Pricing
$1,000 once. That is the price.
One license per location, for as long as you run it. No monthly fee, no per-cover fee, no cut of your deposits or no-show charges. Try it free for 30 days first, no card.
Everything is included
Booking page and website button
Your page, your colors, links for Google and Instagram, and a button for your own site.
Smart seating
Best-fit tables, combinations, turn times by party size, pacing, and re-seating to fit one more party.
Host stand
The book and a floor timeline on every tablet, live, with walk-ins in two taps.
Waitlist
Quotes from the live floor and "table ready" texts.
Guest book
Tags, allergies, notes, visits, no-shows and spend.
No-show protection
Reminders, self-service changes, and card holds on your own Stripe account.
POS connections
Toast, Square and Clover, read-only.
Every future update
New features arrive for every member. No tiers, no upgrade fees.
Every cost, in plain numbers
| What | Cost | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| License | $1,000 once, per location | Covers the software, hosting and updates for as long as you run the location. |
| Covers | $0 | Whether the guest came from Google, Instagram, your website or the phone. |
| Email confirmations and reminders | $0 | Included. |
| Text messages | At cost, about 1.3ยข each | Carriers charge per message, so we pass that through without markup. About $13 a month at 1,000 texts. Email-only costs nothing. |
| Texting registration | At cost, about $20 to $140 a year | US carriers require every business that texts to register. Only if you turn texting on. |
| Card processing on no-show fees | Stripe's rate, paid to Stripe | Charges run on your own Stripe account. We take nothing. |
| Hands-on onboarding or a support plan | Optional, priced separately | The software never requires them. Most restaurants set up from the in-app checklist. |
Why texting is separate: it is the one cost that grows with every message sent, and a carrier fee nobody controls. Charging it at cost is the only honest way to keep everything else one payment.
What you would pay elsewhere
Published plan prices, checked October 2026, at 400 billed covers a month where a platform charges per cover. Check each vendor for current pricing.
| Platform | Year one | Five years | Freeheld pays for itself in |
|---|---|---|---|
| OpenTable Core | $8,388 | $41,940 | 44 days |
| Resy Platform | $3,468 | $17,340 | 106 days |
| Tock | $3,468 plus 2 to 3% of prepayments | $17,340 plus prepayment fees | 106 days or sooner |
| Yelp Guest Manager Basic | $1,908 | $9,540 | 192 days |
| Freeheld | $1,000 | $1,000 |
Texting not included on either side. At 1,000 texts a month, add about $150 a year to Freeheld. Your own numbers: the payback calculator.
What "lifetime" means, exactly
- Per location, for as long as you operate it. Two locations, two licenses. Each runs on its own.
- It transfers if you sell. The new owner keeps the book, the guests and the license. (Texting registration is tied to the business's tax ID, so a new owner re-registers.)
- Every update, forever. There is no premium tier to upgrade to.
- Your data leaves whenever you want. Guests, reservations and history export as CSV or JSON in one click, any day, even after a trial ends.
- The code is open source (AGPL-3.0). If Freeheld ever stopped operating, the software would still exist for you or anyone you hire to run it.
How one payment can last
Because the software is built to cost almost nothing to run. One modest server handles thousands of restaurants. There is no sales team, no marketplace to advertise, and no investor waiting for a toll on every cover. A fixed share of every license goes into a reserve that pays for hosting and upkeep over time, like a small endowment. The costs that do grow with use, texting and hands-on help, are the ones we price separately and say so up front.
The trial
30 days, every feature, no card. If you do not buy, online booking pauses at the end of the trial. Your staff keep access to the book and you can export everything. Nothing is deleted.
What Freeheld does not do (yet)
No diner marketplace app, no prepaid tickets or tasting-menu deposits, no gift cards, no email marketing campaigns, and no multi-location dashboard. If any of those is central to how you run, look closely before you switch: the comparisons say where each alternative is stronger.