Waitly alternative
Waitly Alternatives for Restaurants (2026)
Waitly's plan comparison starts multiple users and self check-in on its $49 Premium plan, and we couldn't find a floor plan in its public material. TablesReady Free gives the whole team a login and QR self check-in, so you can start tonight, and our Business plan adds a floor plan, online bookings and automatic guest replies. Waitly sizes plans by guest parties and we size them by texts, and the table below lines the two up. Stay with Waitly for a native Mac app, or two locations on one plan.
By Mike Errecart · Updated · Waitly prices and features as of October 2026
We make TablesReady. This page also says when Waitly is the better choice.
Which fits your business: TablesReady or Waitly?
Pick TablesReady
You want to start free and give the whole team a login
For example: a café or small restaurant moving off a paper list
TablesReady Free includes self check-in from a link or QR code, automated voice calls, and 150 texts a month on US and Canadian numbers (a tenth elsewhere), with up to 100 parties at each of up to two locations, and every plan lets any number of staff log in. Waitly Free also covers 100 guest parties a month with texting, but its plan comparison leaves self check-in and multiple users unticked until Premium.
Either works
You're choosing on price
For example: a restaurant comparing monthly bills at its usual party count
It depends on how many parties you seat. These comparisons use monthly billing, because Waitly's website shows only monthly prices and its yearly plans are Apple in-app purchases. They also assume about two texts a party. Up to 500 parties a month our Starter costs less, and from 501 to 1,000 Waitly Premium does. From 1,001 to 1,250 our Starter does again, and from 2,501 to 3,000 Waitly's Professional does; the table below shows each tier. Waitly counts guest parties and stops texts past its limit until the next month. TablesReady counts texts. Texting pauses at your monthly limit. You get alerts at 80, 90 and 100%, and can add messages in one click.
Pick TablesReady
You seat tables and take bookings
For example: a dining room, a bar and a patio, with bookings on weekends
On Business (from $79/mo, or $69/mo billed annually), you draw your floor plan, watch each table's status change as parties are seated, and get a table suggested to fit each party. Waitly takes online bookings on Professional and has a reservations timeline. A December 2025 post on its blog says Professional shows real-time table availability, but we found no floor plan or table-status view in its public material.
Pick Waitly
You run two locations and want one plan for both
For example: two small restaurants under one owner
Waitly Professional covers 2 locations and 3,000 guest parties a month for one plan price, with an onboarding Zoom call and training on request. Both apps take Reserve with Google bookings, Waitly on Professional and TablesReady on Business. Each TablesReady location needs its own subscription, though, and our onboarding and staff training come with Enterprise.
Pick Waitly
Your host stand runs on a Mac
For example: a Mac at the door and iPads for the floor staff
Waitly has native apps for iPhone, iPad, Apple silicon Macs and Apple Vision, plus a browser app that runs in any modern browser on a computer. TablesReady has a native app for iPhone and iPad and runs in any browser, so on a Mac it opens in Safari or Chrome. If a native Mac app matters to your team, Waitly fits better.
Waitly pricing and setup vs. TablesReady
Waitly prices are from its pricing page.
What each plan covers
Compared with TablesReady Starter
| Guest parties a month* | TablesReady Starter, monthly (billed annually) | Waitly, cheapest plan at this level or above |
|---|---|---|
| 500 | $39 ($34)1,000 messages | Premium: $49 |
| 1,000 | $69 ($59)2,500 messages | Premium: $49 |
| 1,250 | $69 ($59)2,500 messages | Professional: $99 |
| 2,500 | $99 ($84)5,000 messages | Professional: $99 |
| 3,000 | $159 ($129)10,000 messages | Professional: $99 |
| 5,000 | $159 ($129)10,000 messages | Enterprise: from $249 |
Waitly: Professional covers 2 locations. Its website lists no annual price (yearly plans are Apple in-app purchases), and texts stop past the limit until the next month. Its pricing page lists Enterprise from $249 a month on the plan card and from $299 in its comparison table.
*Assumes 2 text messages per party, the median across TablesReady restaurants. TablesReady counts 160-character segments; Waitly counts guest parties rather than texts. Each row shows the cheapest published option that covers that many parties, extra-use charges included.
Texting pauses at your monthly limit. You get alerts at 80, 90 and 100%, and can add messages in one click.
Waitly counts guest parties. Its website shows only monthly prices, and its yearly plans are Apple in-app purchases that these figures don't include, so every gap here is a monthly-billing figure at about two texts a party. Up to 500 parties a month, our Starter costs $10 less than Waitly Premium. From 501 to 1,000, Premium costs $20 less. From 1,001 to 1,250, our Starter costs $30 less. From 1,251 to 2,500, our Starter and Waitly's Professional, which covers two locations, both cost $99. From 2,501 to 3,000, Professional costs $60 less than our Starter. At 5,000 parties its Enterprise plan is from $249 on the plan card. Its comparison table says from $299, so we don't quote a single figure.
Waitly
Free $0
100 guest parties a month at 1 location, with texting, Guest Preferences and Square customer sync. The plan comparison leaves two-way messaging, self check-in, multiple users and reservations unticked, though an April 2025 app note says Free includes reservations.
Premium $49/mo, or $479.99 a year through Apple in-app purchase
1,000 guest parties a month at 1 location. Adds two-way messaging, reservations, self check-in, check-in from your website, personalized texts, multiple users with permissions and configuration help.
Professional $99/mo, or $989 a year through Apple in-app purchase
3,000 guest parties a month and 2 locations. Adds Reserve with Google bookings, website reservations and widgets, geofenced self check-in, your logo and colors, a dashboard of your locations, an onboarding Zoom call and training on request.
Enterprise From $249 on the plan cards, or from $299 in the comparison table
Unlimited guest parties and locations. Adds data exports, API access, an uptime SLA, a live dashboard of all locations, regions, multiple brands, an account manager, invoice and PO terms, and emoji and international characters in texts.
The website shows monthly prices only; yearly Premium and Professional plans are sold as Apple in-app purchases. The home page headline, just $99 a month, is the Professional price, and Premium is the lowest paid plan. The plan cards and the comparison table on the same page give Enterprise different starting prices.
Getting started: Self-serve. Create a free account with a name, email and password, then pay by card on the website (added in March 2026) or through Apple in-app purchase. A 30-minute Zoom demo is optional, and Enterprise starts by email. The pricing page shows no free trial; a 2024 Waitly blog post mentioned a 30-day trial on paid plans.
TablesReady
Free $0
The waitlist, guest self check-in by QR code or link, a website embed and basic reservations; the list stays in sync live on every device. Ready texts and automated voice calls, plus automatic confirmation and next-in-line texts. 150 messages a month (US and Canada; a tenth elsewhere) and up to 100 parties a month for each location, with up to two Free locations per account.
Unlimited users on every plan, each with their own login and an Admin, Manager or User role, or one shared login if your team prefers.
Starter from $39/mo, or from $34/mo billed annually
Everything in Free, plus two-way texting (US and Canadian numbers), AI-predicted wait times that learn overnight from your location's own history (turn them off if you'd rather quote waits yourself), and detailed analytics. From 1,000 messages and 2,000 parties a month, with higher tiers raising both; outside the US and Canada, messages are a tenth.
Business from $79/mo, or from $69/mo billed annually
Everything in Starter, plus online bookings, table management on a floor plan, Reserve with Google (bookings and waitlist joins), Square order sync, and Stripe deposits (2% fee plus Stripe's).
Custom properties to track VIPs, email addresses, allergies or anything else about a guest; saved replies for quick canned answers in chat; SMS automations (guests join by text, or reply with a keyword to cancel, confirm, check in or say they're running late); geofencing that limits check-in and booking to guests nearby; the to-go list, data exports, and an API and webhooks.
Enterprise Contact us
For groups: a dedicated account manager, custom terms, invoice billing, onboarding with set-up help and data migration, and phone support.
Texts are included in every plan, with no overage fees.
Getting started: Sign up yourself and start on the free plan, or try paid features free for 14 days with no credit card.
Why restaurants look for a Waitly alternative
Waitly's App Store listing shows 4.7 stars from 27 ratings, and its nine written reviews (2019 to 2025) are mostly happy (App Store reviews). Four of the nine like the live list that staff and guests both see, three mention easy setup or quick staff training, and two say it holds up in busy service. Waitly has no Capterra listing, and its G2 listing had no reviews, so those nine App Store reviews are the only written reviews we found. Two things in that record and in Waitly's pricing history could send a restaurant looking.
Prices went up in 2026. By April 2026, Premium had risen from $39.99 to $49 a month. Professional, now $99, covers 2 locations and 3,000 guest parties; from late 2021 until at least August 2025 it covered 3 locations (Waitly pricing page, compared with its August 2025 Wayback capture). Waitly has changed what each plan includes in most years since 2021.
Two one-off complaints. One of the nine reviews, from October 2025, says the business waited weeks on a verification step before it could send custom texts, and support didn't reply. Another, from September 2024, says the count of guests helped disappeared from the app after an update (App Store reviews).
Waitly's help center needs a login. Where this page says we couldn't find something, we mean it isn't in Waitly's public pages, App Store listing or videos.
Waitly's April 2024 roundup of free waitlist apps lists TablesReady's free plan as free until the texts run out, with estimated wait times. Since at least November 2025, our Free plan has also capped parties at 100 a month, alongside its 150 messages (US and Canada; 15 elsewhere). Predicted wait times, which come from a nightly model trained on each location's own history, are on Starter; on Free you set a default quoted wait. The roundup's other entries for us (an organized waitlist, 150 free texts, self check-in and a 14-day trial) still hold.
Where Waitly does more than TablesReady
Waitly, made by Arisota Software in Scottsdale, Arizona, has sold since at least 2019. It goes further than we do in four places:
- Native apps on more Apple devices: iPhone, iPad, Apple silicon Macs and Apple Vision, plus a browser app that runs in any modern browser on a computer. Our native app covers iPhone and iPad, and a Mac runs TablesReady in the browser.
- Self check-in that checks the phone number. On Premium, guests type a code texted to them before they join, and a returning guest's details are remembered on their phone. Our check-in page uses bot protection instead.
- More in the Professional plan. Professional bundles a second location with Reserve with Google bookings, an onboarding Zoom call and training on request. TablesReady takes Google bookings too, on Business, but each location has its own subscription, and onboarding and staff training come with Enterprise.
- Analytics that track walkouts, no-shows and employee performance, and on Enterprise a live dashboard across locations, regions and brands. TablesReady analytics (Starter) are per location and count cancellations and unmarked parties; counts per staff member need staff set up as resources, a Business feature.
Where TablesReady does more for restaurants
Each Waitly comparison in this list reflects its public material.
- The whole team on Free. Every plan, Free included, has unlimited logins and QR self check-in. Waitly starts multiple users and self check-in on Premium.
- A floor plan you seat from (Business). Draw the room, see each table's status, seat or check in parties from the map, and give a big party several tables at once. Waitly added a reservations timeline in 2024; we found no floor plan or table view.
- Online bookings that follow your rules (Business). Services can keep their own schedules and lengths, bigger parties can hold a table longer, you can block out times, and Stripe deposits refund automatically when a guest cancels before your cutoff. Waitly documents booking capacity and booking hours.
- Guest replies that update the list (Business). A guest who texts one of your keywords is taken off the list, confirmed, checked in or given a later quoted time, with an automatic reply. Guests can also join by texting ADD, your venue's name and their own name to our number. In Waitly's App Store screenshot, a guest texts that they're running late and staff type the answer in chat.
- More texts that send themselves, and a voice call (Free). Guests get a text when they near the front of the line and a confirmation if their spot is cancelled, or the ready message can go out as an automated phone call. We found none of these in Waitly's public material. Emoji and accented characters work on every plan, though each one shortens a text segment to 70 characters. Waitly's plan comparison ticks them only on Enterprise.
The details: TablesReady vs. Waitly
Key differences
| Feature | TablesReady | Waitly |
|---|---|---|
| Floor plan and table status | Yes, on Business: a drag-and-drop floor plan with live table status and table suggestions. No POS table-status sync. | Not listed on the Waitly website. It has a reservations timeline, and a December 2025 Waitly blog post says Professional shows real-time table availability. (source) |
| Deposits | Stripe deposits on online bookings (Business), refunded automatically when a guest cancels before your cutoff; a 2% TablesReady fee plus Stripe's fees applies | Not listed on the Waitly website |
| How plan limits are counted | By messages a month, with a party cap too: 150 messages and up to 100 parties per location on Free (an account can keep two Free locations), and 1,000 messages and 2,000 parties on the entry Starter and Business tiers. Message counts are for US and Canadian numbers; elsewhere they're a tenth. Texting pauses at your monthly limit. You get alerts at 80, 90 and 100%, and can add messages in one click. There are no overage fees, and the pause applies to texting, not to the party cap. | Counted in guest parties a month: 100 on Free, 1,000 on Premium, 3,000 on Professional, unlimited on Enterprise. No separate text charge is listed. Past the limit the waitlist keeps working, but texts stop until the next month. (source) |
| Apps | iPhone and iPad app, plus any browser: runs in Chrome on Android tablets and phones. No native Android app. | Native apps for iPhone, iPad, Apple silicon Macs and Apple Vision, plus a browser app that runs in any modern browser on a computer. No Android app found. (source) |
Waitlist and texting
| Feature | TablesReady | Waitly |
|---|---|---|
| Predicted wait times | AI-predicted from Starter, learned overnight from each location's own history (by party size, weekday and hour); you can turn it off and quote waits yourself. Free uses a default quote you set. | Guests see estimated waits on their phones, and rows show minutes waited against the quote (on Free, per Waitly's April 2024 roundup of free waitlist apps). Estimates predicted from the venue's history aren't listed (its help center needs a login). (source) |
| Two-way texting | Yes, from Starter (US and Canada numbers) | Yes, from Premium: guests reply and staff answer in the app's chat (source) |
| Saved replies | Business: canned replies picked from a list in the chat window, with merge fields such as the guest's name | Not listed on the Waitly website. Its help center needs a login. |
| Waitlist joins from Google | Yes, on Business (Reserve with Google) | Not listed on the Waitly website |
| Geofencing | Business: limit check-in, the live waitlist page and booking to guests within a distance you set, with your own message for everyone else | Yes, on Professional: geofenced self check-in limits where guests can check in from, added in December 2024 (source) |
Bookings and tables
| Feature | TablesReady | Waitly |
|---|---|---|
| Online bookings | Basic reservations on Free; an online booking page on Business | Yes: website booking widgets on Professional (a 2024 Waitly video says Premium too). Staff add reservations from Premium; an April 2025 app note says Free as well. (source) |
| Bookings from Google | Yes, on Business (Reserve with Google) | Yes, on Professional: bookings from Google Search and Maps land in Waitly, which says they carry no per-reservation fee (source) |
Guest details
| Feature | TablesReady | Waitly |
|---|---|---|
| Custom guest fields and tags | Business: your own fields and tags on staff and guest forms (a VIP flag, email, allergies or anything else), shown as columns on the waitlist and reservations lists and, if you choose, kept on the guest's profile | Guest Preferences on Free, such as inside or outside, picked from a dropdown and shown as a tag on the party's row. Several fields of your own shown as columns aren't listed (its help center needs a login). (source) |
Plans and pricing
| Feature | TablesReady | Waitly |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | Yes: waitlist, self check-in and basic reservations, 150 messages a month for US and Canadian numbers (a tenth elsewhere) and up to 100 parties per location, up to two Free locations per account, unlimited users | Yes: 100 guest parties a month at 1 location, with texting and Square customer sync. Self check-in, two-way messaging and multiple users start on Premium. Reservations are unticked on Free, though an April 2025 app note says Free has them. (source) |
| Lowest paid plan | Free plan; paid plans from $39/mo, or from $34/mo billed annually | Premium, $49/mo for 1,000 guest parties at 1 location; yearly only through Apple in-app purchase ($479.99 a year) (source) |
| Per-cover fees | None | None listed. Plans are priced by guest parties a month and the number of locations. (source) |
Platform and support
| Feature | TablesReady | Waitly |
|---|---|---|
| POS integrations | Square on Business (syncs orders for order-ready texts). No Toast or Clover integration. | Square, on every plan: each guest added to the waitlist becomes a Square customer (US and Canada). Order sync not listed. (source) |
| Multiple locations | Yes; each location needs its own subscription | Yes: 1 location on Free and Premium, 2 on Professional, unlimited on Enterprise, included in the plan price (source) |
| Staff logins and access levels | Unlimited users on every plan, each with their own login (email or Google) and an Admin, Manager or User role per location; a shared login works too if you prefer. No SAML SSO. | Multiple user logins, with different permissions, start on Premium; Free has no Multiple Users tick. No user limit is stated either way, and the role names aren't documented. (source) |
| HIPAA BAA | Not available | Not listed on the Waitly website |
| Support | Email, Mon–Fri 9am–6pm ET; phone support on Enterprise | In-app support on every plan and support@waitly.com; no phone or chat line is published. Premium adds configuration help, and Professional an onboarding Zoom call and training on request. (source) |
Ratings
| Feature | TablesReady | Waitly |
|---|---|---|
| Ratings (US) |
|
Waitly details come from its own website, help center and app store listings. Where we couldn't find a feature, the table says so rather than calling it missing. Capterra ratings checked October 2026; G2 ratings checked October 2026. See something out of date? Email support@tablesready.com.
Switching from Waitly
Most restaurants switch in an afternoon: import upcoming bookings by CSV, paste in your text wording, and run both side by side during the trial.
What carries over
- Upcoming reservations, if you have them in a spreadsheet. Our reservation CSV import reads the date, time, guest name, party size, phone number and any notes, and it works on every plan, Free included. Waitly lists data exports on its Enterprise plan only and doesn't say what format they take.
- Guests already in Square. Waitly adds each waitlisted guest to your Square customer directory, and those records stay in Square. On Business, TablesReady keeps adding new parties to the same directory.
What you set up again
- Guest history. We can't import a customer list, so each guest's profile and visit count starts again from their phone number the next time they join.
- Your texts and Guest Preferences. Retype your Waitly messages into our templates, which take ten merge fields, and recreate choices such as inside or outside as preset note options (Free).
- Your QR code, website widget and Google bookings. Print our check-in QR code and swap the Waitly widget for our embed or a Join Waitlist button (Free). On Business, turn on online bookings and Reserve with Google bookings.
Help with the move
Our email support answers setup questions on Starter and Business. We don't move your data on those plans; set-up help and data migration are part of Enterprise. Waitly's Terms say its fees aren't refundable, though you can cancel at any time. Begin our 14-day trial a couple of weeks before your Waitly plan renews and run both apps through a few busy services; the trial needs no card and covers up to 150 texts.
Other Waitly alternatives worth a look
These are the other tools we'd shortlist, and who each one suits.
Waitlist Me
Small restaurants, salons, clinics and shops that want a low-cost waitlist, with a Clover app, and a text or call when it's each guest's turn.
- Capterra: Listed on Capterra (no reviews yet)
- G2: 5/5 (1 review) One review, from 2019.
NextMe
Event teams and walk-in businesses that send guests away while they wait and want branded wait pages, several queues and text or WhatsApp alerts.
Compare TablesReady with NextMeToast Tables
Restaurants on Toast POS that need table status synced with orders and payments, and want the host stand in the same Toast account.
- Capterra: closest listing: 4.2/5 (554 reviews) Toast POS listing; reviews cover the whole POS, not Toast Tables.
- G2: closest listing: 4.2/5 (371 reviews) Toast POS listing; reviews cover the whole POS, not Toast Tables.
Yelp Guest Manager
Busy full-service US restaurants that want diners from Yelp's network and its Apple Maps and ChatGPT listings, with the host stand on Yelp's iPads.
- Capterra: 4.5/5 (336 reviews) Filed under Yelp Reservations; many reviews are from diners rating Yelp, and the newest is from February 2023.
- G2: 4.2/5 (47 reviews)
Waitly alternative FAQ
What is the best Waitly alternative?
For a restaurant that wants to start free with the whole team logged in, then grow into a floor plan and online bookings, we'd pick TablesReady; Business, with both, is from $79/mo. For a Clover host stand on a small budget, look at Waitlist Me. For events where guests wait away from the door, NextMe fits, and if you're on Toast POS and need table status synced, Toast Tables. Waitly itself suits two locations that want Google bookings on one plan, or a team that wants a native Mac app. We make TablesReady and wrote this page, so read our pick as the vendor's view.
Is there a free alternative to Waitly?
TablesReady Free has the waitlist, self check-in from a link or QR code, and automated voice calls, with up to 100 parties and 150 texts a month to US and Canadian numbers (15 to numbers elsewhere). Any number of staff can log in on every plan, Free included, and one account can run 2 locations on Free. Waitly Free covers 100 guest parties a month at 1 location with texting, and its plan comparison starts self check-in and multiple users on Premium.
Can Waitly guests text back?
Guests can reply on Waitly Premium and above, and staff answer in the app's chat. We didn't find keyword replies or joining by text in Waitly's public material, and its help center needs a login, so we can't see all of it. On TablesReady, two-way chat comes with Starter (US and Canada numbers). Business, from $79/mo, adds keywords that cancel, confirm, check in or push back a quoted time on their own, and lets guests join by texting ADD, your venue's name and their own name to our number.
Does Waitly have a floor plan or table management?
Not that we could find. Waitly added a reservations timeline in 2024, and a December 2025 post on its blog says Professional shows real-time table availability, but its public pages, App Store screenshots and videos show no floor plan or table-status view. On TablesReady Business, from $79/mo, you draw the room yourself, see every table's status as parties sit down, and take Stripe deposits on online bookings.
Does TablesReady work on a Mac, iPhone or iPad?
Yes. TablesReady has a native app for iPhone and iPad, and on a Mac it runs in any modern browser with nothing to install. On an Android tablet or phone it runs in Chrome, and staff can add it to the home screen. Waitly has native apps for iPhone, iPad, Apple silicon Macs and Apple Vision, plus a browser app; we found no Android app for it.
How do I switch from Waitly to TablesReady?
Sign up free, set up your texts and check-in page, and run both apps side by side during the 14-day trial of our paid plans, which needs no card and includes up to 150 texts. Upcoming reservations can come in through our CSV import on any plan; Waitly lists data exports on Enterprise only. Guest profiles rebuild from phone numbers as guests come back, since we can't import a customer list. On Starter and Business, email support answers setup questions, and data migration is an Enterprise service.
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