Zonal Alternative

The Zonal (LiveRes)
Alternative
Without the Estate Rollout.

Zonal sells a connected estate: till, bookings, loyalty, ordering and reporting from one supplier. That is a procurement project with a steering group behind it. BookingNinja is the booking half on its own, running next to whatever tills you already have, on published monthly pricing with no minimum term.

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

A Booking System, Not an Estate Stack

Neither of us charges you per cover on bookings from your own site. What actually differs is how much supplier you take on, and what it costs you to change your mind later.

One Piece, Not the Suite

Zonal Bookings lives inside a suite that also covers Aztec EPOS, loyalty, ordering and reporting. BookingNinja does the reservations part on its own, so the rest of your kit stays exactly where it is.

Nothing to Sign For Years

Zonal does not publish contract terms for Bookings, and third parties report 36-month minimums on its EPOS packages. We bill monthly. Stop paying and it stops.

On This Week, Not This Quarter

There is no hardware to install and no discovery phase. We build your sessions, tables and deposit rules for you, and you take real bookings about a day later.

What Comes In the Box

Per-guest-type pricing, deposits set per guest, memberships, gift cards, parties and order-at-table sit on every plan instead of arriving as separate modules on the quote.

Your Tills Stay Put

Changing how you take bookings should not mean pulling out the EPOS across every site. BookingNinja does not touch your till and does not need to.

You Get the Founder

Zonal passed from the McLean family to Volaris Group, a Canadian software acquirer, in February 2026. BookingNinja is independent and UK based, and support comes from the people who write the code.

Side by Side

BookingNinja vs Zonal (LiveRes)

Neither platform charges per cover on bookings from your own site. The split is over how much of a supplier you take on, and what you can walk away from.

Standalone, keeps the EPOS you already run

BookingNinja
Zonal (LiveRes)
Built around Zonal Aztec

Pricing published on the website, no sales call to see it

BookingNinja
Zonal (LiveRes)

Flat monthly with no minimum term

BookingNinja
Zonal (LiveRes)
Not published

Deposits redeemed at the till, live meal-stage status

BookingNinja
Zonal (LiveRes)

No per-cover or commission fees on your own bookings

BookingNinja
Zonal (LiveRes)

Floor plan and diary views for running service

BookingNinja
Zonal (LiveRes)

Deposits, reminders and no-show cover

BookingNinja
Zonal (LiveRes)

Wait list with SMS alerts

BookingNinja
Zonal (LiveRes)

Pre-orders taken ahead of the visit

BookingNinja
Zonal (LiveRes)

Guest types priced individually (adult, child, concession)

BookingNinja
Zonal (LiveRes)
Not published

Gift cards and memberships in the booking product

BookingNinja
Zonal (LiveRes)
Loyalty via Airship

Zonal publishes neither prices nor contract terms for Bookings, so none of its figures appear here. The 36-month minimum and upfront setup fees reported by third parties relate to Zonal's EPOS packages rather than Bookings on its own. Rows marked 'Not published' mean we found no public evidence either way. Based on public information at the time of writing; check with Zonal for current terms.

Live floor plan during service showing seated tables, upcoming bookings and tonight's booking list
Table Plan

Your Diary Is
The Room Itself.

Colour-coded tables show who is sitting, who is due in twenty minutes and who has finished, drawn on a map of your actual room. Nothing behind it needs to be a particular brand of till.

Your real floor plan
Draw the room, drop in tables and areas, and let guests pick where they sit when they book.
Automatic table assignment
Best-fit table by party size and priority, with joins for the big tables, override any time.
Walk-ins and wait list
Seat walk-ins straight from the floor plan and keep a wait list running on busy nights.
Any day at a glance
Jump to next Saturday and see the room as it will look before you write the rota.
Guest choosing their table on a phone during the BookingNinja booking flow
Online Booking

Book on Your Site,
on Any Phone.

Guests book from your own domain in your own branding, choose their table where you allow it, and the details land straight in your diary. Nobody has to open a wider platform first to find out how tonight looks.

Built for the phone first
Most of your bookings arrive on a phone, so that is the version we got right first.
Pick your own table
Let guests choose the booth, the window or the terrace, straight from your live floor plan.
The guest list stays yours
Names, emails, marketing consent and past visits sit in your account for you to market to.
Your brand, your domain
The booking page looks like your venue rather than a supplier's product page.
Membership plans and gift card sales history side by side in the BookingNinja admin
Guest Journey

Deposits, Members,
Gift Cards, Parties.

The parts a group normally picks off a module list are already switched on. Take a deposit per guest type, run member plans with perks, sell gift cards off your own site and let a table order and pay from a phone, all hanging off the same booking.

Deposits per guest
Full payment, part payment or a card held against no-shows, set per session and per guest type.
Memberships and gift cards
Recurring member plans with perks, plus gift cards sold directly from your own website.
Parties and guest types
Separate prices for adults, children and add-ons, with pre-orders per guest on group bookings.
Order at table
Guests scan, order and pay from their phone and the order goes straight to your team.

When Zonal Is the Right Call

Zonal has been building hospitality tech since 1979 and runs bookings for some very large estates. There are situations where their answer beats ours, and pretending otherwise would only waste your time.

  • You already run Aztec EPOS, or you are buying it. The link between till and bookings is real: deposits redeem at the till as you seat the table, and the team can see meal stages from live EPOS data. BookingNinja never talks to your till, so none of that is on offer here.
  • You want one supplier and one contract across the whole estate. Till, bookings, loyalty through Airship, online ordering and reporting from a single vendor is a defensible decision for a group with an IT function and a procurement process. We do the booking side and stop there.
  • You are rolling out across dozens of sites. Greene King, Mitchells & Butlers and Pizza Express are Zonal customers, and that track record counts for a lot when your rollout has a steering group and a two-year plan.

Plenty of operators are nowhere near that position. If you run six pubs, have no IT department and want the booking side sorted before the weekend, an estate-wide stack is a lot of machinery for the job in hand. That is the gap we fill.

FAQ

Zonal (LiveRes) Alternative Questions, Answered

Is Zonal Bookings the same thing as LiveRes?
Yes. liveRES started in 2011 and was acquired by Zonal around 2015, then folded into the wider product line and renamed Zonal Bookings. The old liveres.co.uk address now redirects to Zonal's site. If your venue is on LiveRes, you are already on the product that Zonal sells today as part of its suite.
Do we have to run Zonal's till as well?
Not as a hard requirement, but the features Zonal leads with assume it. Redeeming a deposit at the till and watching meal stages update from live EPOS data both depend on Aztec. Take Zonal Bookings without Zonal EPOS and you are paying for a system built around an integration you are not using. BookingNinja is EPOS-agnostic by design, so nothing about your tills has to change.
What does Zonal Bookings cost?
Zonal does not say. The Bookings page lists Essentials, Standard and Plus tiers with no figures against them and a contact-sales form, so every price is a quote. The only public numbers anywhere are third-party estimates for Zonal's EPOS rental bundles, which include a 36-month minimum and a four-figure setup fee, and those are not the Bookings product. Our pricing is on our pricing page: a flat monthly fee plus standard card processing, no per-cover charge, no minimum term.
We run several sites. How long does a switch actually take?
About a day per venue, and we do the building. Floor plan, sessions, opening times, deposit rules, guest types: you send us how the venue works and we set it up rather than handing you a training deck. Existing guest data can come across with you. There is no hardware to schedule and no engineer visit to book.
Do we lose deposits and table management by moving off Zonal?
No. Deposits, no-show cover, automated reminders, wait lists, pre-orders and table management exist on both. With BookingNinja you get floor plans with live table status through service, automatic table assignment, table joins, walk-in seating and a wait list, and they are on every plan rather than sat in a higher tier.
Is there a free plan?
Yes. Free Forever costs nothing a month, has every feature switched on, and covers up to 50 bookings a month that take no payment. Past that, a booking has to carry a payment, and the guest pays a fee at the checkout of 2% or 50p, whichever is the larger. Paid plans are flat monthly with no minimum term.
Who owns BookingNinja?
We do. BookingNinja is an independent UK company, founder-led, and the people answering your support messages are the people building the product. Zonal was founded in Edinburgh and family-owned for four decades, but since February 2026 it has belonged to Volaris Group in Canada. Zonal says it will keep operating independently; whether that matters to you is worth deciding before you sign anything long.
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Ready to Turn Bookings
On This Week?

Flat monthly pricing, no minimum term, and your first bookings about a day after you say yes.

Start For Free

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