There are two ways reservation platforms charge restaurants: a commission for every seated guest, or a flat monthly fee. The difference looks small on a demo call. Over a year, it decides who keeps your margin — you, or your booking platform.
How commission pricing actually works. Platforms like RESTU or TheFork typically charge per seated cover brought through their marketplace. The rate varies, but the structure is always the same: your cost grows with your success. A fully booked Friday costs you more than a dead Tuesday — even though your rent, staff, and software did not change.
The math for a typical restaurant. Take a modest restaurant seating 40 guests a day through online reservations, 25 days a month — 1,000 covers. At even 25 CZK per cover, that is 25,000 CZK a month, and it scales up exactly when you can least argue with it: your best months. A flat-fee system costs the same whether you seat 300 or 3,000 guests.
The hidden second cost: the guest relationship. Marketplace platforms sit between you and your guest. The reservation data, the e-mail address, the visit history — they live in the platform's CRM, not yours. When guests book through your own website and Google profile instead, every reservation builds *your* guest database: visit history, preferences, no-show patterns, VIP flags.
When commission models do make sense. Honesty matters here: if your restaurant is new, empty, and unknown, a marketplace can genuinely bring you discovery traffic you would not get otherwise. The commission is a marketing cost. The trap is staying on commission pricing *after* your tables fill up mostly with returning guests and direct bookings — at that point you are paying marketing prices for guests who were coming anyway.
What flat-fee looks like in practice. [Stolio](/) charges a flat fee from 499 CZK per month — Standard at 499, Plus at 799 with the digital QR menu and interactive timeline, Pro + API at 1,550 with Syrve POS sync. Unlimited reservations on every plan, zero per-cover fees, and every booking lands in your own guest CRM. A free restaurant booking website and Google Reserve integration are included, so guests book you directly from Google Search and Maps.
The switch checklist. Moving off a commission platform takes an afternoon: export your reservations, set up your tables and floor plan, connect your Google Business profile, and put the booking link on your website and Instagram. Stolio's [setup guide](/setup-guide) walks through it — most restaurants are live in under an hour.
Bottom line: count your monthly online covers, multiply by the per-cover fee, and compare it with a flat 499–1,550 CZK. For most established Czech restaurants the answer is not close. Try it on your own numbers with a [free 14-day trial](/register) — no card required.