Restaurant waitlist apps and pagers: prices, texts and setup

If you already run Toast, Resy, OpenTable or Yelp Guest Manager, start with the text waitlist built into it. If you only need a walk-in list, a standalone app such as Waitly prints plans from $0 to $99 a month. Buy pagers when guests wait close by, or when some would rather not give you a phone number.

This page covers walk-ins waiting for a table tonight. To choose a full booking system, see our reservation system comparison. To refill tables freed by no-shows from a list of guests who wanted a booking, see our no-show guide.

What do waitlist apps cost?

Each row comes from the vendor's own pages, at the price the vendor prints.

App	Printed price	Waitlist details	Start here if
Waitly	Free: $0/month for 100 guests a month. Premium: $49/month for up to 1,000 guest parties. Professional: $99/month for up to 3,000	Self check-in, check-in from your website and personal texts from Premium up	You want a waitlist without a booking system
Yelp Guest Manager	$129 to $349/month, no cover fees	Reservations and waitlist; guests can join the waitlist from Yelp and ChatGPT	Guests find you on Yelp
Resy	Platform $289/month; Platform 360 $459/month. The two Tock-powered plans cost the same, plus a fee on prepayments	"Walk-in waitlists" on all four plans; guests can join remotely in the Resy app	You take bookings and want walk-ins in the same book
OpenTable	Not printed in its help pages; the online waitlist comes with the Core and Pro plans	Online guests see how many parties are ahead of them, without a wait time	You already run OpenTable Core or Pro
SevenRooms	No price printed; all three plans are by quote	The Starter plan lists "Branded Reservations & Waitlist Management"; two-way texts	You run a group and want guest data across venues
Toast Tables	No price on the product page	The base tier is for walk-in restaurants and takes up to 25 reservations a month	You run Toast POS

Sources: Waitly pricing, Yelp Guest Manager, Resy plans and its mobile waitlist help, OpenTable's online waitlist and waitlist help, SevenRooms plans and table management, and Toast's Toast Tables setup guide.

What do guest pagers cost?

These are the vendors' own store prices for coaster-style pagers.

Pager kit	Printed price	In the box
Retekess TD164	$199.99 (marked down from $229.99)	Keypad transmitter and 10 coaster pagers; takes up to 998 pagers
JTECH GuestCall Coaster	$573.00 (marked down from $673.00)	Transmitter, 5 coaster pagers and a charger that holds 15
LRS Color Touch kit	From $914.00 per kit	Transmitter, charging bases and 15, 30, 45 or 60 pagers. Extra pagers are $42.00 each, with 12 hours of battery per charge

LRS also sells LRS Connect, a waitlist that can page a guest or text them from the same list.

How does a text-back waitlist work?

1. The host adds the party. Resy's waitlist help requires a phone number for every guest, plus party size and a quoted wait.
2. The guest gets a text. Resy's text repeats the quote. Toast's guest texts include a link to check the table's expected time or cancel.
3. Some guests join from their phones. Toast's online waitlist works from your website, a QR code or Google. OpenTable's allows parties of one to six unless you change it. Resy lets the host pause the remote list for 30, 60 or 90 minutes.
4. The table is ready. Resy's standard text says the table is held for 10 minutes and asks the guest to reply 1 to confirm or 9 to drop off the list. OpenTable lets staff re-send the table-ready text up to three times, with the same 1 and 9 replies.
5. The host seats the party or removes them, and the list moves up.

How do the apps quote wait times?

Toast offers two estimators. The manual multiplier uses your average turn time, the number of tables and an optional buffer, such as 10 minutes added to every quote. The smart algorithm learns as you seat parties in the app. Toast can also stop online joins once the wait passes a limit you set.

Yelp says its quotes are accurate up to 92% of the time, counting a quote as accurate when the party is notified within 5 minutes of the quoted range. That comes from Yelp's own data on restaurants with at least 553 parties a month, July 2023 to July 2024.

Whatever the app, pick one rule for quoting and one hold time, and put both in your waitlist policy. Toast shows that policy to guests who join online.

Pagers or texts: which fits your door?

Your situation	Start here
Guests wait in the bar, lobby or patio	Pagers, if they reach every corner you seat from
Guests leave to walk nearby streets or shops	Texts
You want guests to join before they arrive	Texts with an online waitlist
Some guests will not give a phone number	Keep a few pagers beside the text list
You want notes on regulars and allergies	An app with guest profiles

What would each cost over two years? A worked example

Take a made-up restaurant with 35 waiting parties on Friday, 35 on Saturday and 10 on each other night. That is 35 × 2 + 10 × 5 = 120 parties a week, or 120 × 52 ÷ 12 = 520 a month. Waitly's Free plan (100 guests) is too small and Premium (1,000) fits. At the busiest moment, 14 parties wait at once.

Option	24-month cost at printed price	Fits 14 waiting parties?
Waitly Premium	$49 × 24 = $1,176	Yes, by text
Yelp Guest Manager, low end	$129 × 24 = $3,096	Yes, and takes bookings
Resy Platform	$289 × 24 = $6,936	Yes, and takes bookings
Retekess TD164	$199.99 once	No: 10 pagers, so buy more
JTECH GuestCall Coaster	$573.00 once	No: 5 pagers, so buy more
LRS Color Touch kit	From $914.00 once	Yes, from the 15-pager size; add spares for charging and losses

The pager prices leave out extra pagers, lost ones, tax and shipping. The app prices leave out payment fees and any add-ons. Plug in your own counts from four weekends.

How do you set up and test it?

1. Write the waitlist policy: hold time, late arrivals, largest party.
2. Choose how you quote and set any online cutoff.
3. Edit the text templates so the hold time matches what hosts do.
4. Join from a staff phone in person and online. Check the confirmation, a changed quote, the table-ready text, a 1 reply and a 9 reply.
5. For pagers, walk every place guests wait and page from the stand. Number them, charge overnight and count them at close.
6. Keep waitlist texts to the visit. Toast's guest guide bars using two-way texts for marketing.
7. Write down what hosts do if the tablet or internet fails.

What about guests who call to ask about the wait?

A guest who calls to ask about the wait needs someone to answer. Yelp Host, Yelp's AI phone answering, lists automated waitlisting with Guest Manager; its Basic plan is $249 a month. Maple Voice answers hours and FAQ questions and transfers calls to staff, for $150 a month billed monthly or $85 a month billed yearly. Maple Pro books OpenTable reservations. The Maple OpenTable page asks you to confirm which waitlist steps your setup supports, so test that in a demo. Our phone script guide has wording for full nights.

Published by Maple, which sells AI phone answering. This AI-assisted guide combines waitlist vendors' pricing, product and help pages and pager makers' store pages with an original decision table, worked example and test list. The example restaurant is made up. It does not report a test of any app or pager, and prices can change.