Hostie AI review: plans, integrations and alternatives

Hostie fits a full-service restaurant or hospitality group whose guests call, text and email about tables, events and takeout, and that books through OpenTable, Resy, Tock, SevenRooms or Yelp. It prints no price, so ask for a quote or start its free trial. For a printed price, compare Slang AI for reservations and Maple for phone orders.

Hostie calls itself a virtual concierge. Randall Hom and Brendan Wood started it while Hom was running Back to Back in San Francisco, and its advisors include a former OpenTable CEO and a former Yelp vice president of engineering. Most of its site is about covers, private events and guest messages. A takeout counter asks different questions, so the table shows where each vendor starts, from each company's own site.

Vendor	What its site sells	Price on its site	Start here if
Hostie (hostie.ai)	Calls, texts and email in one inbox, plus Instagram and Google Maps texting. Books tables, takes takeout orders and captures event leads.	Three plans named (Essential, Premium, Hospitality Plus); no price printed. Free trial offered.	You run a dining room and guests reach you on more than one channel.
Slang AI (slang.ai)	Phone answering, guest questions and reservations; texts guests ordering links.	Core from $399 per location; Premium from $599 per location.	You want reservations handled at a printed starting price.
Maple (maple.inc)	Voice: answering, FAQs, call transfer. Pro adds phone orders into the POS, OpenTable reservations and payment by phone.	Voice $150/month billed monthly or $85/month billed yearly. Pro $350/month billed monthly or $220/month billed yearly.	Takeout calls are the job and your POS is on Maple's list.
Loman AI (loman.ai)	Premium plan: takeout and delivery orders, phone reservations, POS integration and payment by phone.	Request pricing. The page says no per-minute fees.	You want ordering and reservations from one quoted vendor.
Certus AI (certus-ai.com)	Phone orders, OpenTable reservations and catering intake.	Homepage comparison lists $250/mo with ordering, monthly billing.	You want orders and OpenTable bookings at a flat monthly price.

What does Hostie do?

Hostie's homepage says it answers every call, text or question in your restaurant's voice. Its features page adds live transcripts, the option for staff to join a conversation, takeout orders by phone or text, and guest history the restaurant keeps. When a guest asks for a person, Hostie transfers the call to any number you choose. It says it can work with your phone system or replace it and port your number.

Hostie also publishes its own results. The features page says it answers an average of 85% of guest questions and forwards 15% to a host. Its case studies report The Slanted Door Group raising over-the-phone covers by 56% and The Stinking Rose Group managing 24,000 calls. These figures come from Hostie's own site.

How do Hostie's plans differ?

The pricing page names three plans and prints no dollar figure for any of them.

• Essential: for walk-in restaurants. One inbox for calls, texts and email, texted links so guests can view menus, book and order takeout, prompts for your main questions, live transcripts and an operator app.
• Premium: for full-service restaurants. Adds full reservation integrations that book and change tables, takeout ordering by phone or text, 20 languages and 24/7 support.
• Hospitality Plus: adds cross-booking at a sister location when one is full, conversation scoring, event management integrations, marketing texts and white-glove onboarding.

On Essential, Hostie texts the guest a link to book or order. Booking during the call and takeout ordering sit in Premium, so price Premium if those are the jobs. Groups go through sales; the enterprise page describes deployments of 80+ locations and a rollout of 30 to 120 days.

Which vendors name your booking and ordering systems?

Find the system you already use, then shortlist the vendors that name it. Each entry comes from that vendor's own integrations or pricing page. Then test the workflow you need with each one.

Your system	Vendors that name it
OpenTable	Hostie, Slang AI, Maple Pro, Loman AI and Certus AI
Resy	Hostie and Loman AI
Tock	Hostie only, of these five
SevenRooms or Yelp	Hostie and Slang AI
Tripleseat (private events)	Hostie; Slang AI sells it as an add-on
Toast	Maple, Loman AI and Certus AI; Hostie's FAQ also names Toast
Square	Hostie, Maple, Loman AI and Certus AI
Olo or Stream	Hostie, Loman AI, and Maple for Stream Orders

Which alternative fits which restaurant?

Pick Hostie if guests reach you by text, email, Instagram or Google Maps as well as the phone, if you book on Resy or Tock, or if you run several rooms and want a full one to offer the next.

Pick Slang AI if you want reservations handled at a printed starting price; our Slang AI review covers its plans. Loman and Certus both take phone orders and book OpenTable tables, Loman from a quote and Certus at a listed monthly price. See our Loman comparison and Certus review.

Pick Maple if takeout calls are the job. Maple Pro takes phone orders into systems on the integrations list, including Toast, Square, Clover and SkyTab (now Shift4 Dine), and books tables on OpenTable. Maple Voice covers answering, FAQs and transfer on its own. Maple's published scope covers phone calls, plus order confirmation texts on Pro. It lists no email or social messaging.

What should you ask Hostie before you sign?

1. Which plan books in your reservation system during the call, and its price per location in writing, with the billing term.
2. Whether changes and cancellations write back to your system, and what the host sees.
3. How takeout orders reach the kitchen: through Olo, Square or Stream, or by a texted link.
4. What the free trial includes and how you end it.
5. How Hostie counts the 85% it answers, and what the host receives on calls it forwards.
6. How you export guest history and transcripts if you leave.

How should you test Hostie against another vendor?

Run the same five calls on each: a table for six tomorrow with a high chair, a change to an existing booking, a private event inquiry, a takeout order with a modifier, and a caller who asks for the manager. Check what lands in your reservation system and POS, and what staff see. Our reservation setup guide has call scripts, the catering inquiry guide covers event leads, and the handoff checklist covers the manager call. To hear Maple on real calls, see the call recordings.

Published by Maple, which sells one of the products compared here. This AI-assisted guide combines each vendor's own website, pricing and integrations pages with an original system lookup table. It does not report a test of any product, a quote, or an independent check of Hostie's results.