order-at-table run in the same system rather than as separately bought products.

You Speak to the Builders

We configure your venue for you in roughly a day. Support comes from the people writing the code, not from an account manager attached to a top tier.

Side by Side

BookingNinja vs Resy

Both do reservations properly. The gap is geography, who holds the guest relationship, and how much of your operation sits in one place.

Available to UK venues

BookingNinja
Resy

Published pricing

BookingNinja
Free plan, then flat monthly in GBP
Resy
$249-$399/mo, US market only

Free plan or free trial

BookingNinja
Resy

Per-cover or per-reservation fees

BookingNinja
Resy

Diner marketplace and Amex dining credits

BookingNinja
Resy

Table and floor-plan management

BookingNinja
Resy

Alerts when a cancelled table frees up

BookingNinja
Resy

Deposits and prepayments

BookingNinja
Resy
2-3% fee on Tock-powered plans

Guest types with per-guest pricing

BookingNinja
Resy
Not published

Memberships, gift cards and order at table

BookingNinja
Resy
Not published

Resy left the UK in 2024 and publishes pricing only for the US market, so there is no current UK figure to compare against. Comparison based on publicly available information and accurate to the best of our knowledge; check Resy for the latest.

Guest choosing their table on the venue's own BookingNinja booking page on a phone
Direct, Not Discovery

The Booking Happens
On Your Site.

A reservation network is a discovery channel first. BookingNinja is not one, and we do not run a consumer app. Guests land on your own branded page, pick a table, say who is coming and pay whatever deposit you have set. Then they are on your list, not somebody's marketplace.

Your brand, your domain
The booking page carries your colours and your wording, on your own website.
Guests pick their table
Show the real floor plan and let people choose where they sit before they arrive.
Guest types and pricing
Adults, children and add-ons priced per head, with deposits set session by session.
You keep the contact
Names, emails and consent build a list you can market to whenever you like.
Live floor plan during service showing seated tables, upcoming bookings and tonight's booking list
Front of House

The Room As It
Actually Runs.

Resy has proper table management and we are not going to pretend otherwise. What BookingNinja gives you is a floor plan drawn to your real room, showing who is sat down, who is due through the door and which table has just been cleared, with pacing you set by how the room turns rather than by a flat cover count.

Your real floor plan
Draw the room, place the tables and areas, run the shift from the map.
Automatic table assignment
Best fit by party size and priority, with joins for big parties and a manual override any time.
Walk-ins and waitlist
Seat a walk-in from the floor plan and hold a waitlist on the nights you need one.
Pacing you control
Capacity is set to how your kitchen and room cope, not just to a number of covers.

When Resy Might Be the Better Fit

We would rather lose a bad fit than argue someone into the wrong platform. Resy has real strengths, and two of them are things we do not attempt.

  • You trade in the US or Canada. That is where Resy sells and supports, and if your covers come from a major American metro it is a serious option. BookingNinja would be the wrong local choice for you.
  • Your guests are Amex cardmembers and you want that pull. Curated discovery in the Amex app and dining credits push demand towards restaurants on the network. We do not have an equivalent, and if a chunk of your bookings come from that reach it is worth real money.
  • You want the Notify waitlist specifically. Resy's alert when a booked table frees up is the feature operators praise most, though reviewers do report it does not always fire.

None of that changes the practical problem for a British venue. Resy stopped selling here in 2024, so it is not on your shortlist even if you want it. If what you want is bookings on your own site, your guest data in your own hands and a supplier in the same time zone, that is the job BookingNinja was built for.

FAQ

Resy Alternative Questions, Answered

Is Resy still available in the UK?
No. Resy announced in January 2024 that it was closing its UK business and finished offboarding British restaurants on 31 August 2024. It now operates in the US and Canada. A UK venue cannot sign up for it or get support for it here.
What should a UK restaurant use instead of Resy?
BookingNinja covers the same operational ground: floor plans and table management, deposits and prepayments, waitlists, guest records and automated messaging. On top of that you get guest types with per-head pricing, memberships, gift cards and order-at-table, priced in pounds with UK support.
Can I bring my Resy guestbook across?
If you exported it during the UK offboarding, yes. Resy let departing UK restaurants retrieve their guestbook and notify data, and we can import a customer list as part of setup. We build the venue out for you in roughly a day.
I get bookings from Amex cardmembers. What happens to those?
Honestly, that channel goes away, because BookingNinja does not run a consumer app or a dining-credit network. It is moot for UK venues since Resy no longer sells here, but it is worth naming. What replaces it is a guest list you own outright and can email, text or offer membership perks to without a platform in the middle.
How does the pricing compare?
Neither platform charges per cover, so a busy Saturday costs the same as a quiet Tuesday on both. The difference is that Resy publishes US dollar plans, from $249 a month, for the American market only, with no free plan or trial. BookingNinja bills a flat monthly amount in GBP. Card payments run through Stripe at standard Stripe rates with a small platform fee on top, around 1% depending on plan.
Is there a free plan?
There is. The Free Forever tier costs nothing, holds back no features, and runs up to 50 unpaid bookings a month. Past that, a booking has to carry a payment, and the customer pays a small booking fee at checkout of 2% or 50p, whichever is the larger.
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Ready to Own
Your Bookings?

Built in the UK, set up for you in about a day. Nothing to sign, and no card needed to start.

Start For Free

Free Forever plan: 50 no-payment bookings a month. Upgrade anytime.